Educated at a military academy and the Universities of Prague and Munich, Rilke change his name from Rene to Rainer in 1897. Over the next three years, he traveled to Italy and Russia. In Russia, he met Leo Tolstoy and the family of Boris Pasternak. In 1900, he stayed at the artists' colony at Worpswede where he met his wife, Clara Westhoff, an accomplished sculptress. In 1902, he went to Paris where he became friends with Auguste Rodin, In 1911, he spent six months at Castle Duino, near Trieste, where he began his poem cycle, The Duino Elegies. At the outbreak of World War I, Rilke was in Germany and was unable to return to Paris. He was conscripted by the army in 1916, but was discharged after a few months and remained in Germany until 1919. Thereafter, he went to Switzerland and settled in Valais. There he completed the Duino Elegies in early 1922. Rilke's health began to deteriorate in 1923 and it was later discovered that he had leukemia. He published Sonnets to Orpheus in 1922, one of his best-known works. He spent the next four years, apart from a short stay again in Paris, in sanatoriums in Switzerland where he eventually died. His main works include Leben und Lieder (1894), Larenopfer (1895), Traumgekront (1897), Advent (1898), Auguste Rodin (1903), New Poems (1903) and his only novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910). |
