Rainer Maria Rilke's 'The Book of Hours' (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture) by Susan Ranson, Ben Hutchinson

Abstract

902 Reviews biology but departs from contemporary male theorists in seeing woman as primary, rather than defined in relation toman. 'Das Weibliche', deriving as itdoes from the egg, may be less developed and differentiated than 'dasMannliche', but this is viewed as a positive; women should revel in their closeness to nature, their difference, their ability to enjoy life and think inways other than the logical. If men, like the sperm, have to strive, compete, and propel themselves, women are already fully legitimated. This biological thinking seems blithely unconcerned by the contemporary demands of the firstwomen's movement, a movement which Andreas-Salome was aware of but never joined. Rather, it shows her intellectual immersion?she was among thefirstwomen to study at university?in the (usually male, oftenmisogynist) literature and philosophy of the period, ofwhich Schiitz gives a useful overview, from Ibsen and Tolstoy toNietzsche, Mobius, and Wei ninger, the strongest influence on her own theory being Wilhelm Bolsche's Das Liebesleben inderNatur. Andreas-Salome's twenty-fiveNovellen and novels spring from her early career, roughly 1885 to 1903, preceding her friendship with Freud and her psychoana lyticalwork by some years. Schiitz provides a reading of each text, drawing out common themes such as the sexual submission of the woman, marriage as le galized prostitution, the family as a place of conflict, and incest. A final chapter draws up a typology of Andreas-Salome's women: mother-saint-madonna versus whore, working woman versus housewife, androgyny versus womanly woman, and the figure of the artist. The close readings are illuminating, ifover-descriptive at times; primary quotations are both overused and underexploited. Schiitz ismost interestingwhen she analyses Andreas-Salome's literary forms,where the tension between theory and social reality is exposed. The success of the story 'Fenitschka', for example, lies precisely in the fact that it is not, as one contemporary critic complained, a first-person narrative of female liberation; rather the eponymous protagonist, a contradictory character who develops over time, is seen through the eyes of aman who does not know what tomake of her. The tale is thus less about the essence ofwoman than about men's attempts to define and fixher. Schiitz stops short of arguing that Andreas-Salome's fiction critiques social norms, concluding merely that the theory ismore progressive than the fiction; her study also suffers from a lack of references to the effortsof Anglo-American scholars such as Biddy Martin to open up Andreas-Salome's work to reappraisal. Swansea University Brigid Haines Rainer Maria Rilke's 'The Book ofHours. Trans, by Susan Ranson. Ed. by Ben Hutchinson. (Studies inGerman Literature, Linguistics, and Culture) Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2008. xliii+240 pp. $75; ?40. ISBN 978-1 57113-380-9. For the readers and scholars of Rilkes work who have long occupied themselves with the late poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke's 'The Book ofHours' is a refreshing MLR, 105.3, 2010 903 reminder of the roots of those later texts. Ben Hutchinson makes a convincing argument that the three parts of The Book ofHours reveal Rilke's rapid early development as a poet. He helps to contextualize the three books by connecting 'The Book ofMonkish Life' to Rilke's tour of Russia with Lou Andreas-Salome in 1899, 'The Book of Pilgrimage' to his marriage and the birth of his child in 1901 inWesterwede (near the famous artists' colony inWorpswede), and 'The Book of Poverty and Death' to his experience of the urban bustle and poverty of Paris in 1903. These connections help the reader to comprehend the biographical underpinning of each of the sections; they also allow us to see the geographical settings and landscape, and the developing themes and imagery of the collection as a whole. In both his introduction and his very useful notes to each poem, Hutchinson connects themajor themes and repeated (but shifting) images of these books to Rilke's more famous pieces, including Malte Laurids Brigge, theDuineser Elegien, and the Sonette an Orpheus. This cross-referencing ofmotifs both within the Book ofHours and between this volume and the later poetry helps the reader to under stand how many of Rilke's central concerns surface early inhis work and continue...