Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926) is one of the greatest German-language poets of the twentieth century, famed for his lyrical intensity. Born in Prague in 1875, Rilke travelled extensively throughout Europe at the turn of the twentieth century and became deeply involved in the Modernist movement, working with the sculptor Auguste Rodin. His most famous poems are Sonnets to Orpheus and The Duino Elegies, and in prose he is most remembered for Letters to a Young Poet and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. He died of leukemia in Switzerland on 29 December 1926.
