The Inner Sky

Poems, Notes, Dreams

Rainer Maria Rilke, Damion Searls

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781567926361
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Poesia europea

A new trilingual selection (English, German, and French) of poems and prose by the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke—including more than a dozen works that have never before appeared in English.

Chronology

1875 René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke is born on December 4, in Prague, to unhappily married parents. He is an only child, though a year before a girl had been born and died after only a few weeks; this lost sister shapes his childhood, as his mother dresses him in girls’ clothes for much longer than was usual at the time and encourages him to play the role of a daughter in games with her.

Parents separate (1884). Military school, which Rilke hates (1886–91, leaves due to illness). Publishes first two books of poetry (1894, 1895). University in Prague (1895) and Munich (1896).

1897 Meets and becomes the lover of Lou Andreas-Salomé – fifteen years older than Rilke, already the author of two novels and studies of Ibsen and Nietzsche, a former lover of Nietzsche’s, future disciple of Freud’s, and the person who more than anyone else would shape Rilke’s identity as an artist. She convinces him to change his name to the more masculine “Rainer” and to travel to Italy, teaches him Russian and brings him to Russia for two influential trips (1899, 1900), introduces him to Tolstoy, and even after they stop being lovers in 1900 is a crucial correspondent and mentor for the rest of his life.

1899 Writes in a single autumn night the draft of what would later be published as The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke, about an ancestor who died in the Austro-Turkish War of 1660. Published in 1906, republished in 1912, it is by far Rilke’s most popular work during his life, especially during World War I – 200,000 copies were sold by 1920 and over a million by 1960, astronomical figures for the time.

1900 Second trip to Russia with Salomé ends with the collapse of their relationship in August. Travels to the artist colony of Worpswede, in northwest Germany, where he meets and becomes close with both Clara Westhoff, a sculptor, and Paula Becker, a painter. Leaves unexpectedly one night, barely a month later, possibly after he finds out that Paula is engaged to the painter Otto Modersohn.

1901 Is Clara’s lover by February; they marry on April 28; their only child Ruth is born on December 12.

1902 Moves to Paris in August to become Auguste Rodin’s secretary in his country home in Meudon. Having used Clara to approach Rodin, he uses Rodin and his slogan “Work, always work,” to convince Clara that they must live apart, leave Ruth with relatives in Germany, that in general he must always follow what he describes as the dictates of his art. They are poor; Rilke supports Clara and Ruth when he can, and occasionally lives with them during the next few years, but never fully accepts the duties of being a husband and father.

At the end of his life, for example, he writes to the poet Marina Tsvetaeva: “almost the only time I really was with [my daughter] was before any verbalness at all, from her birth to sometime after her first birthday: for as early as that, what had arisen, a little against my will, in terms of house, family, and settling down, was dissolving; the marriage, too, although never terminated legally, returned me to my natural singleness (after barely two years) and Paris began: this was 1902.”

1903 Publishes the study Auguste Rodin; writes letters that would later be published as Letters to a Young Poet; stays with a succession of patrons and patronnesses, including Rodin, a pattern which he would continue for the rest of his life.

1906 Is fired by Rodin; publishes the second, expanded Book of Pictures (or Book of Images); writes the poems of his great book New Poems; continues work on his novel of Paris, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Spends an intense month with Paula Modersohn-Becker, possibly as lovers, and sits for a portrait while she is in Paris, separated from her husband.

1907 Writes Letters on Cézanne to Clara but in a way intended primarily for Paula; New Poems is published; Paula Modersohn-Becker dies shortly after giving birth.

1908 A second part of New Poems is published; Rilke writes his great poem “Requiem” for Paula Modersohn-Becker, finishing it on All Souls’ Day (November 2), always a meaningful day of remembrance for him.

Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is published (1910). Stays at Duino Castle (Oct. 1911–May 1912), where he writes half of the Duino Elegies after hearing the first line come to him in a voice from the air as he walked along a sea cliff – “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the hierarchies of the angels?” Rilke’s inability to finish this major work is the creative crisis of the next decade of his life.

1914 Is surprised in Germany when World War I is declared, and is unable to return to Paris; stuck, mostly in Munich, for the duration of the war, he is anxious and severely depressed, serving briefly in the military (not in combat) in 1916. Eventually leaves for Switzerland (1919), and stays for long periods at houses and castles put at his disposal by the patrons he cultivated.

