Sonnets to Orpheus

Lore & Background

Rilke wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus in February 1922 while living at the Château de Muzot in Switzerland, a thirteenth-century manor without gas or electricity provided rent-free by patron Werner Reinhart. The cycle was composed in two bursts: the first 26 sonnets between 2 and 5 February, then, after completing the Duino Elegies on 11 February, the remaining 29 sonnets in less than two weeks. Rilke referred to this period as a 'savage creative storm' and considered both collections 'of the same birth.'

The sonnets are based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, drawing primarily from Ovid's Metamorphoses and Virgil's Georgics. Wera appears in frequent references, both direct and indirect as a 'dancer' or the mythical Eurydice. Rilke wrote to Wera's mother that her ghost was 'commanding and impelling' him to write. The sonnets vary in rhyme schemes and meters, with dactylic and trochaic feet most common, and employ enjambment that breaks through verse structure.

Reader's Guide

The Sonnets to Orpheus are considered Rilke's masterpieces, alongside the Duino Elegies, and represent the highest expressions of his talent. The cycle's content is highly metaphorical, addressing the conditions of poetry and the nature of art, with the line 'Song is being' reflecting its central theme. Rilke claimed that Wera's figure 'governs and moves the course of the whole,' though she appears as a character in only one poem. Criticism has been mixed: Robert Musil in 1927 described the sonnets as an 'exceptional falling off' from the Duino Elegies, while others affirm the cycle's quality as a highlight of German poetic history. The sonnets resist simple interpretation, creating what Wolfram Groddeck called a 'dilemma of critical reading.'

Did You Know?

• The cycle was written in a three-week period Rilke described as a 'savage creative storm.'
• Rilke completed the first 26 sonnets between 2 and 5 February 1922, then the remaining 29 after finishing the Duino Elegies.
• The sonnets were inspired by the death of Wera Ouckama Knoop, a playmate of Rilke's daughter Ruth.
• Rilke wrote the cycle while living rent-free at the Château de Muzot, provided by patron Werner Reinhart.