Das Buch der Bilder and Das Stunden-Buch

This chapter considers the Stunden-Buch and the Buch der Bilder (1st and 2nd editions), Worpswede. It continues Chapter 2, but with reference to the more mature work. The composition and publication history of Rilke’s writing up to 1906 makes the chapter division awkward here, but this one focusses on the most accomplished of the poems written before the Neue Gedichte, while remembering that the earliest of the Neue Gedichte (e.g. ‘Der Panther’, 1902, ‘Orpheus. Eurydike. Hermes’, 1904) overlap with the later additions to the Buch der Bilder. Rilke’s re-presentation of the Buch der Bilder tells us a lot about how his writing and self-image had changed in the interim. The complexity of this development, its non-linear quality, forms another focus, as does consideration of Rilke’s reasons for earmarking some of the poems written in this period for the Neue Gedichte while other similar poems were allowed to appear in the Buch der Bilder.