Section 4 Summary and Analysis

Letter 5 - "Rome, October 29, 1903" This brief letter consists almost entirely of Rilke's reactions to being in Rome, which he describes as noisy, crowded, and filled with beauty, although every place, he writes, has an abundance of beauty in it. Rome, he maintains, is not exceptional even though artists, historians and everyday people have asserted for centuries that it is. The statues, the architecture, the paintings, even the history, he says, are "nothing more than accidental remains from another time and from a life that is not and should not be ours." He adds, however, that some of the "Things" that make up Rome—the statues, the architecture—represent "something eternal endures that one can love", suggesting that there is in the middle of it all something "solitary" that one can connect with. He writes of looking forward to moving...