Rainer Maria Rilke oder Das offene Leben

Reading and discussion
Moderation: Adam Soboczynski

To be open and to write, that was all Rilke wanted: a modest and at the same time demanding wish. As an author, he experienced "the whole of life [...] as if it ran right through him with all its possibilities". But also with all its contradictions: Rilke fled from his muses
and could not be without them, lamented the consequences of man-made progress and was enthusiastic about technology, he appreciated the simple life and had a pronounced preference for beautiful things and residences. With the "The Notes of Malte Laurid Brigge", he created one of the first modern novels and epoch-making poetry cycles, the expressive power of which continues to have an impact today. Sandra Richter, literary scholar and director of the German Literature Archive Marbach, works with new sources that came to Marbach with the purchase of the large Rilke archive in 2022. In her biography, the author appears in a new light: not the aloof recluse he liked to stylize himself as, but robust, assertive, alert in society, cheerful and self-deprecating and more knowledgeable in financial matters than is generally assumed. Rilke lived in difficult times, and he dealt with them with a force that is perhaps only credible in the face of existential threats. Sandra Richter, born in 1973, Professor of Modern German Literature in Stuttgart since 2008, has been Director of the German Literature Archive Marbach since 2019, which is planning an exhibition on Rilke and his work in 2025/26.