René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, generally considered the German language's greatest poet of the 20th century. His writings include one novel, several collections of poetry and several volumes of correspondence in which he invokes images that focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude and anxiety. These themes position him as a transitional figure between traditional and modernist writers.
Alternative Names:
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
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René Maria Cäsar Rilke
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Rainer Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
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Li-erh-kʻo
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Rainer Maria Rielke
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René Rilke
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Rainer Mariyah Rilḳeh
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Rainŏ Maria Rilkʻe
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Reiner Marie Rilke
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Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
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Rene Rilke
The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain.
Death is the side of life which is turned away from us.
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Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism : they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.