Rainer Maria Rilke's powerfully touching letters to an aspiring young poet.

At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering, and the nature of advice itself. These profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for generations of writers and artists of all kinds, including Lady Gaga and Patti Smith. With honesty, elegance, and a deep understanding of the loneliness that often comes with being an artist, Rilke's letters are an endless source of inspiration and comfort. Lewis Hyde's new introduction explores the context in which these letters were written and how the author embraced his isolation as a creative force. This edition also includes Rilke's later work The Letter from the Young Worker.

For more than 80 years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Born in 1875, the great German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898 and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings of the human heart. Drawn by some sympathetic note in his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young, would-be poet on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Those letters, still a fresh source of inspiration and insight, are accompanied here by a chronicle of Rilke's life that shows what he was experiencing in his own relationship to life and work when he wrote them.

Rilke's powerfully touching letters to an aspiring young poet, now available in a beautiful hardcover Penguin edition

At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering, and the nature of advice itself. These profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for generations of writers and artists of all kinds, including Lady Gaga and Patti Smith. With honesty, elegance, and a deep understanding of the loneliness that often comes with being an artist, Rilke's letters are an endless source of inspiration and comfort. Lewis Hyde's new introduction explores the context in which these letters were written and how the author embraced his isolation as a creative force.

This edition also includes Rilke's later work The Letter from the Young Worker.

This letter is the closest that Kafka came to setting down his autobiography. He was driven to write it by his father's opposition to his engagement with Julie Wohryzek. The marriage did not take place; the letter was not delivered. 'In his preface he [the translator Howard Colyer] states that he was most concerned to reproduce the raw venting of feelings in the letter as well as the extraordinary momentum of the prose. In both these aims he succeeds. Unlike earlier, and fussier, versions, his translation catches the naked energy of the original.' -- New York Sun, Eric Ormsby The new edition includes the last letter Kafka wrote to his parents as he lay dying of tuberculosis near Vienna in 1924.

2015 National Translation Award Winner in Poetry

Paul Celan, one of the greatest German-language poets of the twentieth century, created an oeuvre that stands as testimony to the horrors of his times and as an attempt to chart a topography for a new, uncontaminated language and world. Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry gathers the five final volumes of his life's work in a bilingual edition, translated and with commentary by the award-winning poet and translator Pierre Joris.

This collection displays a mature writer at the height of his talents, following what Celan himself called the turn (Wende) of his work away from the lush, surreal metaphors of his earlier verse. Given the sinister events in its memory, Celan believed that the language of poetry had to become more sober, more factual . . . 'grayer.' Abandoning the more sumptuous music of the first books, he pared down his compositions to increase the accuracy of the language that now does not transfigure or render 'poetical'; it names, it posits, it tries to measure the area of the given and the possible. In his need for an inhabitable post-Holocaust world, Celan saw that reality is not simply there; it must be searched for and won.

Breathturn into Timestead reveals a poet undergoing a profound artistic reinvention. The work is that of a witness and a visionary.

It's a peculiar apparatus, said the Officer to the Traveler, gazing with a certain admiration at the device, with which he was, of course, thoroughly familiar. It appeared that the Traveler had responded to the invitation of the Commandant only out of politeness, when he had been invited to attend the execution of a soldier condemned for disobeying and insulting his superior. Of course, interest in the execution was not very high, not even in the penal colony itself. At least, here in the small, deep, sandy valley, closed in on all sides by barren slopes, apart from the Officer and the Traveler there were present only the Condemned, a vacant-looking man with a broad mouth and dilapidated hair and face, and the Soldier, who held the heavy chain to which were connected the small chains which bound the Condemned Man by his feet and wrist bones, as well as by his neck, and which were also linked to each other by connecting chains. The Condemned Man had an expression of such dog-like resignation that it looked as if one could set him free to roam around the slopes and would only have to whistle at the start of the execution for him to return.

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Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.

We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Twilight of the Idols by Friedrich Nietzsche. Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, written in 1888, and published in 1889. Twilight of the Idols was written in just over a week, between 26 August and 3 September 1888, while Nietzsche was on holiday in Sils Maria. About life, the wisest men of all ages have come to the same conclusion: it is no good. Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths - a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life. Even Socrates said, as he died: To live - that means to be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius the Savior a rooster. Even Socrates was tired of life. What does that prove? What does it demonstrate? At one time, one would have said (and it has been said loud enough by our pessimists): At least something must be true here The consensus of the sages must show us the truth. Shall we still talk like that today? May we? At least something must be sick here, we retort. These wisest men of all ages - they should first be scrutinized closely. Were they all perhaps shaky on their legs? tottery? decadent? late? Could it be that wisdom appears on earth as a raven, attracted by a little whiff of carrion?

