Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke redirects here. For other uses, see Rilke (disam-

biguation).

Ren Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 De-

cember 1875 29 December 1926)better known as
Rainer Maria Rilke (German: [an maia lk])
was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, widely rec-
ognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-
language poets,[1] writing in both verse and highly lyrical
prose. Several critics have described Rilkes work as in-
herently mystical.[2][3] His writings include one novel,
several collections of poetry, and several volumes of cor-
respondence in which he invokes haunting images that fo-
cus on the diculty of communion with the ineable in
an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety. These
deeply existential themes tend to position him as a tran-
sitional gure between the traditional and the modernist
writers.
Rilke was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, trav-
elled extensively throughout Europe, including Russia,
Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and in his later years set-
tled in Switzerlandsettings that were key to the gene-
sis and inspiration for many of his poems. While Rilke
is most known for his contributions to German litera-
ture, over 400 poems were originally written in French
and dedicated to the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Rilke, three years old, circa 18781879
Among English-language readers, his best-known works
include the poetry collections Duino Elegies (Duineser
Elegien) and Sonnets to Orpheus (Die Sonette an Orpheus),
the semi-autobiographical novel The Notebooks of Malte
Laurids Brigge (Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids
Brigge), and a collection of ten letters that was published
after his death under the title Letters to a Young Poet father, Josef Rilke (18381906), became a railway of-
(Briefe an einen jungen Dichter). In the later 20th cen- cial after an unsuccessful military career. His mother,
tury, his work has found new audiences through its use Sophie (Phia) Entz (18511931), came from a well-to-
by New Age theologians and self-help authors,[4][5][6] and do Prague family, the Entz-Kinzelbergers, who lived in
through frequent quoting in television programs, books a house on the Herrengasse (Pansk) 8, where Ren also
and motion pictures.[7] In the United States, Rilke re- spent many of his early years. The relationship between
mains among the more popular, best-selling poets.[8] Phia and her only son was colored by her mourning for
an earlier child, a daughter who had died only one week
old. During Rilkes early years Phia acted as if she sought
to recover the lost girl through the boy by dressing him
1 Biography in girls clothing.[9] His parents marriage failed in 1884.
His parents pressured the poetically and artistically tal-
1.1 Early life (18751896) ented youth into entering a military academy, which he
attended from 1886 until 1891, when he left owing to
He was born Ren Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria illness. From 1892 to 1895 he was tutored for the uni-
Rilke in Prague, capital of Bohemia (then part of Austria- versity entrance exam, which he passed in 1895. Until
Hungary, now part of the Czech Republic). His child- 1896 he studied literature, art history, and philosophy in
hood and youth in Prague were not especially happy. His Prague[10] and Munich.

