Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, one of the most beloved and lyrically intense German-language poets of all time. Working at the cusp of the last century, Rilke bridged the gap between traditional and modernist poetics. Perhaps best known for the ten mystical poems that comprise The Duino Elegies (1923), Rilke weighed beauty with existential suffering, and his work deeply influenced poets of his own generation and those long after, including contemporary writers such as Galway Kinnell, Stephen Spender, and W. S. Merwin. Rilke died of leukemia in a sanatorium in Switzerland, where he is buried.
WORKS THAT HAVE APPEARED IN NARRATIVE:
- To Clara Rilke, Villa Discopoli, Capri, a feature, in Stories of the Week: 2019–2020
- The Rose Window, poetry, in Poems of the Week: 2012–2013