Notes on the Melody of Things (original title, in German: Notizen zur Melodie der Dinge) is an 1898 text by the Austrian writer Rainer Maria Rilke.
He was influenced by his relationship with psychoanalyst and writer Lou Andreas-Salomé, a colleague and close companion of Friedrich Nietzsche who introduced Rilke to the philosopher's work, as well as a visit to Florence in 1898 in which he studied Renaissance painting.
[2] The piece was eventually published in the fifth volume of Rilke's collected works, between 1955 and 1966 in Frankfort and Wiesbaden.
Writer Damion Searls later translated the text into English for his anthology 2010 The Inner Sky: Poets, Notes, Dreams.
In the text, Rilke characterizes the world as the background of a medieval or Renaissance-era painting, glowing behind human figures.