John J. L. Mood

Rainer Maria Rilke

This book was compiled by a Rilke lover for Rilke lovers. John Mood has chosen selections from Rilke and combined them with his own writings and commentary. Included are Rilke's letters on love; poems on love and other difficulties, translated by Mood; shorter selections from Rilke's work; and an essay by Mood. The letters on love present Rilke's exploration of the deepest levels of what love is. His working toward love at these depths was poetic, profound, and thoroughly radical. His language is sensual; his deep spirituality is rooted in the senses. The letters are of crucial importance for those who have passed from puritanism to promiscuity without ever having experienced genuine love. The love poems were written during the period of Rilke's most mature work. They are sensual and explicitly sexual-but they are also tough-minded. The poems reflect great passion and gentle care; his unique joining of the masculine and the feminine is profoundly portrayed. There is also a selection from Rilke's later poems, which many feel are his most significant works. All but a few have appeared in translation only once before. The poems deal with the fundamental difficulty of living-dying, though with greater subtlety, density, and depth than before. The book concludes with a passage from Rilke on the difficulty of writing poetry and of living life; a letter containing an affirmation of life; and Mood's essay on dying, based on Rilke's self-composed epitaph.--Adapted from book jacket.

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations

Beatriz Salvador 

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other. For if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation... 

They must not forget, when they love, that they are beginners, bunglers of life, apprentices in love - must learn love, and that (like all learning) wants peace, patience, and composure!

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations quotes

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