monk

The monk in Rainer Maria Rilke’s Prayer of a Young Poet and Alyosha Karamazov; the same person?

/ antonioyrocinante / 1 Comment

One of the best things about having your own blog is that you can write whatever you want. Even if it is pseudo academic, or as one of my students says: Dr. B’s conspiracy theories. No double-blind peer reviews, no scientific method, no academic prestige to worry about, just my unadulterated thoughts, a hunch. So enjoy:

Why am I fascinated by the turn of the (20th) Century Central and Eastern Europe? I have written about it a couple of times (here and here).

I just finished Rainer Maria Rilke’s Prayers of a Young Poet, and it blew me away!

Rilke authors this 68-poem collection in the voice of a nameless Russian Orthodox monk. The spirituality is palpable. Each poem has a brief footnote denoting where and/or when it was written: “2nd of October, beneath soft evening clouds”, “On the 5th of October, written down in the exhaustion of evening, having returned home after having been out among the people.”

Perhaps due to my ignorance and lack of reading, I kept thinking of Alyosha Karamazov from Dostoyevsky’s novel.

What connects these poems and Alyosha Karamazov is a simple innocence, a pure love of life and humanity in lines like:

“I want to love things in ways no one has yet done.”

or

“The hour bows down and stirs me

with a clear and ringing stroke;

my senses tremble. I feel that I can–

and seize the forming day.”

So, that is my hunch, my thesis. That there is an existential connection between the monk, the narrative author of Prayers of a Young Poet and Alyosha Karamazov, as if he had drafted those poems. But, you say, there are hundreds if not thousands of Russian Orthodox monks and many of them are in literature. My answer to your comment is the first line of this blog post. Also, I am a romantic, can’t you see? And this connection is just beautiful, and delicate, and awesome!

Rilke travelled to Russia and was entranced by their culture, art, and most importantly their rich religious tradition. He also could have read Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece published in 1880, 19 years before the original publication of Prayers in 1899.

Yes, I could go on and on and get all academic, but this is a general interest blog, so there you have it. If you do want me to elaborate on my thoughts, let me know in the comments!!

R.I.P. Brother Eulogio.

/ antonioyrocinante / Leave a comment

Nuestras vidas son los ríos

que van a dar en el mar,

que es el morir:

allí van los señoríos

derechos a se acabar

y consumir;

allí, los ríos caudales,

allí, los otros, medianos

y más chicos,

allegados, son iguales,

los que viven por sus manos

y los ricos.

Jorge Manrique wrote these lines in his Coplas por la Muerte de su Padre in 1480, the late Middle Ages, the cusp of the Spanish Renaissance (Spain, like me, is a bit of a late bloomer, and we consider 1492 as our start date for the Renaissance if you want to be technical about it).

But these are the lines that jump in my mind every time I hear of someone passing; the best friend of one of my students three days into his honeymoon, family members of dear friends, Matthew Perry, and last week Benedictine monk Brother Eulogio in El Paular Monastery.

Brother Eulogio was a spiritual force of nature, a spiritual power who would ask you point blank questions or nonchalantly point to the spot he wanted to be buried in the Monastery’s cloister. I have written about him before (click here) and he was one of the many reasons I love to go on retreat to El Paular.

Brother Eulogio pushed me in my quest for peace. Although in his later years he was wheelchair bound and did not recognize me, he kept his aura bright. I remember one of our last conversations was about the gifts each one has and how to find comfort in our gifts. It was in the “little” chapel, a tiny chapel where the 11 monks and whoever is staying with them pray their daily prayers, only using the big chapel for high mass on Sundays and special holidays.

The beauty in Brother Eulogio’s spirituality was the joy, simplicity, and casualness of his asceticism, his humanity and humility. He could answer what you thought was a deep question with a wave of his hand or think about it for a second and go into a deep explanation. I will miss our walks in the orchard, or in the cloister.

I hope to visit your grave in the cloister of the monastery soon.