Rainer Maria Rilke (redirected from Ranier Maria Rilke)

Rilke, Rainer Maria 

Born Dec. 4, 1875 in Prague; died Dec. 29, 1926, at Valmont, a sanatorium near Montreux, Switzerland. Austrian poet.

The son of an official, Rilke spent his childhood and youth in Prague and later lived in Munich, Berlin, Paris, and Switzerland. He studied literature, art history, and philosophy at the universities of Prague, Munich, and Berlin.

Rilke’s first collections of poetry—Life and Songs (1894), Sacrifices to the Lares (1896), Crowned With Dreams (1897), Advent (1898), and In Celebration of Myself (1900)—develop themes and images typical of decadent poetry at the turn of the century; they are musical and display a diversity of sound structure. After trips made in 1899 and 1900 to Russia (where he met L. N. Tolstoy), and partly under the influence of Russian literature, a humanist trend became increasingly apparent in Rilke’s poetry. In the first two books of The Book of Hours (1899; 1901), Rilke viewed religion, manifested in the democratic spirit of medieval mysticism, as the only force that could give meaning to human existence. But he soon lost faith in this concept, as seen in the third volume of The Book of Hours (1903; complete edition, 1905) and in New Poems (1907-08).

Social motifs and gloomy scenes of the life of a large capitalist city began appearing in Rilke’s works. Influenced to a large extent by Kierkegaard, Rilke attempted, in his depiction of the hero of the novel The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910), to show that the governing force of man’s existence is individualism, although he recognized the tragedy and futility of this approach.

Rilke welcomed the November Revolution of 1918 that took place in Germany but soon became disillusioned with it. The striving for a philosophic comprehension of life characteristic of Rilke’s poetry was most fully expressed in the Duino Elegies (1923) and Sonnets to Orpheus (1923). Orpheus became a symbol of culture, which for Rilke had genuine humanist values. These values, in his view, could preserve man’s humanity in a capitalist world that was losing this quality. Rilke’s poetry is close to symbolism but lacks symbolism’s subjectivism. His works have had an important influence on 20th-century art and philosophic thought.

WORKS

Sämtliche Werke, vols. 1-6. Edited by the Rilke Archive. Frankfurt am Main, 1962-66.
Briefe. [Frankfurt am Main, 1966.]
In Russian translation:
Sobr. stikhov. Translated by A. Bisk. [Odessa] 1919.
Lirika. Translated by T. Sil’man. Moscow-Leningrad, 1965.
Vorpsvede, Ogiust Roden, pis’ma, stikhi. Moscow, 1971.
Izbr. lirika. Moscow, 1974.
Lirika. Moscow, 1975.

REFERENCES

Admoni, V. G. “Poeziia Rainera Marii Ril’ke.” Voprosy literatury, 1962, no. 12.
Istoriia nemetskoi literatury, vol. 4. Moscow, 1968.
Günther, W. Weltinnenraum: Die Dichtung R. M. Rilkes, 2nd ed. Bern, 1952.
Bollnow, O. F. Rilke, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1951.
Holthusen, H. E. R. M. Rilke in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. Hamburg, 1964.
Mason, E. C. R. M. Rilke: Sein Leben und sein Werk. Göttingen, 1964.
R. M. Rilke zum vierzigsten Todestag. Frankfurt am Main, 1967.
Ritzer, W. R. M. Rilke-Bibliographie. Vienna, 1951.

N. S. LITVINETS