Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke, born Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet widely recognized as a significant and idiosyncratic writer in the German language, his work carrying undertones of mysticism and exploring subjective experience. He travelled extensively throughout Europe before finally settling in Switzerland, which inspired many of his later poems, and although best known for his German language work he also wrote in French. Among English language readers his best known works include the poetry collections Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus and the semi-autobiographical novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, and a collection of ten of his letters was published posthumously as Letters to a Young Poet.