1
2 1 BIOGRAPHY

1.2 Munich and Saint Petersburg

In 1897 in Munich, Rainer Maria Rilke met and fell in

love with the widely travelled, intellectual woman of let-
ters Lou Andreas-Salom. Rilke changed his rst name
from Ren" to Rainer at Lous urging because she
thought that name to be more masculine, forceful, and
Germanic.[11] His relationship with this married woman,
with whom he undertook two extensive trips to Russia,
lasted until 1900. But even after their separation, Lou
continued to be Rilkes most important condante until
the end of his life. Having trained from 1912 to 1913
as a psychoanalyst with Sigmund Freud, she shared her
knowledge of psychoanalysis with Rilke.
In 1898, Rilke undertook a journey lasting several weeks
to Italy. In 1899, he travelled with Lou and her husband,
Friedrich Andreas, to Moscow where he met the novel-
ist Leo Tolstoy. Between May and August 1900, a sec-
ond journey to Russia, accompanied only by Lou, again
took him to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where he met
the family of Boris Pasternak and Spiridon Drozhzhin,
a peasant poet. Author Anna A. Tavis cites the cultures
of Bohemia and Russia as the key inuences on Rilkes
poetry and consciousness.[12] Paula Modersohn-Becker (18761907), an early expressionist
In 1900, Rilke stayed at the artists colony at Worpswede. painter, became acquainted with Rilke in Worpswede and Paris,
(Later, his portrait would be painted by the proto- and painted his portrait in 1906.
expressionist Paula Modersohn-Becker, whom he got to
know at Worpswede.) It was here that he got to know the
sion. During these years, Paris increasingly became the
sculptor Clara Westho, whom he married the following
writers main residence.
year. Their daughter Ruth (19011972) was born in De-
cember 1901. The most important works of the Paris period were Neue
Gedichte (New Poems) (1907), Der Neuen Gedichte An-
derer Teil (Another Part of the New Poems) (1908), the
1.3 Paris (19021910) two Requiem poems (1909), and the novel The Note-
books of Malte Laurids Brigge, started in 1904 and com-
In the summer of 1902, Rilke left home and travelled pleted in January 1910.
to Paris to write a monograph on the sculptor Auguste During the later part of this decade, Rilke spent ex-
Rodin. Before long his wife left their daughter with her tended periods in Ronda, the famous bullghting centre
parents and joined Rilke there. The relationship between in southern Spain. There he kept from December 1912
Rilke and Clara Westho continued for the rest of his life; to February 1913 a permanent room at the Hotel Reina
a mutually agreed-upon eort at divorce was bureaucrat- Victoria[13][14] (built in 1906) where his room remains to
ically hindered by Rilkes ocial status as a Catholic, this day as he left it, a mini-museum of Rilkeana. The
though a non-practising one. hotel was recently renovated and the poets room is no
At rst, Rilke had a dicult time in Paris, an experience longer even marked. The furniture and personal eects
that he called on in the rst part of his only novel, The are now relegated to a glassed-in niche near the hotel spa,
Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. At the same time, his but out on the terrace Rilke is commemorated by a bronze
encounter with modernism was very stimulating: Rilke statue.
became deeply involved in the sculpture of Rodin, and
then with the work of Paul Czanne. For a time, he acted
as Rodins secretary, also lecturing and writing a long es- 1.4 Duino and the First World War (1911
say on Rodin and his work. Rodin taught him the value 1919)
of objective observation, and under this inuence, Rilke
dramatically transformed his poetic style from the sub- Between October 1911 and May 1912, Rilke stayed at
jective and sometimes incantatory language of his ear- the Castle Duino, near Trieste, home of Princess Marie
lier work into something quite new in European liter- of Thurn und Taxis. There, in 1912, he began the poem
ature. The result was the New Poems, famous for the cycle called the Duino Elegies, which would remain un-
thing-poems expressing Rilkes rejuvenated artistic vi- nished for a decade because of a long-lasting creativity
1.6 Death and burial
Duino Castle near Trieste, Italy, was where Rilke began writing
