ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a study of Rainer Maria Rilke's own 'becoming' from 1899 to 1903, from Russia to Worpswede to Paris. It considers Rilke's attitude to Russia, an attitude shaped conceptually by the prevailing dominance of Friedrich Nietzsche, and experientially by his two trips there in 1899 and 1900 under the aegis of Lou AndreasSalome. This attitude would determine not just the form and character of 'Das Buch vom monchischen Leben'; its influence would continue through the following two books, in variously diluted form, to shape Rilke's conception of 'der werdende Gott'. Nietzsche's influence seems to extend beyond the cultural consequences of deicide as far as Rilke's perception of Russia. The first poem of the Stunden-Buch immediately compels the reader's attention with the force of its initial 'da': Da neigt sich die Stunde und ruhrt mich anmit klarem, metallenem Schlag;mir zittern die Sinne. Organic imagery is the favoured idiom of becoming in the Stunden-Buch.
