Rilke

Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus

The most intense lyric poet of the twentieth century. The Duino Elegies — ten poems written in two volcanic bursts separated by a decade of silence — are the modern era's supreme meditation on mortality, angels, and the task of being human.

Key works

• Duino Elegies1923— Angels, mortality, and praise
• Sonnets to Orpheus1923— Written in a single inspired fortnight
• Letters to a Young Poet1929— The vocation of the artist

Connections

External