- Paperback: 512 pages
- Publisher: Clarendon Press; New edition edition (3 Mar 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0198158912
- ISBN-13: 978-0198158912
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.4 x 3.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,643,229 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
`it is splendid and not a moment too soon to have a readable, civilized biography in English' Financial Times
`the most detailed, most fully documented and indeed the best biography we have (of Rilke)... in any language.' Observer
`a fine, dignified, and scholarly book ... a rarely balanced and substantial account.' Guardian
`the most detailed, most fully documented and indeed the best biography we have (of Rilke)... in any language.' Observer
`a fine, dignified, and scholarly book ... a rarely balanced and substantial account.' Guardian
Product Description
This is a celebrated biography of Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), prehaps the greatest lyric poet of this century. Rilke was born in Prague, but his nomadic existence led him through Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, and France, until his death in Switzerland from leukaemia. Uniquely, he dedicated himself exclusively to his art while remaining receptive to the most varied influences of European culture. He visited Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana, acted for a time as secretary to Rodin, and was a friend o Romain Rolland, Leonid Pasternak, and Walter Rathenau. He was the protege of Princess Marie van Thurn und Taxis, and the lover of Lou Andreas-Salome and Baladine Klossowska. Yet he was single-minded in his search for the solitude he needed for his work, so much so that he seemed to many of his contemporaries to be a poet remote from the world. His poetic achievement - the New Poems, the Duino Elegies the Sonnets to Orpheus - and in prose the Cornet and the astonishing Malte Laurids Brigge, were works that made a lasting mark on European literature. Drawing on recent documentary evidence, A Ringing Glass is a compelling account of this most complex of lives, showing what manner of man lay behind the achievement of the work, and the part that work in turn played in Rilke's life.
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1 review
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Behold, the man!
28 Nov 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Of the three Rilke biographies that I have read (Ralph Freedman and Wolfgang Leppman being the others), this one was the most consistently satisfying. Prater purports to concentrate more on the personal aspects of the poet's life, and, comparatively speaking, I think that he succeeds. There is less of the not always helpful literary commentary in which, for example, Freedman indulges, and by comparison the Leppmann book has more of that snapshot quality about it that seems to be such a tendency now in biographies written by German authors--as examples I am thinking here of Gregor Martin-Dellin's book on Wagner, and Ruediger Safranski's books on Nietzsche and Heidegger.
In this book there is a greater sense of continuity with regard to the inner workings of Rilke's personality and emotional life. And we know that the evidence for that inner life is most rich, and like any other writer dealing with this poet, Prater does not always take everything at face value because of what he describes as Rilke's continuous habit of "self-stylization". If you wish to read and own a single Rilke biography, this is really the one!
In this book there is a greater sense of continuity with regard to the inner workings of Rilke's personality and emotional life. And we know that the evidence for that inner life is most rich, and like any other writer dealing with this poet, Prater does not always take everything at face value because of what he describes as Rilke's continuous habit of "self-stylization". If you wish to read and own a single Rilke biography, this is really the one!
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