In this blog post, we will introduce Rainer Maria Rilke’s life and literary works in chronological order.

Birth, Family, and Early Education

Rainer Maria Rilke was born on December 4, 1875, in Prague. His father, Josef Rilke, was a former officer who retired due to illness and lived a diligent life working for a railway company; his mother, Sophie (or Pia), came from a family with ties to the Imperial Council and had a lavish and hedonistic personality. Rilke loved his father’s diligence and detested his mother’s frivolity. Due to these fundamental differences in their personalities, his parents divorced in 1884, when Rilke was nine years old.
Although Rilke was born seven months premature and had a frail constitution, he entered the Army Cadet School in St. Pötten in September 1886, at the age of eleven, in accordance with his father’s wishes. In September 1890, he entered the Military Academy in Mersich-Weißkirchen, but the collective and uniform military education did not suit his personality, and he was expelled the following year in June 1891.
The anguish he experienced during his time at the military academy was so intense that he later compared it to Dostoevsky’s ‘Notes from the House of the Dead’. In September of the same year he left the military academy, he enrolled at the University of Economics in Linz on the banks of the Danube, but was expelled in May of the following year due to a romantic scandal; it was around this time that he began his literary career. Subsequently, with the help of his uncle, he completed his high school curriculum through private tutoring and enrolled at Charles University in Prague in 1895, where he took courses in art history, literary history, history, and philosophy.

Early Works, Love Affairs, and the Munich Period

In 1894, he published his first collection of poems, ‘Life and Songs’. This collection consisted of poems inspired by his romance with Valerie von David-Roonfeld, the daughter of an Austrian artillery officer; she was older than Rilke and was an artistic and avant-garde woman. Rilke was once captivated by her charm and dedicated many love poems to her, but in later years he came to feel ashamed of these poems and never included them in his collected works again.
In September 1896, he moved to Munich and enrolled at the University of Munich, where, in the heart of the South German literary scene, he experienced the atmosphere of a major city and came into contact with the literary world for the first time. There, he met Scholz and Wassermann, as well as senior poets such as Detlef von Lilienkron and Richard Dehmel. Around this time, his second poetry collection, ‘Götzenbilder’ (Idols), and the prose collection ‘Weckwarden’ were published.
In May 1897, in Munich, he met Lou Andreas-Salomé, who would have a profound influence on Rilke’s life. She was once known as Nietzsche’s lover; she had a passionate relationship with Rilke, and even after their relationship ended, she became a friend on whom he relied emotionally for the rest of his life.

Travels to Russia and a Literary Turning Point

During his youth, Rilke matured into a distinctive poet through two trips to Russia. The first journey took place from late April to mid-June 1899, and the second from early May to late August 1900. On the first trip, he was accompanied by Lou and her husband; on the second, Lou traveled with him alone. On both occasions, he was able to meet Tolstoy, and through Russia’s nature, scenery, and people, he felt an infinite sense of foreboding, which deeply nurtured his quest for God. At the same time, he moved beyond his imitative phase and began to walk his own unique path.
Around this time, he published the poetry collection ‘To My Feast’ and the short story collection ‘Stories of God’, and completed Part 1 of ‘Poetic Works’, titled ‘Monastic Life’, based on his Russian experiences. “At My Festival” brings to a close his earlier imitative period, which had begun with the scenery of Prague, and reveals the poet’s fundamental emotions as expressed through nature, while “Monastic Life” powerfully conveys his deepened pursuit of God, shaped by his Russian experiences.

Life in Worpswede and Marriage

After returning from his second trip to Russia, Rilke visited Worpswede, an artists’ colony in northern Germany. There, where his friend, the young painter Heinrich Vogel, lived, he met the painter Paula Becker and the sculptor Clara Westhoff; the following year, in 1901, he married Clara Westhoff and settled down in Westerwede.
Shortly after his marriage, he wrote Part 1 of ‘Poems of the City’, titled “Pilgrimage,” and ‘Poems of the Image’. In “Pilgrimage,” his experiences in Russia are combined with quiet observations of life in Westerwede, revealing a pursuit of inner depth, while ‘Poems of the Image’ offers a glimpse of elements that would later lead to ‘New Poems’.

The Influence of Paris and Rodin

Clara was a student of Rodin, and Rilke felt a strong interest in Rodin’s composition of objects. Seeking a deeper understanding of Rodin’s art, he traveled alone to Paris and first visited Rodin on September 1, 1902. He subsequently became deeply absorbed in Rodin’s art; profoundly influenced by Rodin’s work during his middle period, he even lived with him for a time as his secretary.
Rilke recalled that just as his Russian experiences had formed the foundation of his own experience and receptivity, his time in Paris beginning in 1902—particularly Rodin’s great influence—became the cornerstone of his creative drive. Rodin helped him eliminate shallow lyricism and cheap sentimentality stemming from stagnant emotions, and taught him an attitude toward work that involved thoroughly understanding and recreating nature.

