The Book Of Hours Analysis

“Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always,” states Rainer Marie Rilke, one of the German language’s greatest twentieth century poets. Rilke was born in 1875 as an only child. His childhood was rather unpleasant; his parents placed him in a military school, hoping that he would become an officer, something unlikely to occur. Rilke’s uncle recognized that he was a highly gifted individual and had Rilke enrolled into a German preparatory school. In 1895 when Rilke enrolled in Charles University in Prague, he decided to pursue a literary career. In 1897, Rilke went to Russia, and in Worpswede (Rilke lived here for some time), he married Clara Westhoff. Rilke also resided in Paris for 12 years. Throughout the rest of his lifetime, he would continue to travel, however, Paris would be the geographic center of his life, where he initially began to experiment with new styles of poetry. Rilke wrote “The Book of Hours” between 1899 and 1903. In “The Book of Hours”, each piece of poetry portrays a religious theme. In one poem, Du Ewiger, du hast dich mir gezeigt, the theme of religion is intertwined with nature as a powerful force.
Mary Shelley was born in 1797 in the United Kingdom. Similar to Rilke, Mary Shelley also …show more content…
Rilke creates the image of a ship associated with happiness or perhaps the lack of happiness stating, “I tremble sometimes for your happiness, that ventures abroad so many ships.” Water and wind (nature) dictates the movement of ships. One’s “happiness” seems to be linked to the movement of a ship that “ventures abroad”, suggesting a relationship between nature and fate. Nature dictates whether one leads a content and happy life, or the opposite. Rilke establishes the idea that nature is powerful in order to portray the idea that one’s future is directly linked to