Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies

The cycle of 55 sonnets that comprise Rainer Maria Rilke's "Sonnets to Orpheus" were written in a period of three weeks during 1922, a time which the poet himself described as a "savage creative storm." Inspired by the death of his daughter's friend, Wera Knoop, Rilke commenced to the production of "Sonnets to Orpheus," a work filled with mythological and biblical allusions. During the same burst of creative energy he set to working on the completion of the "Duino Elegies," a work begun some ten