the Duino Elegies in 1912recounting that he heard the famous
rst line as a voice in the wind while walking along the clis and
that he wrote it quickly in his notebook.
crisis. Rilke had developed an admiration for El Greco as
early as 1908, so he visited Toledo during the winter of
1912/13 to see Grecos paintings. It has been suggested
that Grecos manner of depicting angels has inuenced
the conception of the angel in the Duino Elegies.[15] The
outbreak of World War I surprised Rilke during a stay
in Germany. He was unable to return to Paris, where
his property was conscated and auctioned. He spent the
greater part of the war in Munich. From 1914 to 1916 he
had a turbulent aair with the painter Lou Albert-Lasard.
Rilke was called up at the beginning of 1916, and he had
to undertake basic training in Vienna. Inuential friends
interceded on his behalf, and he was transferred to the
War Records Oce and discharged from the military on
9 June 1916. He spent the subsequent time once again
in Munich, interrupted by a stay on Hertha Koenig's Gut
Bockel in Westphalia. The traumatic experience of mil-
itary service, a reminder of the horrors of the military
academy, almost completely silenced him as a poet.
1.5 Switzerland and Muzot (19191926)
Chteau de Muzot in Veyras, Switzerland, was where Rilke com-
pleted writing the Duino Elegies in a savage creative storm in
February 1922.
On 11 June 1919, Rilke traveled from Munich to Switzer- Rilke had chosen as his own epitaph this poem:
3
land. The outward motive was an invitation to lecture in
Zurich, but the real reason was the wish to escape the
post-war chaos and take up his work on the Duino Elegies
once again. The search for a suitable and aordable place
to live proved to be very dicult. Among other places,
Rilke lived in Soglio, Locarno, and Berg am Irchel. Only
in mid-1921 was he able to nd a permanent residence in
the Chteau de Muzot in the commune of Veyras, close
to Sierre in Valais. In an intense creative period, Rilke
completed the Duino Elegies in several weeks in Febru-
ary 1922. Before and after, Rilke rapidly wrote both parts
of the poem cycle Sonnets to Orpheus containing 55 en-
tire sonnets. Both works together have often been taken
as constituting the high points of Rilkes work. In May
1922, Rilkes patron Werner Reinhart bought and reno-
vated Muzot so that Rilke could live there rent-free.[16]
During this time, Reinhart introduced Rilke to his pro-
tge, the Australian violinist Alma Moodie.[17] Rilke
was so impressed with her playing that he wrote in a let-
ter: What a sound, what richness, what determination.
That and the Sonnets to Orpheus, those were two strings
of the same voice. And she plays mostly Bach! Muzot
has received its musical christening...[17][18][19]
From 1923 on, Rilke increasingly had to struggle with
health problems that necessitated many long stays at a
sanatorium in Territet, near Montreux, on Lake Geneva.
His long stay in Paris between January and August 1925
was an attempt to escape his illness through a change in
location and living conditions. Despite this, numerous
important individual poems appeared in the years 1923
1926 (including Gong and Mausoleum), as well as the
abundant lyrical work in French.
In 1924 Erika Mitterer began writing poems to Rilke,
who wrote back with approximately fty poems of his
own, and called her verse a Herzlandschaft (landscape
of the heart).[20] This was the only time Rilke had a pro-
ductive poetic collaboration throughout all his work.[21]
Mitterer also visited Rilke.[22] In 1950 her Correspon-
dence in Verse with Rilke was published, and received
much praise.[23]
In January and February 1926 Rilke wrote three letters
to the Mussolini-adversary Aurelia Gallarati Scotti, in
which he praised Benito Mussolini and described fascism
as a healing agent.[24][25][26]
1.6 Death and burial
Shortly before his death Rilkes illness was diagnosed
as leukemia. He suered ulcerous sores in his mouth,
pain troubled his stomach and intestines, and he struggled
with increasingly low spirits.[27] Open-eyed, he died in the
arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926 in the Valmont
Sanatorium in Switzerland. He was buried on 2 January
1927 in the Raron cemetery to the west of Visp.[27]
4 2 WRITINGS

