Rilke, Rainer Maria: Life
Life
Rilke's youth at military and business school was not happy. His relations with his father were difficult, and he was able to attend the Univ. of Prague only with the help of an uncle. Married only briefly at the turn of the century, Rilke preferred an unsettled, wandering life among literary people; he was greatly influenced by his travels, notably by trips to Russia (1899, 1900). The sculptor Rodin, a close friend of Rilke who briefly employed him as secretary (1905–6), shaped the poet's career by introducing him to the craftsman's approach to creativity. After extensive travel in Italy, North Africa, and elsewhere, Rilke returned to Paris (1913), but World War I drove him back to Germany, where war service and chronic ill health frustrated his work. After 1919 he lived at Castle Muzot, in Valais canton, Switzerland. His death from a blood disease was hastened by the prick of a rose thorn.
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