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.
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