Rilke addresses existential themes, profoundly probing

the quest for individuality, the signicance of death, and
reection on the experience of time as death approaches.
Rilke draws considerably on the writings of Nietzsche,
whose work he came to know through Lou-Andreas Sa-
lome. His work also incorporates impressionistic tech-
niques that were inuenced by the painter Czanne, and
sculptor Rodin (whose secretary Rilke was 19051906).
He combines these techniques and motifs to conjure im-
ages of mankinds anxiety and alienation in the face of an
increasingly scientic, industrial, reied world.

Rilkes grave in Raron, Switzerland

2.3 Duino Elegies

A myth developed surrounding his death and roses. It was See also: Duino Elegies
said: To honour a visitor, the Egyptian beauty Nimet
Eloui, Rilke gathered some roses from his garden. While Rilke began writing the elegies in 1912 while a guest
doing so, he pricked his hand on a thorn. This small of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis (18551934) at
wound failed to heal, grew rapidly worse, soon his en- Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. During
tire arm was swollen, and his other arm became aected this ten-year period, the elegies languished incomplete
as well, and so he died.[27] for long stretches of time as Rilke suered frequently
from severe depressionsome of which was caused by
the events of World War I and his conscripted military
2 Writings service. Aside from brief episodes of writing in 1913 and
1915, Rilke did not return to the work until a few years af-
ter the war ended. With a sudden, renewed inspiration
2.1 The Book of Hours writing in a frantic pace he described as a savage creative
stormhe completed the collection in February 1922
See also: The Book of Hours while staying at Chteau de Muzot in Veyras, in Switzer-
lands Rhone Valley. After their publication and his death
Rilke published the three complete cycles of poems that shortly thereafter, the Duino Elegies were quickly recog-
constitute The Book of Hours (Das Stunden-Buch) in nized by critics and scholars as Rilkes most important
[28][29]
April 1905. These poems explore the Christian search work.
for God and the nature of Prayer, using symbolism from The Duino Elegies are intensely religious, mystical po-
Saint Francis and Rilkes observation of Orthodox Chris- ems that weigh beauty and existential suering.[30] The
tianity during his travels in Russia in the early years of the poems employ a rich symbolism of angels and salvation
twentieth century. but not in keeping with typical Christian interpretations.
Rilke begins the rst elegy in an invocation of philosoph-
ical despair, asking: Who, if I cried out, would hear
2.2 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge me among the hierarchies of angels?" (Wer, wenn ich
schriee, hrte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?)[31]
See also: The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge and later declares that every angel is terrifying (Jeder
Engel ist schrecklich).[32] While labelling of these po-
Rilke wrote his only novel, Die Aufzeichnungen des Mal- ems as elegies would typically imply melancholy and
te Laurids Brigge (translated as The Notebooks of Malte lamentation, many passages are marked by their posi-
Laurids Brigge), while living in Paris and completed the tive energy and unrestrained enthusiasm.[28] Together,
work in 1910. The novel is semi-autobiographical, and the Duino Elegies are described as a metamorphosis of
he adopts the style and technique that became associ- Rilkes "ontological torment and an impassioned mono-
ated with the Expressionism that entered European c- logue about coming to terms with human existence dis-
tion and art in the early 20th century. Rilke was in- cussing themes of the limitations and insuciency of
spired by Sigbjrn Obstfelder's work A Priests Diary and the human condition and fractured human consciousness
Jens Peter Jacobsen's second novel Niels Lyhne (1880) ... mans loneliness, the perfection of the angels, life and
which traces the fate of an atheist in a merciless world. death, love and lovers, and the task of the poet.[33]
 5

