Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke, born René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke on December 4, 1875, and dying on December 29, 1926, was an Austrian poet. Critics and scholars see his work as marked by a mystical undercurrent, often digging into subjective experience and doubt. He is considered a major figure in German-language poetry, known for a distinctive and expressive style. His published works consist of one novel, several poetry collections, multiple volumes of letters, and a handful of early novellas.

Rilke’s early life was spent in Prague, then part of the Kingdom of Bohemia under Austria-Hungary. His father, Josef, worked as a railway official after a failed military career. His mother, Sophie “Phia” Entz, came from a wealthy Prague family. Her grief over an infant daughter who died within a week colored her relationship with her only son; she dressed him in fine clothes and treated him like a doll, as Rilke later recalled. His parents separated in 1884. Despite his artistic leanings, his parents sent him to a military academy in Sankt Pölten from 1886 to 1891, when he left due to illness. He then attended a trade school in Linz, living with publisher Hans Drouot. Expelled in May 1892, he returned to Prague, where he was tutored for three years and passed his university entrance exam in 1895. He studied literature, art history, and philosophy in Prague until 1896, when he moved to Munich.

In Munich in 1897, Rilke met Lou Andreas-Salomé, a well-traveled intellectual, and fell in love. At her urging, he changed his first name from René to Rainer, which she felt was more masculine and Germanic. Their relationship, which included two major trips to Russia, lasted until 1900. Even after they parted, she remained his closest confidante. She later trained as a psychoanalyst with Sigmund Freud and shared that knowledge with Rilke. In 1898, he traveled to Italy. The next year, he went with Lou and her husband to Moscow, meeting Leo Tolstoy. A second Russian trip with Lou alone in 1900 took him again to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where he met Boris Pasternak’s family and the peasant poet Spiridon Drozhzhin. The cultures of Bohemia and Russia are cited as key influences on his work.

In 1900, Rilke stayed at the Worpswede artists’ colony, where he met sculptor Clara Westhoff. They married in 1901, and their daughter Ruth was born that December. In summer 1902, Rilke moved to Paris to write a monograph on sculptor Auguste Rodin. Clara soon joined him, leaving their daughter with her parents. Though they remained married for life, a divorce was hindered by Rilke’s Catholic status, even though he was non-practicing. Paris was initially difficult for Rilke, an experience he drew on for his novel *The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge*. But the city’s modernism proved stimulating. He worked as Rodin’s secretary, lectured, and wrote an essay on Rodin. Rodin taught him objective observation, which transformed his poetic style into something new in European literature, resulting in the *New Poems* and their famous “thing-poems.” Paris became his main residence. In 1906, at Rodin’s studio, he met Sidonie Nádherná of Borutín, visiting her family estate in 1907 and again in 1910, where he wrote poems inspired by the place.

Rilke traveled widely across Europe, eventually settling in Switzerland, which inspired many poems. Though best known for his German work, he also wrote in French. His most famous works for English readers are the poetry collections *Duino Elegies* and *Sonnets to Orpheus*, the semi-autobiographical novel *The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge*, and the posthumously published *Letters to a Young Poet*. In the later 20th century, his work reached new audiences through citations by self-help authors and frequent references in television, books, and movies.