Rainer Maria Rilke and Ellen Key: A review essay

Rainer Maria Rilke and Ellen Key A Review Essay Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefvechsel mit Eden Key. Mit Briefen von und an Clara Rilke-Westhoff. Herausgegeben von Theodore Fiedler. Insel Verlag: Fraiikfurt a.M. and Leipzig, 1991,. Pp.436.

This is the fifth Rilke correspondence with a Scandinavian to appear in book form. It was preceded by: Wolfgang Herwig's edition (1959) of the letter-exchange with the Dane Inga Junghanns, who introduced Rilke to Bellman, Renate Scharffenberg's edition (1979) of Rilke's letters and other communications to the Dano-German publisher Axel Juncker (both appeared at the Insel, which had become Rilke's official publisher after Juncker was dropped), and Paul Aström's volumes of letters to the Scanian jack-of-all-arts, Ernst Norlind (1986) and, with Brigitte Rausing, to the artist Tora Vega Holmström (1989). These two small books, of which the former was reviewed in Scandinavian Stuthes 62 (1990) =495-8, were printed by Astrom himself. Professor Fiedler's work as editor and annotator is of a high order, showing the same level of responsibility and tiioroughness diat Rilke-ites (and interested outsiders) have come to expect from Insel letter-volumes, starting with Ernst Zinn's edition of the Briefvechsel with Marie von Thurn und Taxis (1951) and Ernst Pfeiffer's of that with Lou Andreas-Salomé (1952, expanded in 1975); Herwig's performance (criticized in Germanic Review [i9o2]:292-5oi) was an exception proving the rule.

Fiedler has thoroughly plumbed the Ellen Key papers in the Royal Library at Stockholm and the Rilke Archive in Gernsbach, as well as otiier instances (listed at the end of "Zu theser Ausgabe," pp. 299-306) and has followed up all the leads he could. There are eighty-five items from Rilke to Ellen Key (including five written in common with Lou Andreas-Salomé), plus two from Clara Rilke to Ellen Key, and fifty-nine from Ellen Key, mostly to Rilke but also to Clara and Rilke-Lou, for a grand total of 146. Of Rilke's letters to Ellen, thirty, "fast alle nur in Auszügen," were included in the "Vorstufe" (1931-7) and the final version (1936-9) of the granthosely titled and capriciously edited Gesammelte Briefe and have been quoted bv scholars and biographers ever since. Ellen Key's part of the correspondence has not appeared in print before; Fiedler has wisely reproduced Ellen Kev's letters in their original, idiosyncratic form; an effort to...