2.4 Sonnets to Orpheus

See also: Sonnets to Orpheus

With news of the death of his daughters friend, Wera

Knoop (19001919), Rilke was inspired to create and set
to work on Sonnets to Orpheus.[34] Within a few days, be-
tween 2 February and 5 February 1922, he had completed
the rst section of 26 sonnets. For the next few days,
he focused on the Duino Elegies, completing them on the
evening of 11 February. Immediately after, he returned
to work on the Sonnets and completed the following sec-
tion of 29 sonnets in less than two weeks. Throughout the
Sonnets, Wera appears in frequent references to her both
direct where he addresses her by name and indirect as
allusions to a dancer or the mythical Eurydice.[35] Al-
though Rilke claimed that the entire cycle was inspired by
Wera, she appears as a character in only one of the poems.
He insisted, however, that Weras own gure [...] never-
theless governs and moves the course of the whole.[36]
The content of the sonnets is, as is typical of Rilke, highly
metaphorical. The character of Orpheus (whom Rilke
refers to as the god with the lyre[37] ) appears several
times in the cycle, as do other mythical characters such
as Daphne. There are also biblical allusions, including a Letters to a Young Poet, cover of the 1934 edition
reference to Esau. Other themes involve animals, peoples
of dierent cultures, and time and death.
3 Rilkes literary style
Figures from Greek mythology (e.g. Apollo, Hermes,
Orpheus) recur as motifs in his poems and are depicted in
original interpretations (e.g. in the poem Orpheus. Eury-
2.5 Letters to a Young Poet dice. Hermes, Rilkes Eurydice, numbed and dazed by
death, does not recognize her lover Orpheus, who de-
scended to hell to recover her). Other recurring gures
See also: Letters to a Young Poet in Rilkes poems are angels, roses and a character of a
poet and his creative work.
In 1929, a minor writer, Franz Xaver Kappus (1883 Rilke often worked with metaphors, metonymy and
1966), published a collection of ten letters that Rilke had contradictions (e.g. in his epitaph, the rose is a symbol
written to him when he was a 19-year-old ocer cadet of sleep rose petals are reminiscent of closed eyelids).
studying at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener
Neustadt. The young Kappus wrote to Rilke, who had Rilkes little-known 1898 poem, Visions of Christ
also attended the academy, between 1902 and 1908 when depicted Mary Magdalene as the mother to Jesus
he was uncertain about his future career as a military of- child.[39][40]
cer or as a poet. Initially, he sought Rilkes advice as Quoting Susan Haskins: It was Rilkes explicit belief that
to the quality of his poetry, and whether he ought to pur- Christ was not divine, was entirely human, and deied
sue writing as a career. While he declined to comment only on Calvary, expressed in an unpublished poem of
on Kappuss writings, Rilke advised Kappus on how a 1893, and referred to in other poems of the same period,
poet should feel, love, and seek truth in trying to under- which allowed him to portray Christs love for Mary Mag-
stand and experience the world around him and engage dalen, though remarkable, as entirely human.[41]
the world of art. These letters oer insight into the ideas
and themes that appear in Rilkes poetry and his working
process. Further, these letters were written during a key 3.1 Legacy
period of Rilkes early artistic development after his rep-
utation as a poet began to be established with the publi- In the United States, Rilke is one of the more pop-
cation of parts of Das Stunden-Buch (The Book of Hours) ular, best-selling poetsalong with 13th-century Su
and Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images).[38] mystic Rumi (12071273), and 20th-century Lebanese-
6 4 WORKS
A portrait of Rilke painted two years after his death by Leonid
Pasternak
American poet Khalil Gibran (18831931).[8] In popular
culture, Rilke is frequently quoted or referenced in tele-
vision programs, motion pictures, music and other works
when these works discuss the subject of love or angels.[42]
His work is often described as mystical, and it has also
been appropriated for use by the New Age community
and in self-help books.[4] Rilke has been reinterpreted as
a master who can lead us to a more fullled and less anx-
ious life.[5][43]
Rilkes work, and specically, the Duino Elegies have 4.3 Prose collections
been claimed as a deep inuence by several poets
and writers, including William H. Gass,[44] Galway Kin-
nell,[45] Sidney Keyes,[46][47] Stephen Spender,[29] Robert
Bly,[29][48] W. S. Merwin,[49] John Ashbery,[50] novelist
Thomas Pynchon[51] and philosophers Ludwig Wittgen-
[52] [53][54]
stein and Hans-Georg Gadamer. British poet W.
H. Auden (19071973) has been described as Rilkes
most inuential English disciple and he frequently paid
homage to him or used the imagery of angels in his
work.[55]
4 Works
4.1 Complete works
Rainer Maria Rilke, Smtliche Werke in 12 Bn-
den (Complete Works in 12 Volumes), published
by Rilke Archive in association with Ruth Sieber-
Rilke, edited by Ernst Zinn. Frankfurt am Main
(1976)
Rainer Maria Rilke, Werke (Works). Annotated edi-
tion in four volumes with supplementary fth vol-
ume, published by Manfred Engel, Ulrich Flleborn,
Dorothea Lauterbach, Horst Nalewski and August
Stahl. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig (1996 and
2003)
4.2 Volumes of poetry
Leben und Lieder (Life and Songs) (1894)
Larenopfer (Lares' Sacrice) (1895)
Traumgekrnt (Dream-Crowned) (1897)
Advent (Advent) (1898)
Das Stunden-Buch (The Book of Hours)
Das Buch vom mnchischen Leben (The Book
of Monastic Life) (1899)
Das Buch von der Pilgerschaft (The Book of
Pilgrimage) (1901)
Geldbaum (1901)
Das Buch von der Armut und vom Tode (The
Book of Poverty and Death) (1903)
Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images) (4 parts,
19021906)
Neue Gedichte (New Poems) (1907)
Duineser Elegien (Duino Elegies) (1922)
Sonette an Orpheus (Sonnets to Orpheus) (1922)
Geschichten vom Lieben Gott (Stories of God) (Col-
lection of tales, 1900)
Auguste Rodin (1903)
Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph
Rilke (The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet
Christoph Rilke) (Lyric story, 1906)
Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (The
Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge) (Novel, 1910)
4.4 Letters
Collected letters
Gesammelte Briefe in sechs Bnden (Collected Letters
in Six Volumes), published by Ruth Sieber-Rilke and
Carl Sieber. Leipzig (19361939)

