Rilke's Book of Hours is a cycle of prayer-poems written in 1899 to 1903 and divided into three books: the Book of Monastic Life, the Book of Pilgrimage and the Book of Poverty and Death. The speaker is a young Russian monk-painter who addresses God as a neighbor, a deep, dark presence in whom the self is shaped. The poems are rich in images of building, darkness, hands and the unfinished, and they present a God that artists create through their work rather than receive from doctrine.
It suits readers of poetry who like spiritual verse without dogma, and anyone who wants to see the early Rilke before the Duino Elegies. It rewards reading in small doses.
Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and open-ended; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Wisdom Collector. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2008
- Publisher
- Echo Library
- ISBN
- 9781406873252
- Language
- DE
Quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke
More →Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage.
Letters to a Young Poet
The only journey is the one within.
Letters to a Young Poet
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Letters to a Young Poet
