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Rainer
Maria Rilke was born in Prague on December 4, 1875, the only
child of an unhappy marriage. Rilke's childhood was also unhappy;
his
parents placed him in military school with the desire that he
become an
officer*a position Rilke was not inclined to hold. With the help
of
his uncle, who realized that Rilke was a highly gifted child,
Rilke left
the military academy and entered a German preparatory school.
By
the
time he enrolled in Charles University in Prague in 1895, he knew
that
he would pursue a literary career: he had already published his
first
volume of poetry, Leben und Lieder, the previous year.
At the turn
of
1895-96, Rilke published his second collection, Larenopfer
(Sacrifice to
the Lares). A third collection, Traumgekrönt (Dream-Crowned)
followed in
1896. That same year, Rilke decided to leave the university for
Munich,
Germany, and later made his first trip to Italy.
In 1897, Rilke went to Russia, a trip that would prove to be a
milestone in Rilke's life, and which marked the true beginning of
his
early serious works. While there the young poet met Tolstoy, whose
influence is seen in Das Buch vom lieben Gott und anderes (Stories
of
God), and Leonid Pasternak, the nine-year-old Boris's father.
At
Worpswede, where Rilke lived for a time, he met and married Clara
Westhoff, who had been a pupil of Rodin. In 1902 he became the
friend,
and for a time the secretary, of Rodin, and it was during his
twelve-year Paris residence that Rilke enjoyed his greatest poetic
activity. His first great work, Das Stunden Buch (The Book of
Hours),
appeared in 1906, followed in 1907 by Neue Gedichte (New Poems)
and Die
Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (The Notebooks of Malte
Laurids Brigge). Rilke would continue to travel throughout his lifetime;
to
Italy, Spain and Egypt among many other places, but Paris would
serve as
the geographic center of his life, where he first began to develop
a new
style of lyrical poetry, influenced by the visual arts.
When World War I broke out, Rilke was obliged to leave France and
during the war he lived in Munich. In 1919 he went to Switzerland
where
he spent the last years of his life. It was here that he wrote his
last
two works, the Duino Elegies (1923) and the Sonnets to Orpheus
(1923). He died of leukemia on December 29, 1926. At the time of his death
his
work was intensely admired by many leading European artists, but
was
almost unknown to the general reading public. His reputation has
grown
steadily since his death, and he has come to be universally
regarded as
a master of verse. |
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There
are no classes in life for beginners;
right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.
Rainer
Maria Rilke |
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