Briefe (Letters), published by the Rilke Archive in
Weimar. Two volumes, Wiesbaden (1950, reprinted
1987 in single volume).
Briefe in Zwei Bnden (Letters in Two Volumes)
(Horst Nalewski, Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1991)
Other volumes of letters
Briefe an Auguste Rodin (Insel Verlag, 1928)
Briefwechsel mit Marie von Thurn und Taxis, two
volumes, edited by Ernst Zinn with a forward by
Rudolf Kassner (Editions Max Niehans, 1954)
Briefwechsel mit Thankmar von Mnchhausen 1913
bis 1925 (Suhrkamp Insel Verlag, 2004)
Briefwechsel mit Rolf von Ungern-Sternberg und
weitere Dokumente zur bertragung der Stances von
Jean Moras (Suhrkamp Insel Verlag, 2002)
5 See also
Baladine Klossowska
Rainer Maria Rilke Foundation in Sierre, Switzer-
land
6 References
[1] Biography: Rainer Maria Rilke 18751926 on the Poetry
Foundation website. Retrieved 2 February 2013.
[2] See Mller, Hans Rudolf. Rainer Maria Rilke als Mys-
tiker: Bekenntnis und Lebensdeutung in Rilkes Dichtun-
gen (Berlin: Furche 1935). See also Stanley, Patricia
H. Rilkes Duino Elegies: An Alternative Approach to
the Study of Mysticism in Heep, Hartmut (editor). Un-
reading Rilke: Unorthodox Approaches to a Cultural Myth
(New York: Peter Lang 2000).
[3] Freedman, Ralph. Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke
(Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1998), p. 515.
[4] Komar, Kathleen L. Rilke: Metaphysics in a New
Age in Bauschinger, Sigrid and Cocalis, Susan.
Rilke-Rezeptionen: Rilke Reconsidered (Tbingen/Basel:
Franke, 1995), pp. 15569. Rilke reinterpreted as
a master who can lead us to a more fullled and less
anxious life.
[5] Komar, Kathleen L. Rethinking Rilkes Duisiner Elegien
at the End of the Millennium in Metzger, Erika A.
A Companion to the Works of Rainer Maria Rilke
(Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2004), pp. 188
89.
7
[6] See also: Mood, John. 'Rilke on Love and Other Dif-
culties (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975);
and a book released by Rilkes own publisher Insel Verlag,
Hauschild, Vera (ed.), Rilke fr Gestrete (Frankfurt am
Main: Insel-Verlag, 1998).
[7] Komar, Kathleen L. Rethinking Rilkes Duisiner Elegien
at the End of the Millennium in Metzger, Erika A.,
A Companion to the Works of Rainer Maria Rilke
(Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2004), 189.
[8] Komar, Kathleen L. Rilke in America: A Poet Re-
Created in Heep, Hartmut (editor). Unreading Rilke:
Unorthodox Approaches to a Cultural Myth (New York:
Peter Lang, 2000), pp. 15578.
[9] Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke at www.
washingtonpost.com
[10] Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke by Ralph Freed-
man, Northwestern University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8101-
1543-3, p. 36.
[11] Arana, R. Victoria (2008). The Facts on File Companion
to World Poetry: 1900 to the Present. Infobase. p. 377.
ISBN 978-0-8160-6457-1.
[12] Anna A. Tavis. Rilkes Russia: A Cultural Encounter.
Northwestern University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8101-
1466-6. p. 1.
[13] Mit Rilke in Ronda by Volker Mauersberger, Die Zeit,
11 February 1983 (German)
[14] Hotel Catalonia Reina Victoria, andalucia.com
[15] Fatima Naqvi-Peters. A Turning Point in Rilkes Evolu-
tion: The Experience of El Greco. The Germanic Review:
Literature, Culture, Theory, Vol. 72, Is. 4, pp. 344-362,
1997.
[16] Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke by Ralph Freed-
man, Northwestern University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8101-
1543-3, p. 505
[17] R. M. Rilke: Music as Metaphor
[18] Photo and description. Picture-poems.com. Retrieved
2012-06-07.
[19] Rainer Maria Rilke: a brief biographical overview.
Picture-poems.com. Retrieved 2012-06-07.
[20] Katrin Maria Kohl; Ritchie Robertson (2006). A History
of Austrian Literature 1918-2000. Camden House. pp.
130. ISBN 978-1-57113-276-5.
[21] Karen Leeder; Robert Vilain (21 January 2010). The
Cambridge Companion to Rilke. Cambridge University
Press. pp. 24. ISBN 978-0-521-87943-9.
[22] Rainer Maria Rilke; Robert Vilain; Susan Ranson (14
April 2011). Selected Poems: With Parallel German Text.
OUP Oxford. pp. 343. ISBN 978-0-19-956941-0.
[23] Erika Mitterer (2004). The prince of darkness. Ariadne
Press. p. 663. ISBN 978-1-57241-134-0.
8 6
[24] Rilke-Briefe: Nirgends ein Fhrer (German), Der
Spiegel (21/1957). 22 May 1957. Retrieved 28 January
2014.
[25] Elegien gegen die Angsttrume des Alltags by Hellmuth
Karasek (German). Der Spiegel (47/1981). 11 November
1981; Karasek calls Rilke a friend of the Fascists.
[26] Rainer Maria Rilke, Lettres Milanaises 19211926.
Edited by Rene Lang. Paris: Librairie Plon, 1956
[27] Excerpt from Reading Rilke Reections on the Prob-
lems of Translation by William H. Gass (1999) ISBN
0-375-40312-4; featured in The New York Times 2000.
