Rilke

The book is the story of a tragic love affair. Rilke who has devoted his whole life to being a poet has hit a creative block.

Despondent, he is on the verge of leaving Switzerland when he meets Elisabeth Klossowska in 1920. She becomes his lover and muse and finds a tower for him to complete his great poems, the Duino Elegies. He dies six years later at the age of 51 from leukaemia.

Elisabeth Klossowska was the exception in his long line of love affairs to cause a conflict between his inner world of poetry and his passion for her. It was her love that lifted him to the heights. She lived in Geneva with her two teenage sons, Pierre and Balthus who later became the artist.

However, Rilke felt so guilty and ashamed about their affair during he winter he spent at Castle Berg am Irchel that he wrote a confessional like the Christian fathers. He admitted to his sin – the failure to find freedom to work fruitfully because of his desire for her.