Mid-period works and the novel “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge”

Mid-period works such as “New Poems,” “Supplement to New Poems,” and “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge” were strongly influenced by Rodin. The following year after arriving in Paris, he completed Part 3 of ‘The Book of Hours’, titled “Poverty and Death,” in Viareggio, Italy. ‘The Book of Hours’ and ‘The Book of Hours: Supplement’ are representative poetry collections of Rilke’s middle period; they move away from the sentimental lyricism of his youth and aim for an objective mode of description and the complex overtones of internal structure.
“Malte’s Notebook” is his only full-length novel and a work that is unique in its content. He devoted six full years to it, beginning on February 8, 1904, in Rome, and completing it on January 27, 1910, in Leipzig. The novel has no plot progression; as the title suggests, it is compiled in the form of the protagonist Malte’s diary. The various issues he grappled with—love, death, illness, anxiety, loneliness, and the question of God—are delicately portrayed through his inner richness and sculptural technique; even while addressing death and illness, he examines the underlying nature of phenomena with a clear perspective that is free from decadence.

A Patron and a Journey: The Seed of “The Duino Elegies”

While “Malte’s Notebook” was well underway, Rilke met Countess Marie von Thurn und Taxis through an introduction by his friend Rudolf Kassner. A member of a distinguished European family, she served as a mother figure to Rilke, and his later life depended heavily on her spiritual and material support.
In late November 1910, Rilke embarked on a four-month journey to North Africa; his experiences in Egypt broadened his horizons and later resurfaced as material for the “Rhapsodies.” In January 1912, Rilke visited Duino Castle at the invitation of the Marquise von Taxis. Inspired by entirely new poetic ideas, he completed the first and second “Lamentations” in one go and wrote part of the tenth “Lamentation.” From this point on, a new phase in the development of the “Lamentations” began.
From early November of that year until February 1913, he traveled through Spain, where he was deeply moved by the paintings of El Greco and gained many poetic inspirations for the “Sonnets.” During his trip to Spain, he composed parts of the sixth and ninth “Rain Poems” as well as several other poems and prose pieces. While in Paris, he completed the sixth “Rain Poem” and continued working on the tenth, but its completion was delayed by the outbreak of World War I in late July 1914.

War, Personal Relationships, and Settlement in Switzerland

In early 1914, while in Paris, Rilke received passionate letters from an unknown woman, and they fell in love. This woman, whom Rilke called “Benvenuta,” was the pianist Magda von Hartingberg; however, six months later, at her suggestion, they parted ways. The war took a heavy toll on Rilke’s physical and mental health, and in January 1916, he was drafted into the Austrian Army, where he suffered greatly. Thanks to the efforts of his friends, he was discharged in June 1916. During the war, he met the painter Madame Louise Albert-Lazar, who provided him with great comfort.
The property he had left behind in Paris during the war was designated as enemy property and put up for auction, but thanks to the efforts of Stefan Zweig, Romain Rolland, and André Gide, he was able to recover a portion of it. On June 11, 1919, after receiving an invitation to give a lecture in Switzerland, he left Munich for Zurich and subsequently remained in Switzerland, never returning to Germany.
In November 1920, he settled at Berg Castle in Irhel, where he regained the creative spark that had been severed by the war and produced a series of poems titled “From the Posthumous Writings of Count C. W.” In July 1921, he discovered Château de Muzot in the Valais region and settled there; Château de Muzot was an ancient building constructed in the 13th century, a high tower in the highlands with neither electricity nor running water.

The Completion of “The Duino Elegies” and “Sonnets to Orpheus”

In February 1922, while living a solitary life with a single housekeeper, the poetic inspiration for the “Elegies,” which had been dormant for so long, surged back like a storm. At this time, the 7th, 8th, and 5th ‘Elegies’ were completed all at once, and other unfinished “Elegies” that had previously remained as fragments were also finalized. Not only that, but the 55 “Sonnets to Orpheus” also poured out in one go, completely unexpectedly. Rilke felt a joy as if he had fulfilled his mission as a poet.
Rilke’s fundamental ideas are unfolded within these ten “Rain Poems.” Topics such as impermanence, love, death, the desolation within humanity, human destiny, the praise of heroes, the hymn to life “The Open World,” the mission of human existence, and entry into “world-space” left a unique impression on readers through his elegant German prose. The “Orpheus” sonnets are works in which profound poetic ideas and diverse memories are vividly intertwined.

French Poetry, Later Years, and Death

After completing ‘Rain’ and ‘Sonnets’, Rilke felt admiration and kinship with the French poet Paul Valéry, an intellectual figure of the 20th century, and devoted himself to translating Valéry’s works. He also cautiously experimented with writing poetry in French and, encouraged by Valéry, published his works in French magazines. ‘The Orchard’, ‘The Rose’, and ‘The Window’ are collections of his French poetry.
His late-life love affair with Madame Valériane Klossowska brought him great comfort, but he also suffered much anguish due to the conflict between his creative work and his love. In Switzerland, he made valuable friends such as Werner Reinhardt and Mrs. Paulkart of Bundeli, and these friendships gradually enriched his life. From January to August 1925, he returned to his beloved Paris, where he met many old friends, including Gide and Valéry, and made new ones. During this period, he assisted Maurice Betz with the French translation of ‘The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge’.
In early October 1926, while picking roses in the garden of Château de Mouzot, a thorn pierced his left finger; the wound became infected and developed symptoms of leukemia. Exhausted both physically and mentally, he was unable to overcome his illness and ultimately passed away at the Valmont Sanatorium at 5:00 a.m. on December 29, 1926, at the age of 51. In accordance with his last will, his remains were interred in the cemetery at La Ronne.