
Rainer Rilke
Born Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (1875–1927), Rainer Maria Rilke was an influential German poet, novelist, and translator perhaps best known for Duino Elegies and his prose piece Letters to a Young Poet. He married Clara Westhoff, a sculptress, in 1901. Although they were only together for a year, they had one daughter together. Rilke died of leukemia in Montreaux, Switzerland in 1927.