The Sonnets to Orpheus: Book 2: 6
The Sonnets to Orpheus: Book 2: 6 - fact Summary
Published in 1923
This sonnet, part of Rilke’s The Sonnets to Orpheus, was published in 1923 and emerges from an intense creative period that followed the poet’s personal loss. It treats the rose as a layered emblem: once a simple calyx to the ancients, now a plenitude of petals, light, scent, and fame. The poem links that overflowing image to memory and unnamed longing across time.
Read Complete AnalysesRose, you majesty-once, to the ancients, you were just a calyx with the simplest of rims. But for us, you are the full, the numberless flower, the inexhaustible countenance. In your wealth you seem to be wearing gown upon gown upon a body of nothing but light; yet each seperate petal is at the same time the negation of all clothing and the refusal of it. Your fragrance has been calling its sweetest names in our direction, for hundreds of years; suddenly it hangs in the air like fame. Even so, we have never known what to call it; we guess... And memory is filled with it unawares which we prayed for from hours that belong to us.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.