Synopses & Reviews
Ulrich Baer's The Rilke Alphabet will surprise and delight established fans of Rilke, intrigue newcomers, and convince all readers of the power of poetry to penetrate the mysteries and confusion of our world.The enduring power of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry rests with his claim that all we need for a better life on earth is already given to us, in the here and now. In twenty-six engaging and accessible essays, Ulrich Baer's The Rilke Alphabet examines this promise by one of the greatest poets in any tradition that even the smallest overlooked word may unlock life's mysteries to us.
Fueled by an unebbing passion and indeed love for Rilke's poetry, Baer examines twenty-six words that are not only unexpected but also problematic, controversial, and even scandalous in Rilke's work. In twenty-six mesmerizing essays that eschew jargon and teutonic learnedness for the pleasures and risks of unflinchingly engaging with a great artist's genius, Baer sheds new light on Rilke's politics, his creative process, and his deepest and enduring thoughts about life, art, politics, sexuality, love, and death.
The Rilke Alphabet shows how Rilke's work provides an uncannily apt guide to life even in our vexingly postmodern condition. Whether it is a love letter to frogs, a problematic brief infatuation with Mussolini, a sustained reflection on the Buddha, the evasion of the influence of powerful precursors, or the unambiguous assertion that freedom must be lived in order to be known, Rilke's writings pull us deeply into life.
Baer's decades-long engagement with Rilke as a scholar, translator, and editor of Rilke's writings allows him to reveal unique aspects of Rilke's work. The Rilke Alphabet will surprise and delight Rilke fans, intrigue newcomers to his work, and deepen every reader's sense of the power of poetry to penetrate the mysteries and confusions of our world.
Review
"Reading Baer's elegant prose is a rare pleasure. Baer's brilliant book The Rilke Alphabet captures the genius of the modern poet and Rilke's intelligence as a witness of modernity--by employing a dazzling device. Baer presents us 26 viewpoints on Rilke's work, 26 perspectives that are vital for anyone who is interesting in the poet's work and in modernism as such. It reads as a real page turner."-Amir Eshel, Stanford University
Synopsis
The enduring power of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry rests with his claim that all we need for a better life on earth is already given to us, in the here and now. In twenty-six engaging and accessible essays, Ulrich Baer's The Rilke Alphabet examines this promise by one of the greatest poets in any tradition that even the smallest overlooked word may unlock life's mysteries to us. Fueled by an unebbing passion and indeed love for Rilke's poetry, Baer examines twenty-six words that are not only unexpected but also problematic, controversial, and even scandalous in Rilke's work. In twenty-six mesmerizing essays that eschew jargon and teutonic learnedness for the pleasures and risks of unflinchingly engaging with a great artist's genius, Baer sheds new light on Rilke's politics, his creative process, and his deepest and enduring thoughts about life, art, politics, sexuality, love, and death. The Rilke Alphabet shows how Rilke's work provides an uncannily apt guide to life even in our vexingly postmodern condition. Whether it is a love letter to frogs, a problematic brief infatuation with Mussolini, a sustained reflection on the Buddha, the evasion of the influence of powerful precursors, or the unambiguous assertion that freedom must be lived in order to be known, Rilke's writings pull us deeply into life. Baer's decades-long engagement with Rilke as a scholar, translator, and editor of Rilke's writings allows him to reveal unique aspects of Rilke's work. The Rilke Alphabet will surprise and delight Rilke fans, intrigue newcomers to his work, and deepen every reader's sense of the power of poetry to penetrate the mysteries and confusions of our world.
Synopsis
The significance of Rainer Maria Rilke's work rests with the poet's insistence that everything needed for a better life on earth is already given to us, in the here and now. In 26 incisive and engaging essays, Ulrich Baer's The Rilke Alphabet examines both the lesser-known and the overlooked and controversial aspects of Rilke's poetry and life. The book focuses on 26 unexpected but crucial words in Rilke's writings that reveal Rilke's poetic method, his obsessions and concerns, and his deepest thoughts on life, art, politics, sexuality, and death. The book shows that Rilke's work, read here in its entirety, provides a guide to modern life by deepening our experience and awareness of existence. Whether it is a love letter to frogs, a problematic brief flirtation with Mussolini, a deep reflection on Buddha in several poems, or an unambiguous assertion that freedom is not an abstraction but must be lived to be known, Rilke's writings pull us deeply into life. Baer's decades-long engagement with Rilke, as a scholar, and a translator and editor of Rilke's letters, serves to reveal unique aspects of Rilke's work in its entirety. The Rilke Alphabet will surprise and delight Rilke fans, intrigue newcomers to his work, and deepen every reader's sense of the power of poetry to penetrate the mysteries and confusion of our world.
About the Author
Ulrich Baer is Vice Provost for Arts, Humanities and Diversity and Professor of German and Comparative Literature at New York University. He is editor and translator of
Rainer Maria Rilke: Letters of Life, editor of
110 Stories: New York Writes after September 11, and author of several books on poetry and photography. His most recent book is
Beggar's Chicken: Stories from Shanghai.
Andrew Hamilton is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University.
Table of Contents
Foreword: The Whole Dictation of Existence
A for Ashanti
B for Buddha
C for Circle
D for Destiny Disrupted
E is for Entrails
F for Frogs
G for God
I for Inca
J for Jew Boy
K for Kafka
L for Larean
M for Mussolini
N for Nature
P for Proletarian
Q for Quatsch
R for Rose
S for Stampa
T for tower
U for Un-
V for Vagabond
W for Worm
X for Xaver
Y for Y
Z for Zero
Works Cited 000
Index 000