The Beginning of Terror, A Psychological Study of Rainer Maria Rilke's Life and Work

Author

Kleinbard; David

Year

1993

Publisher

NYU Press

Language

English

Pages

Link

Last Update

10-Jan-2026

Keywords

Language & Literature

Description

This is a psychological study of Rainer Maria Rilke’s life and writings. Beginning with his novel,The Notebooks of Make Laurids Brigge,published in 1910, I explore the relationship between illness and genius in the poet and his work, a subject to which he returned time and again. His letters describing his experiences when he first came to Paris in 1902 reveal that the anxieties which bring Make, the main character of the novel, close to psychosis, plagued Rilke himself. The letters andThe Notebooksshow that Rilke felt that he was losing his sanity. In the summer of 1903...