1921 Finds permanent residence in the solitary small château at Muzot, in Switzerland, where he would live rent-free, often in ill health, for the rest of his life, except for stays at Val-Mont sanatorium (1924, 1925, 1926) and travels to Paris (Jan.–Aug. 1925) and elsewhere.

1922 In three weeks (February 2–23), writes the rest of the Duino Elegies and the entire Sonnets to Orpheus sequence of fifty-five poems. Feels that his life’s work is complete, and the last years of his life are noticeably happier and more content. Continues to write and translate, including a large body of poetry in French.

1926 Dies December 29, of leukemia.

Because the poems, notes, and dreams in this volume are not in chronological order, it may be useful to list them here, to give an overview of their development and the periods in Rilke’s life from which certain clusters arose.

1898

Interiors and Notes on the Melody of Things

1899–1900

Spring Songs (II), Vitali Awoke, Night Songs (II), and When Death Came with the Morning

1903

On Completing the Circle (I)

1905

Marriage and Morning Prayer

1906

The Lady and the Unicorn and “There is total silence…”

1907 (Jan.–Feb.)

From the Notebooks (Naples and Capri), From the Dream-Book, and Dream (Fragment)

1907 (Autumn)

From the Notebooks (Paris) and Young Girl

1908–1911

The Origin of the Chimera, Pregnant Woman, and Night Songs (I)

1913–1916

In His Thirty-Eighth Year, “Looking up from the book, from the near and countable lines,” Note on Birds, and “It’s not that now that we’re (suddenly) grown up”

1919–1921

Introduction to a Poetry Reading, Haiku (I), and Testament

1922 (Jan. 31)

“As long as you catch what you’ve thrown yourself ”

1923–early 1924

On the Poet’s Material, On Completing the Circle (II), On Shawls and Lemons (I–III), and Spring Songs (I)

1924 (June–July)

“What birds hurtle through is not the familiar sky,” On Shawls and Lemons (IV), and Poems from the Graveyard

1926

Dedication, Haiku (II), and “Come then, come, you last thing I have learned”

Notes

All texts in this book and many of the notes below are taken from the six-volume Sämtliche Werke [Complete Works] of Rainer Maria Rilke (Insel, 1965); Die Briefe an Gräfin Sizzo: 1921–1926 [Letters to Countess Sizzo] (Insel, 1950); or Das Testament [Testament] (Insel, 1975).

“AS LONG AS YOU CAN CATCH WHAT YOU’VE THROWN YOURSELF”

Muzot, January 31, 1922.

Two days later – February 2 – began the incomparable burst of creativity, or receptivity, which produced twenty-five Sonnets to Orpheus in three days and the entire Sonnets to Orpheus (fifty-five poems) and half of The Duino Elegies by February 23. See the Translator’s Afterword for more on this poem.

PREGNANT WOMAN

Paris, summer of 1909. One of three unfinished drafts.

INTERIORS

Probably fall of 1898; unpublished in Rilke’s lifetime. In 1898, Rilke was twenty-two years old.

YOUNG GIRL

Paris, fall 1907.

THE LADY AND THE UNICORN

Paris, June ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• “As long as you catch what you’ve thrown yourself”
• Pregnant Woman
• Interiors
• Young Girl
• The Lady and the Unicorn
• On Completing the Circle (I–II)
• Dedication
• Vitali Awoke
• Notes on the Melody of Things
• Haiku (I–II)
• Poems from the Graveyard (I–V)
• On the Poet’s Material
• Marriage
• In His Thirty-Eighth Year
• From Testament
• “Come then, come, you last thing I have learned”
• On Shawls and Lemons (I–IV)
• “There is total silence…”
• From the Notebooks (Naples–Capri–Paris)
• Night Songs (I–II)
• Note on Birds
• Spring Songs (I–II)
• “It’s not that now that we’re (suddenly) grown up”
• When Death Came with the Morning
• “Looking up from the book, from the near and countable lines”
• Dream (Fragment)
• The Origin of the Chimera
• From the Dream-Book (The Seventh, Eleventh, and Twenty-Sixth Dreams)
• Morning Prayer
• “What birds hurtle through is not the familiar sky”
• Chronology, Notes, Extras
• Translator’s Afterword
• Envoi: Introduction to a Poetry Reading
• About the Author