This version of the novella has been accommodated for German learners.

The original German version of the story has been aligned side-by-side with the official English translation by Ian Johnston.

German is printed on the left page, and English on the right page.

The parallel text version will save you from reaching for the dictionary to locate the meaning of a word. As a result, you'll have a smoother reading experience.

The Metamorphosis (original German title: Die Verwandlung) is a short novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect.

Este libro ofrece una recopilaci n de las consideraciones de Hermann Hesse sobre la vejez, esa etapa de la vida en la que las cosas y el entorno adquieren un agradable surrealismo, y en las que los recuerdos superan en veracidad a los acontecimientos reales. Para Hesse, que escribe con la pers-pectiva que dan los a os, la vejez es ese tiempo de transici n en el que, en busca de una especie de equilibrio ante los achaques del cuerpo, reactivamos aquel tesoro en im genes que llevamos en la memoria tras una vida larga, im genes a las que, al reducir nuestra actividad, damos una dimensi n muy diferente a la concedida hasta entonces. Personajes humanos, que ya no est n sobre la Tierra, siguen viviendo en nosotros, nos pertenecen, nos proporcionan compa a y nos miran con ojos cargados de vida.

Literature and Politics presents Robert Musil's writings on the relationship between literature and politics from World War I through World War II and elucidates his personal struggle to bear witness during the Age of Totalitarianism. In essays, addresses, aphorisms, and unpublished notes on contemporary events, Musil charts the increasing dangers to artists and ethical thinkers of extreme ideological conscription, the subtle and not so subtle changes in public and political discourse, the epoch-making events and dire existential threats of his times. Musil acts as a cultural seismographer, interrogating causes and symptoms in himself and his world, as he moves between Nazi Germany and pre- and post-Anschlu Austria, ultimately escaping to Switzerland where he and his Jewish wife, Martha, lived in exile until his death in 1942. The writings question concepts of race, identity, and nation, and untangle the complex relationship between nation and artist and between the individual and the collective, celebrating the rich and irreducible nature of individual creative work as the bulwark of a free, ethical, and pluralistic society.

Klaus Amann provides an invaluable introduction to Musil's political thought and his struggle, during the war years, to come to terms, to survive, and to find some way to bear witness. Amann recounts Musil's political trajectory, from fairly indifferent aesthete to socially-engaged supporter of the Weimar Republic and its liberal reforms, to critic of Nazi and Communist Totalitarianisms, and as prescient sceptic about the cultural optimism of the Soviet experiment. Musil's ultimate stance - as a thinker who radically resists taking final stances - is that politics endangers culture and humanity by dictating to artists how they should write, think, paint, compose, and by instrumentalizing art in the interest of ideology. This is not merely an aesthetic position, but a committed belief in the essential ethical nature of art and in art's fundamental role as a timeless, supra-national force.

Translated with an introduction by Genese Grill. This is the fourth Musil publication presented by Contra Mundum Press.

Pues, aunque en cierto aspecto y para hombres fr volos las cosas no existentes son m s f ciles y menos riesgosas para ser representadas con palabras, en cambio, para el historiador fiel y escrupuloso son todo lo contrario: nada escapa tanto a la descripci n verbal y nada es, sin embargo, tan necesario colocar ante los ojos humanos, como determinadas cosas cuya existencia ni puede demostrarse ni es veros mil, pero que justamente por el hecho de ser consideradas existentes en cierta medida por hombres devotos y conscientes, pueden ser aproximadas un paso m s a la existencia y a la posibilidad de nacer.

First published in 1963, in East Germany, Christa Wolf's They Divided the Sky is one of the top 100 Must-Reads (Deutsche Welle).

tells the story of a young couple, living in the new, socialist, East Germany, whose relationship is tested to the extreme not only because of the political positions they gradually develop but, very concretely, by the Berlin Wall, which went up on August 13, 1961.

The story is set in 1960 and 1961, a moment of high political cold war tension between the East Bloc and the West, a time when many thousands of people were leaving the young German Democratic Republic (the GDR) every day in order to seek better lives in West Germany, or escape the political ideology of the new country that promoted the farmer and peasant state over a state run by intellectuals or capitalists. The construction of the Wall put an end to this hemorrhaging of human capital, but separated families, friends, and lovers, for thirty years.

