Rainer Maria Rilke writing about love to his Wife
September 21, 2009 by Carol
Filed under Famous Love Letters
Rainer Maria Rilke may not be well known to many of our visitors as he wrote in the German language and although many of his books of prose and poetry have been published in the English language he has only slowly grown in popularity.
Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Czechoslovakia (Prague) on 4th Dec 1875. His uncle rescued him from a very unhappy childhood by helping him to move into a German prep school rather than the military officer training school his parents had forced him to attend.
That move of school enabled Rainer to rethink his life and instead of the military he was able to pursue a literary career and went to the Charles University back in his home town of Prague. By the end of his second year of studies he had published his first three volumes of poetry leading to him leaving the university and moving to Germany to live.
The following year Rainer took a trip to Russia where he spent time with Tolstoy who had a major effect on Rilke’s writing direction making his work much more serious in content and style.
Back in Worpswede — a village set in beautiful countryside in Lower Saxony, Germany, near the city of Bremen and home to a large number of young radical and successful artistes and writers — he met and married his wife Clara Westhoff to whom this letter was written. Clara had studied with Rodin who had sculptured the famous Thinker Statue (now in the Musée Rodin, in Paris).
It is believed that Rainer Maria Rilke wrote this letter on love on May 14, 1904 whilst in Rome
To love is good, too: love being difficult.
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it.
With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is solitude, intensified and deepened loneliness for him who loves.
Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate–?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself for another’s sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.
Rainer later met and became a close friend of Rodin even working as his secretary in Paris France. Here he created what many people say was his best poetic work. Even if it was not his best work it was certainly his prolific time of writing great poetry. Although he did travel frequently to other countries mainly Italy and Spain although he venture to Egypt and other places further afield it was his regular contact with visual artists, sculpurists and painters in Paris that led him to develop a new style of what would be best described as lyrical poetry.
In 1914 at the start of World War 1 because of his German connections and education Rilke had to move from France back to Munich. However after it all ended he moved again this time to Switzerland where he later died on December 1926 after suffering for some years from Leukaemia.
Strangely enough by the time of his death he had become famous and admired by most of the literary world who held him in high esteem as a style leader for others to try and initiate but was virtually unknown to most of the general public even those who thought they were wide and earnest readers. That situation has not changed much even today although he has been quoted widely in other literary reference books etc.
I was interested in the opening comment of this love letter
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it.
In your experience how old do young people need to be before they can know love and I take it he means Romantic Love rather than love of a barbie doll or pet rabbit? Is it during first childhood crush or does it take a number of relationships and experience of life that brings love to the font of our knowledge?
If you have any thoughts on this please do leave a comment for me to share with others.
I'm eager to hear your comments...
