Question

In at least 150 words, explain the role of women in Rilke’s life, and how this role is reflected in poems such as “Spanish Dancer.”

Answer 1

Rainer Maria Rilke was one of the most known and respected poets of the XIX century.

For him the women symbolized many things, he saw them as ¨purer and humanistic¨ beings, with different positive aspects to remark and high light in an era where the women´s authority and figure were strongly debilitated.

This male chauvinist society behavior practically obliged the women to adapt to it, sometimes having to leave their ¨essence¨ in aside, and start to act in a more ¨manly way¨, without mentioning that normally the duties designed to women were considered not important or influent (housewife´s as an example).

Rilke´s was against this situation and highlighted the women's capacity to perform any task effectively, without having to copy or perform it the same way of a male, sustained their capacity to proceed properly before any situation, and basically saw the women as something unique, useful, necessary.

In different poems, he describes and highlights the women's qualities and ways to perform different duties in an effective and captivating way, having the capacity to influence completely their surroundings.