The conflicts of the time permeate the relations between characters in the book at every level, and strongly affect the relationships that Rita, the protagonist, has not only with colleagues at work and at the teacher's college she attends, but also with her partner Manfred (an intellectual and academic) and his family. They also lead to an accident/attempted suicide that send her to hospital in a coma, and that provide the backdrop for the flashbacks that make up the narrative.

Wolf's first full-length novel, published when she was thirty-five years old, was both a great literary success and a political scandal. Accused of having a 'decadent' attitude with regard to the new socialist Germany and deliberately misrepresenting the workers who are the foundation of this new state, Wolf survived a wave of political and other attacks after its publication. She went on to create a screenplay from the novel and participate in making the film version. More importantly, she went on to become the best-known East German writer of her generation, a writer who established an international reputation and never stopped working toward improving the socialist reality of the GDR.

Berlin is a city forever in the process of becoming, never being, and so it lives more powerfully in the imagination. Rory Maclean, 'Berlin - Imagine a City'.
Located at the epicentre of some of modern Europe's most significant and turbulent events, Berlin has long held a magnetic attraction for writers. From 19th century authors recording the city's dramatic transition from Prussian Hauptstadt to German capital after 1871 and the modernist intellectuals of the Weimar period, to the resistance writers brave enough to write during the dark years of the Nazi era and those who captured life on both sides of the divided city, a body of literature has emerged that reveals Berlin's ever-shifting identity.
Since 1989, Berlin has yet again become a crucible of creativity, serving as both muse and sanctuary for a new generation of writers who regularly claim it as one of the most exciting cities in the world. This unique and engaging book functions as an introduction to some of the finest writing in and about the city, as well as a guide to some of its best sights and vibrant neighbourhoods. Spanning more than 200 years of local life and literature, it features German authors as diverse as E.T. A. Hoffmann, Joseph Roth, Jorg Fauser, and Christa Wolf, as well as a slew of famous international names such as Mark Twain, Philip Hensher and Chloe Aridjis.

Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maander und das Neue Testament ist ein Buch von Gottfried Thieme, das im Jahr 1906 ver������ffentlicht wurde. Das Buch besch�����ftigt sich mit den Inschriften, die in der antiken Stadt Magnesia am Maander gefunden wurden, und ihrer Bedeutung f�����r das Verst�����ndnis des Neuen Testaments. Thieme untersucht die Inschriften und vergleicht sie mit den Texten des Neuen Testaments, um zu zeigen, wie die Gesellschaft und Kultur der Region das Verst�����ndnis von biblischen Ereignissen beeinflusst haben k������nnten. Das Buch ist eine wichtige Quelle f�����r die historische und kulturelle Kontextualisierung des Neuen Testaments und bietet Einblicke in die antike griechische Welt.This Book Is In German.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Of the three great German word-artists of the first half of the 20th century, Alfred Döblin remains the least known. The other two are Thomas Mann, whose attitude towards Döblin ranged from cautious admiration to violent rage; and Berthold Brecht, who learned much from the ideas of his friend Döblin. Anglophone readers have almost no source of information about Döblin, or about the few works already translated into English (Berlin Alexanderplatz perhaps excepted).

In Germany, reliable editions of Döblin trickled out between the 1980s (decades after his death in 1957!) and the 2010s. Academic lit. crit. scholars enjoy tackling aspects of his life and output in ways attractive to other scholars. But little has been done to promote Döblin to a wider pool of readers.

For the first time, Adventurous Reader's Guide provides the inquisitive reader with a map, compass and rations to sustain them as they proceed through the vividly imagined exotic landscapes of his epic novels.
Döblin famously declared: 'If a novel can't be cut up into ten pieces like a worm, and each piece lives by itself, it is worthless'. The seventy-two excerpts presented in this book show how he put this maxim into practice. Each deserves close reading, for each brings to life its own vivid world.

The excerpts were chosen (from many possible candidates) for their power to entertain, provoke, amuse, cause shudders, and showcase Döblin's mastery of styles, moods, and expressive possibilities.
After reading through the selection, or even just dipping in, you should be well prepared to tackle a whole epic novel.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.

We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Maintaining cheerfulness in the midst of a gloomy task, fraught with immeasurable responsibility, is no small feat; and yet what is needed more than cheerfulness? Nothing succeeds if prankishness has no part in it. Excess strength alone is the proof of strength. A revaluation of all values: this question mark, so black, so huge that it casts a shadow over the man who puts it down - such a destiny of a task compels one to run into the sunlight at every opportunity to shake off a heavy, all-too-heavy seriousness. Every means is proper to do this; every case is a case of luck. Especially, war. War has always been the great wisdom of all spirits who have become too introspective, too profound; even in a wound there is the power to heal.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.

We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.

We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.