Evening Meal (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
- First Published: 1908
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Family or family life, Parents and children, Religion, God, Christianity, Food, Jesus Christ
The Poem
“Evening Meal” is a brief lyric consisting of sixteen lines broken down into four quatrains. The rhyme scheme in German follows the pattern abba, cdcd, efef, gghh. The lines average ten syllables in length. The German title “Abendmahl” may be translated both as “evening meal” and “last supper,” and the translator of this version, Edward Snow, employs both meanings in his translation. As Snow notes, in a letter Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to his wife in 1907, he described walking in Paris in the evening and seeing families seated at dinner in the...
[The entire page is 1431 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
See Also
