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Beskrivelse
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 smallestoverlooked 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.