Rainer Maria Rilke, original name René Maria Rilke (born Dec. 4, 1875, Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now in Czech Republic]—died Dec. 29, 1926, Valmont, Switz.) Austro-German poet who became internationally famous with such works as Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus.
Rilke was the only son of a not-too-happy marriage. His father, Josef, a civil servant, was a man frustrated in his career; his mother, the daughter of an upper-middle-class merchant and imperial councillor, was a difficult woman, who felt that she had married beneath her. She left her husband in 1884 and moved to Vienna so as to be ... (100 of 2,705 words)