Accessed 18 August 2010 (subscription required)
[28] Hoeniger, F. David. Symbolism and Pattern in Rilkes
Duino Elegies in German Life and Letters, Volume 3, Is-
sue 4 (July 1950), pp. 27183.
[29] Perlo, Marjorie, Reading Gass Reading Rilke in Par-
nassus: Poetry in Review, Volume 25, Number 1/2 (2001).
[30] Gass, William H. Reading Rilke: Reections on the Prob-
lems of Translation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
[31] Rilke, Rainer Maria. First Elegy from Duino Elegies,
line 1.
[32] Rilke, Rainer Maria. First Elegy from Duino Elegies,
line 6; Second Elegy, line 1.
[33] Dash, Bibhudutt. In the Matrix of the Divine: Ap-
proaches to Godhead in Rilkes Duino Elegies and Ten-
nysons In Memoriam in Language in India Volume 11
(11 November 2011), pp. 35571.
[34] Freedman, Ralph. Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria
Rilke (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press,
1998), p. 481.
[35] Sword, Helen. Engendering Inspiration: Visionary Strate-
gies in Rilke, Lawrence, and H.D. (Ann Arbor, Michigan:
University of Michigan Press, 1995), pp. 6870.
[36] Letter to Gertrud Ouckama Knoop, dated 20 April 1923;
quoted in Snow, Edward, trans. and ed., Sonnets to Or-
pheus by Rainer Maria Rilke, bilingual edition, New York:
North Point Press, 2004.
[37] Sonette an Orpheus, Erste Teil, XIX, v.8: Gott mit der
Leier
[38] Freedman, Ralph. Das Stunden-Buch and Das Buch der
Bilder: Harbingers of Rilkes Maturity in Metzger, Erika
A. and Metzger, Michael M. (editors). A Companion to
the Works of Rainer Maria Rilke. (Rochester, New York:
Camden House Publishing, 2001), 9092.
[39] Liza Knapp, Tsvetaevas Marine Mary Magdalene (The
Slavic and East European Journal, Volume 43, Number 4;
Winter, 1999).
[40] Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor
(Riverhead Trade; 1995).
[41] Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor, p.
361 (HarperCollins; 1993 ISBN 0-00-215535-4).
REFERENCES
[42] Komar, Kathleen L. Rethinking Rilkes Duisiner Elegien
at the End of the Millennium in Metzger, Erika A.
A Companion to the Works of Rainer Maria Rilke
(Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2004), p. 189.
[43] See also: Mood, John. Rilke on Love and Other Di-
culties (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975);
and a book released by Rilkes own publisher Insel Ver-
lag, Hauschild, Vera (editor). Rilke fr Gestrete (Frank-
furt am Main: Insel-Verlag, 1998).
[44] http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3576/
the-art-of-fiction-no-65-william-gass
[45] Malecka, Katarzyna. Death in the Works of Galway Kin-
nell (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2008), passim.
[46] Guenther, John. Sidney Keyes: A Biographical Enquiry
(London: London Magazine Editions, 1967), p. 153.
[47] Self-Elegy: Keith Douglas and Sidney Keyes (Chapter
9) in Kendall, Tim. Modern English War Poetry (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006).
[48] Metzger, Erika A. and Metzger, Michael M. Introduc-
tion in A Companion to the Works of Rainer Maria Rilke
(Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2004), p. 8.
[49] Perlo, Marjorie. Apocalypse Then: Merwin and the
Sorrows of Literary History in Nelson, Cary and Folsom,
Ed (eds). W. S. Merwin: Essays on the Poetry (University
of Illinois, 1987), p. 144.
[50] Perlo, Marjorie. Transparent Selves: The Poetry
of John Ashbery and Frank OHara, in Yearbook of
English Studies: American Literature Special Number
8(1978):17196, at p. 175.
[51] Robey, Christopher J. The Rainbow Bridge: On Pynchons
Use of Wittgenstein and Rilke (Olean, New York: St.
Bonaventure University, 1982).
[52] Perlo, Marjorie. Wittgensteins Ladder: Poetic Language
and the Strangeness of the Ordinary (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1996), passim. which points towards
Wittgensteins generous nancial gifts to Rilke among sev-
eral Austrian artists, although he prefer Rilkes earlier
works and was distressed by his post-war writings.
[53] Gadamer analyzed many of Rilkes themes and sym-
bols. See: Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Mythopoietische
Umkehrung im Rilkes Duisener Elegien" in Gesammelten
Werke, Band 9: sthetik und Poetik II Hermenutik im Vol-
lzug (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993), pp. 289305.
[54] Dworick, Stephanie. In the Company of Rilke: Why a
20th-Century Visionary Poet Speaks So Eloquently to 21st-
Century Readers (New York: Penguin, 2011).
[55] Cohn, Stephen (translator). Introduction in Rilke,
Rainer Maria. Duino Elegies: A Bilingual Edition
(Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press,
1989), pp. 1718. Quote: Auden, Rilkes most inu-
ential English disciple, frequently paid homage to him, as
in these lines which tell of the Elegies and of their dicult
and chancy genesis...
 9

