Rainer Maria Rilke
Prague, the capital of Bohemia in 1875, witnessed the birth of René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke. His mother Sophie Entz treated her only son as a substitute for an infant daughter who had died just one week after being born. She dressed him in fine clothes and played with him like a big doll during his early years. This dynamic created a childhood that was not always happy for the boy who would become Austria's most famous poet. The relationship between Phia and her son remained colored by this mourning until their marriage ended in 1884.
His parents enrolled the talented youth in a military academy at Sankt Pölten in Lower Austria. He attended classes from 1886 until 1891 but left due to illness. He then moved to Linz and entered a trade school where he lived with Hans Drouot at Graben 19 on the third floor. Expelled in May 1892, the sixteen-year-old returned to Prague. For three years he was tutored for the university entrance exam which he passed in 1895. He took classes in literature art history and philosophy in Prague until 1896 when he left school and moved to Munich.
In the summer of 1902 Rilke traveled to Paris to write a monograph on the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Before long his wife Clara Westhoff joined him there after leaving their daughter Ruth with her parents. At first Rilke had a difficult time in Paris an experience he later used in the first part of his only novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. His encounter with modernism proved very stimulating as he became deeply involved with the sculpture of Rodin and then the work of Paul Cézanne.
For a time he acted as Rodin's secretary while also lecturing and writing a long essay on Rodin and his work. Rodin taught him the value of objective observation under this influence. Rilke dramatically transformed his poetic style from the subjective and sometimes incantatory language of his earlier work into something quite new in European literature. The result was the New Poems famous for its thing-poems expressing his rejuvenated artistic vision. During these years Paris increasingly became the writer's main residence.
Between October 1911 and May 1912 Rilke stayed at Castle Duino near Trieste home of Princess Marie of Thurn und Taxis. There in 1912 he began the poem cycle called the Duino Elegies which would remain unfinished for a decade because of a long-lasting creativity crisis. He had developed an admiration for El Greco as early as 1908 so he visited Toledo during the winter of 1912/13 to see his paintings. It has been suggested that El Greco's manner of depicting angels influenced the conception of the angel in the Duino Elegies.
The outbreak of World War I surprised Rilke during a stay in Germany. He spent the greater part of the war in Munich after being unable to return to Paris where his property was confiscated and auctioned. From 1914 to 1916 he had a turbulent affair with the painter Lou Albert-Lasard. He was called up at the beginning of 1916 and had to undertake basic training in Vienna. Influential friends interceded on his behalf and he was transferred to the War Records Office and discharged from the military on the 9th of June 1916. The traumatic experience of military service almost completely silenced him as a poet.
On the 11th of June 1919 Rilke traveled from Munich to Switzerland to escape post-war chaos and take up his work on the Duino Elegies once again. Among other places he lived in Soglio Locarno and Berg am Irchel. It was only in mid-1921 that he found a permanent residence in the Château 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 February 1922.
Before and after this period Rilke rapidly wrote both parts of the poem cycle Sonnets to Orpheus containing 55 entire sonnets. Together these two have often been taken as constituting the high points of Rilke's work. In May 1922 Rilke's patron Werner Reinhart bought and renovated Muzot so that Rilke could live there rent-free. During this time Reinhart introduced Rilke to his protégée the Australian violinist Alma Moodie who played mostly Bach.
In 1929 writer Franz Xaver Kappus published a collection of ten letters that Rilke had written to him over the course of six years. The correspondence began when Kappus was a nineteen-year-old officer cadet studying at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. Between 1902 and 1908 the young Kappus had written Rilke when he was uncertain about his future as a military officer or as a poet. Initially he sought Rilke's advice as to the quality of his poetry and whether he ought to pursue writing as a career.
While he declined to comment much on Kappus's writings Rilke advised Kappus on how a poet should feel love and seek truth in trying to understand and experience the world around him. These letters offer insight into the ideas and themes that appear in Rilke's poetry and his working process. They were written during a key period of Rilke's early artistic development after his reputation as a poet began to be established with the publication of parts of Das Stunden-Buch and Das Buch der Bilder.
Rilke supported the Russian Revolution in 1917 as well as the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He became friends with Ernst Toller and mourned the deaths of Rosa Luxemburg Kurt Eisner and Karl Liebknecht. He confided that of the five or six newspapers he read daily those on the far left came closest to his own opinions. He developed a reputation for supporting left-wing causes and thus out of fear for his own safety became more reticent about politics after the Bavarian Republic was crushed by the right-wing Freikorps.
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. This contradiction between his earlier support for left-wing revolutions and his later praise of fascism remains one of the most controversial aspects of his political views. The source notes that some critics have called him a friend of the Fascists while others highlight his mourning of socialist leaders like Rosa Luxemburg.
Rilke is one of the best-selling poets in the United States where his work has been quoted and referenced in television shows motion pictures music and other works when these works discuss the subject of love or angels. His work is often described as mystical and has been quoted and referenced by self-help authors who reinterpret him as a master who can lead us to a more fulfilled and less anxious life. British poet W. H. Auden has been described as Rilke's most influential English disciple and frequently paid homage to him using the imagery of angels in his work.
His influence extends to several poets and writers including William H. Gass Galway Kinnell Sidney Keyes Stephen Spender Robert Bly W. S. Merwin John Ashbery novelist Thomas Pynchon and philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. The U.S. rock music band Rainer Maria was named after him. In 1950 her Correspondence in Verse with Rilke was published and received much praise regarding his collaboration with Mitterer which remains the only time he had a productive poetic collaboration throughout all his work.
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Common questions
When and where was Rainer Maria Rilke born?
Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague, the capital of Bohemia, on the 4th of December 1875. His mother Sophie Entz treated him as a substitute for an infant daughter who had died just one week after being born.
What major life events shaped Rainer Maria Rilke's early education and career path?
Rilke attended a military academy at Sankt Pölten from 1886 until 1891 but left due to illness before entering a trade school in Linz. He returned to Prague in May 1892 to prepare for university entrance exams which he passed in 1895 and later moved to Munich in 1896 to study literature art history and philosophy.
How did Rainer Maria Rilke's time in Paris influence his poetic style and work?
During his stay in Paris starting in the summer of 1902 Rilke acted as Auguste Rodin's secretary and developed a new objective observation technique that transformed his poetry into the New Poems. This period also saw him become deeply involved with the sculpture of Rodin and the work of Paul Cézanne while writing The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
When and where did Rainer Maria Rilke complete the Duino Elegies?
Rilke began the poem cycle called the Duino Elegies between October 1911 and May 1912 at Castle Duino near Trieste home of Princess Marie of Thurn und Taxis. He completed the elegies in several weeks during February 1922 after finding permanent residence in the Château de Muzot in Veyras close to Sierre in Valais.
What is the significance of the letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Xaver Kappus?
The correspondence between Rainer Maria Rilke and Franz Xaver Kappus spans from 1902 to 1908 when Kappus was a nineteen-year-old officer cadet studying at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. These ten letters offer insight into Rilke's ideas on how a poet should feel love and seek truth while appearing as a key period of his early artistic development following the publication of Das Stunden-Buch and Das Buch der Bilder.