more photos (1)

Rainer Maria Rilke’s Followers (6,060)

Rainer Maria Rilke

Born

in Prague, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian empire

December 04, 1875

Died

December 29, 1926

Genre

Poetry, Literature & Fiction

Influences

Hölderlin, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Jens Peter J ...more

edit data

A mystic lyricism and precise imagery often marked verse of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose collections profoundly influenced 20th-century German literature and include The Book of Hours (1905) and The Duino Elegies (1923).

People consider him of the greatest 20th century users of the language.

His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

His two most famous sequences include the Sonnets to Orpheus , and his most famous prose works include the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malt ...more

Combine Editions
Rainer Maria Rilke’s books

Average rating: 4.25 · 171,544 ratings · 16,618 reviews · 1,484 distinct works • Similar authors

	Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Xaver Kappus (Introduction), Reginald Snell (Translator) 4.29 avg rating — 95,623 ratings — published 1929 — 83 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke by Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell (Goodreads Author) (Editor/Translator), Robert Hass (Introduction) 4.37 avg rating — 16,485 ratings — published 1926 — 78 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Duino Elegies 4.40 avg rating — 9,167 ratings — published 1922 — 308 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge 3.95 avg rating — 9,053 ratings — published 1910 — 408 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Rainer Maria Rilke, Anita Barrows (Translator), Joanna Macy (Translator) 4.34 avg rating — 8,142 ratings — published 1905 — 147 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sonnets to Orpheus 4.25 avg rating — 3,719 ratings — published 1923 — 181 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus 4.46 avg rating — 2,577 ratings — published 1923 — 101 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Poetry of Rilke by Rainer Maria Rilke, Edward Snow (Translator), Adam Zagajewski (Introduction) 4.15 avg rating — 1,671 ratings — published 1978 — 151 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of Images by Rainer Maria Rilke, Edward Snow (Translator) 4.36 avg rating — 1,562 ratings — published 1906 — 95 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations by Rainer Maria Rilke, John J. L. Mood (Translator) 4.19 avg rating — 1,584 ratings — published 1975 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Rainer Maria Rilke…

Series by Rainer Maria Rilke

Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (2 books)
by

Rainer Maria Rilke,

William Needham (Translator)

3.95 avg rating — 9,055 ratings

Quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke (?)

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

tags: love

11771 likes

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

tags: ambiguity, virtue

5661 likes

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

tags: enjoy-life, fearlessness, live-in-the-moment

5199 likes

See all Rainer Maria Rilke's quotes »

Polls

June 2021 Short Story/Novella Poll

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, 80 pages, 1929

74 votes, 31.6%

The Diamond as Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 80 pages, 1922

39 votes, 16.7%

The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benét, 20+- pages, 1936

37 votes, 15.8%

The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind, 77 pages, 1987

33 votes, 14.1%

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, 128 pages, 1955

28 votes, 12.0%

Carmen by Prosper Mérimée, 65 pages, 1845

23 votes, 9.8%

234 total votes

comments and details

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Next Best Boo...: Diaries/journals	24	675	Jun 23, 2009 11:37AM
Challenge: 50 Books: Melissa's Book List (50 in 2009)	16	90	Aug 19, 2009 11:10AM
Young Adult Reade...: January-February Challenge	112	242	Feb 28, 2010 09:46PM
Reddit: Meet Yer Mod	4	48	Jan 20, 2011 12:43PM
Reading with Style: SP11 20.4 - A Poet's Non-Poetry	14	113	Mar 29, 2011 08:48AM
Reading with Style: SP11 Reading w/Style Completed Tasks	931	311	May 31, 2011 09:15PM
Reading with Style: WI 10-11 Reading Suggestions "Backpacking through Europe"	42	385	Jul 04, 2011 08:58AM

More…