Rainier Maria Rilke born 5 December 1875

Rainer Maria Rilke was born 5 December 1875 in Prague. I took a seminar on him at UC-Irvine ages ago, led by Egon Schwarz. I wish I remembered more about it, as I have come to a greater appreciation of Rilke. I did re-connect with Dr. Schwarz in St. Louis (he was visiting from Washington University) when I started seminary

   Rilke's Orpheus sonnets also have been influential for me, especially the concept of "singing is being/ Gesang ist Dasein"

   During that pivotal senior year in high school when I was permitted to spend a lot of time in the library (officially the Instructional Materials Center) I also read a dual-language version of his "Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph von Rilke/ The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph von Rilke".

    During one of the times reading, one of the librarians came and demanded of me, "Arthur! What are you doing here? " I innocently answered, "Reading". I explained that my teacher allowed me to be there, and I had a daily study hall also. She was not impressed.

http://www.thefoolsparadise.com/der-panther/

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-panther/