The Book of Hours
Title page from the 1920 edition
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| Author | Rainer Maria Rilke |
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| Original title | Das Stunden-Buch |
| Language | German |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publisher | Insel-Verlag |
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Publication date
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1905 |
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Original text
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at German |
The Book of Hours (German: Das Stunden-Buch) is a collection of poetry by the Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). The collection was written between 1899 and 1903 in three parts, and first published in Leipzig by Insel Verlag in April 1905. With its dreamy, melodic expression and neo-Romantic mood, it stands, along with 'The Lay of the Love and Death of Christoph Cornet', as the most important of his early works.
The work, dedicated to Lou Andreas-Salome, is his first through-composed cycle, which established his reputation as a religious poet, culminating in the poet's Duino Elegies.
In provocative language, using a turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau aesthetic, Rilke displayed a wide range of his poetic talent. The suggestive musicality of his verses developed into the hallmark of his later lyric poetry, to mixed criticism.
"The Book of Hours" consists of three sections with common themes relating to St. Francis and the Christian search for God. The sections are as follows:
One of Rilke's translators, Edward Snow, said the work "is one of the strongest inaugural works in all of modern poetry. It arrives as if out of nowhere and seems to want to wipe the slate clean."
The first book, The Book of Monastic Life, initially titled "The Prayers" (Die Gebete), was written between 20 September and 14 October 1899 in Berlin-Schmargendorf, where Rilke had also composed "The Lay of the Love and Death of Christoph Cornet". The middle part of the cycle was written (after his marriage to Clara Westhoff but before the birth of his daughter) from 18 to 25 September 1901 in Westerwede. The last book was composed from 13 to 20 April 1903 in Viareggio, Italy.
Two years later, now in Worpswede, he revised the text, which was then published in December 1905 - his first collaboration with Insel-Verlag. This introductory book would continue to be published throughout his lifetime, requiring four editions for a total of approximately 60,000 copies.
Rilke's journeys to Russia in the summer of 1899 and 1900 form the biographical background to the work. He undertook these with the dedicatee Lou Andreas-Salome, and began work on the cycle after their conclusion. The vastness of Russia, the fervent devotion of its peasantry to their Orthodox religion, and its culture, little touched by Western civilization - all formed a backdrop that, deepened by personal encounters with Leonid Pasternak and the renowned Leo Tolstoy, became Rilke's spiritual home. Twenty years later, he recalled that the country had revealed to him at this time "the brotherhood and the darkness of God". In this dark remoteness would Rilke continue to "build" on this ancient and eternal God:
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