Rilke and Tolstoy: The Predicament of Influence

Rainer Maria Rilke asserted that his meetings with Leo Tolstoy had no influence on his work and career; he expressed resentment of Tolstoy's moralizing aesthetics and failed to produce a monograph or an essay about the Russian novelist. Nonetheless, Tolstoy's role was consequential: he provided Rilke with an anti-model for living and writing. After years of anxiety and indecision, Rilke became reconciled with Tolstoy in the fictional images of his novel Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge. Maxim Gorky's literary memoirs helped him articulate those feelings more precisely, and only as an established writer was Rilke able to find a compromise between his filial affection for Tolstoy the artist and his rejection of Tolstoy the preacher.