Rilke, Rainer Maria 1875-1926
Austrian lyric poet

Born in Prague, he left his military academy to study art history in Prague, Munich and Berlin. His early works include Vom lieben Gott und Anderes (1900, Eng trans Stories of God, 1931) and Das Stundenbuch (1905, Eng trans Poems from the Book of Hours, 1941), written after two journeys to Russia (1899-1900), where he met Leo Tolstoy and was influenced by Russian Pietism. In 1901 he married Klara Westhoff, a pupil of Auguste Rodin, whose secretary Rilke became in Paris, publishing Auguste Rodin (1903, Eng trans 1919). He also wrote Neue Gedichte (1907, 1908, 'New Poems') and Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (1910, Eng trans Journal of My Other Self, 1930), a key text of existentialism which prefigured such works as Jean-Paul Sartre's La Naus�e. In 1923 he wrote his two major works, Die Sonnette an Orpheus (Eng trans Sonnets to Orpheus, 1936) and Duineser Elegien (Eng trans Duino Elegies, 1939). He is one of the most important figures in modern European literature.

Bibliography: J F Hendry, The Sacred Threshold (1983)