Rainer Maria Rilke traveled through Russia with Rilke

Author: Salome
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: This book contains two works: "Rainer Maria Rilke" and "Playing with Rilke in Russia." The first work is a detailed study of Rilke as a person and his works. The second work is Rilke's diary from his time in Russia. Rainer Maria Rilke was an Austrian poet. Born into a railway worker family, he studied philosophy, art, and literary history at university. After 1897, he traveled across Europe, filled with loneliness and solitude. He met Tolstoy, served as a secretary for the great sculptor Rodin, and was deeply influenced by the French Symbolist poet Baudelaire. During World War I, he was drafted into the army. After 1919, he moved to Switzerland. His early works had a distinct Prague regional flavor and the charm of Bohemian folk songs, but the content was inclined toward mystery, dreams, and melancholy. After his travels in Europe, he changed his early romantic style that emphasized subjective expression, writing "object poems" that used intuition and imagery to symbolize life and express his thoughts and emotions. He protested the "alienation" phenomenon of capitalism and expressed utopian ideals of equality and mutual love for humanity. His famous works include the long poem "Book of Prayers" (1905), "New Poems" (1907), and "New Poems Continued" (1908), which praise God to reveal the spiritual contradictions of capitalism. In his later years, his thoughts became more pessimistic. His representative works are the long poem "Duino Elegies" (1923) and numerous quatrains. Despite being filled with loneliness, suffering, and pessimistic nihilistic ideas, Rilke's poetry is highly artistic. It not only showcases the musical and sculptural beauty of poetry but also expresses some inexpressible content, expanding the artistic expressive realm of poetry and having a profound impact on the development of modern poetry. This book introduces the biography of this great poet.