Abstract

This article presents a translation and short introduction to R. M. Rilke’s readings of Nietzsche when the poet was in his early twenties. His main focus is on musical and rhythmical components of poetry, a topic which has received ongoing interest since Hölderlin, Novalis and Kleist, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The main interest of this article is to contextualize Rilke’s reception of The Birth of Tragedy after having been introduced to Nietzsche’s oeuvre by Lou Andreas-Salomé. One of the documents of this experience is the fragment “Marginalia around F. Nietzsche”, translated in the following.

Keywords: Rilke, Nietzsche, music/rhythm, poetry, marginalia.