7 Further reading 8 External links

7.1 Biographies Rainer Rilke and his Poem Black Cat

Works by Rainer Maria Rilke at Project Gutenberg

Corbett, Rachel, You Must Change Your Life: the
Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin, New
York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2016.
Freedman, Ralph, Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria
Rilke, New York, 1996.
Prater, Donald, A Ringing Glass: The Life of Rainer
Maria Rilke, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Tapper, Mirjam, Resa med Rilke, Mita bokfrlag.
Torgersen, Eric, Dear Friend: Rainer Maria Rilke
and Paula Modersohn-Becker, Northwestern Uni-
versity Press, 1998.
Works by or about Rainer Maria Rilke at Internet
Archive
Works by Rainer Maria Rilke at LibriVox (public
domain audiobooks)
Publications by and about Rainer Maria Rilke in the
catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library
Literary estate of Rainer Maria Rilke. Helveti-
cArchives. Swiss National Library.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Prole at Poets.org

International Rilke Society (German)

7.2 Critical studies
Panther - English Translation
Engel, Manfred and Lauterbach, Dorothea (ed.),
Rilke Handbuch: Leben Werk Wirkung, Stuttgart:
Metzler, 2004.
Erika, A and Metzger, Michael, A Companion to the
Works of Rainer Maria Rilke, Rochester, 2001.
Gass, William H. Reading Rilke: Reections on the
Problems of Translation, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
Goldsmith, Ulrich, ed., Rainer Maria Rilke, a verse
concordance to his complete lyrical poetry. Leeds:
W. S. Maney, 1980.
Hutchinson, Ben. Rilkes Poetics of Becoming, Ox-
ford: Legenda, 2006.
Leeder, Karen, and Robert Vilain (eds), The Cam-
bridge Companion to Rilke. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-521-70508-0
Mood, John, A New Reading of Rilkes Elegies":
Arming the Unity of life-and-death Lewiston,
NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7734-
3864-4.
Numerous contributors, A Reconsideration of
Rainer Maria Rilke, Agenda poetry magazine, vol.
42 nos. 34, 2007. ISBN 978-0-902400-83-2.
Pechota Vuilleumier, Cornelia, Heim und Unheim-
lichkeit bei Rainer Maria Rilke und Lou Andreas-
Salom. Literarische Wechselwirkungen. Olms,
Hildesheim, 2010. ISBN 978-3-487-14252-4
Ryan, Judith. Rilke, Modernism, and Poetic Tra-
dition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999.
Schwarz, Egon, Poetry and Politics in the Works of
Rainer Maria Rilke. Frederick Ungar, 1981. ISBN
978-0-8044-2811-8.
10 9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

9 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1 Text
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panizzi, Nk, , Saluyot, Philip Cross, Malo, Ksnow, Ghirlandajo, WojciechSwiderski~enwiki, Japanese Searobin, Rodii,
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bot~enwiki, Cherubino, Themanwithoutapast, Revolving Bugbear, Russavia, Chobot, Gdrbot, Bgwhite, EamonnPKeane, YurikBot, Wave-
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AndreasJS, Mjolnir1984, Chris the speller, Dahn, Sadads, LawTree, Colonies Chris, Mkamensek, H Bruthzoo, George Ho, Jwillbur, Steven-
mitchell, Tsop, Mytwocents, Tapered, Maelnuneb, Frailgesture, Curly Turkey, Maxwellsteer, SashatoBot, Esrever, Ser Amantio di Nicolao,
Nareek, John, Michael Bednarek, Peter Horn, Liddell, Christian Roess, Ptelea, Dekaels~enwiki, Jetman, Shoeofdeath, GiantSnowman,
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Bolekpolivka, JustAGal, Escarbot, Calaka, AntiVandalBot, Mazziar, Seaphoto, Jared Hunt, Modernist, Ekabhishek, Dsp13, Lifthrasir1,
Wiki Tikki Tembo, Smerdis, Rowdymouse, SiobhanHansa, MartinDK, Clivestaples, Feeeshboy, Jhlong12648, Catgut, Ekki01, Iamg, Bir-
donarock, Ugajin, R'n'B, CommonsDelinker, DBlomgren, Malduf, J.delanoy, DandyDan2007, Sneha.kumar, Hlaufman, Libroman, Gorka
alustiza~enwiki, Serge925, Sparafucil, Dr Christopher Heathcote, Eric.teusink, Deor, VolkovBot, John mood, Lestrygonian, TXiKiBoT,
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pher, Ezgeta, Billinghurst, Djgrefrath, Timsmind, Thomasmotion, Richardkallen, Jmood, SalomonCeb, SieBot, BotMultichill, Kuebiko,
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Wilhelminaslater717, RCFrancis, ArthurBot, LilHelpa, SophiaKD, Xqbot, Daliesque, Omnipaedista, Yogurtyurt, Green Cardamom, Oak-
tree19, Thepue, Anna Roy, Bozman78, Sineokov, Yeshua Tolle, AstaBOTh15, Tomcat7, RedBot, Lovingwhatis, MilCivHR, Jauhienij,
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odmatt, Contre-boutant-ex, John of Reading, WikitanvirBot, Carlotm, 2fennario, Solarra, Ragmah, Mpaix, Heleneannette, Mjbmrbot,
Paul Brussel, MichelleSkylark, ClueBot NG, Helpful Pixie Bot, Wikitonykline, Neptunes Trident, MickeyDonald, Alainjoseph, Jepe-BP1,
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Thomasjones1, Julie Burns and Anonymous: 336

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