Warbler Press Contemplations

Emily Dickinson's poems are characterized by an unmatched emotional and intellectual intensity that is cast into direct and accessible language of unusual brevity and grace. Some of her poems run for only a few lines but they survey the entire cosmos of human experience, including life and death, solitude and society, morality and nature. Many of her 1,775 poems are devoted to love, which Dickinson expressed from the position of the lover, the beloved, and the poet who marvels how love transports and transforms us. This selection gathers Dickinson's thrillingly unique poetry about the central animating experience of our lives.

Friedrich Nietzsche presented many of his greatest insights in pithy, well-turned short phrases that do not follow any philosophical dogma. Instead, his chastening but ultimately life-affirming philosophy puts forth true love and friendship as our best hope in dark times. Here are Nietzsche's key sayings about love from the vast body of his philosophical writings, which have influenced politics, philosophy, art and culture like few other works of world literature. As the first edition of its kind, this collection presents Nietzsche's thoughts on love not as academic philosophy but as a guide to life. At turns delightful and astute-and always wise-Nietzsche on Love offers an original and startling glimpse into what one of the world's foremost thinkers says about the fundamental experience of our lives.

Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry and letters have inspired countless readers around the world with their wisdom and insight into how we can be more than ourselves without recourse to religion, politics, or ideology: through the experiences of art and love. Gathered here for the first time in original translations are Rilke's candid, piercing, and lyrical reflections on love-the experience he considered paramount for human existence but also, with the exception of death, the event for which we are least prepared. Selected from Rilke's poetry and his vast correspondence, these passages present Rilke's contemplations on falling in love, being in love, losing love, and the mystical ways in which love endures.

Oscar Wilde was a legendary wit, a poetic provocateur, and one of England's greatest playwrights who became a martyr for free love, a scapegoat for repressive society, and a myth onto himself. Shimmering beneath the dazzling witticisms and delicious irony is Wilde's profound, serious, and unshakeable commitment to love. Love is the experience that can unmoor us from the habits, conventions, and expectations of our lives in both thrilling and unsettling ways. It is also, the thing that, like no other, inspires undreamed-of acts of courage. This edition combines Wilde's thoughts on love from his published writings with a selection of Wilde's letters to Lord Alfred Douglas ("Bosie") and a little-known letter from Douglas to Wilde.