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The Poet's Guide To Life: The Wisdom Of Rilke

“You have to live life to the limit, not according to each day but by plumbing its depth.”–RAINER MARIA RILKEIn this treasury of uncommon wisdom and spiritual insight, the best writings and personal philosophies of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, are gleaned by Ulrich Baer from thousands of pages of never-before translated correspondence. The result is a profound vision of how the human drive to create and understand can guide us in every facet of life. Arranged by theme–from everyday existence with others to the exhilarations of love and the experience of loss, from dealing with adversity to the nature of inspiration, here are Rilke’s thoughts on how to live life in a meaningful way:Life and Living: “How good life is. How fair, how incorruptible, how impossible to deceive: not even by strength, not even by willpower, and not even by courage. How everything remains what it is and has only this choice: to come true, or to exaggerate and push too far.”Art: “The work of art is adjustment, balance, reassurance. It can be neither gloomy nor full of rosy hopes, for its essence consists of justice.”Faith: “I personally feel a greater affinity to all those religions in which the middleman is less essential or almost entirely suppressed.”Love: “To be loved means to be ablaze. To love is: to shine with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to last.”Intimate, stylistically masterful, brilliantly translated, and brimming with the wonder and passion of Rilke, The Poet’s Guide to Life is comparable to the best works of wisdom in all of literature and a perfect book for all occasions.

Hardcover: 272 pages

Publisher: Modern Library (March 22, 2005)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0679642927

ISBN-13: 978-0679642923

Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.9 x 7.6 inches

Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #478,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #107 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > European > German #5583 in Books > Self-Help > Motivational

This is a profound and beautiful book. Ulrich Baer, editor and translator of the volume has gone through the more than seven- thousand letters Rilke wrote in his lifetime and selected those he felt had the most to say about living and loving in the world. He orders the letters into sections which begin with his title and are followed by a line from Rilke. 1) On LIfe and Living You have to live life to the limit2) On Being with others To be a Part, that is Fulfillment for us3)On Work: Get up Cheerfully on Days You have to Work4) On Difficulty and Adversity The Measure by which we may know our Strength5)On Childhood and Education; This Joy in Daily Discovery6) On Nature It Knows Nothing of Us7)On Solitude The Lonest People Above all Contribute Most to Commonality8)On Illness and Recovery Pain Tolerates No Interpretation9)On Loss, Dying and Death Even Time Does not 'Console' It puts things in Place and creates Order10) On Language That Vast, Humming and Swinging Syntax11)On Art Art Presents Itself as a Way of Life12) On Faith A Direction of the Heart13) On Goodness and Morality Nothing Good, Once it Has Come into Existence May be Suppressed14) On Love There is no Force in the World but LoveIn his rich repetitive introduction to the volume Baer discusses the special place letter-writing had in Rilke's life and work. Rilke in his letters has a spontaneity and poetic freedom beyond that in his very disciplined and exacting poems. But of course the themes of both forms of writing are common ones, and the letters a source of ideas and inspirations for the Poetry.

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