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How long did Rainer Maria Rilke take to complete the Duino Elegies?
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Rainer Maria Rilke
Austro-German poet and writer Rainer Maria Rilke, 1902.
Rainer Maria Rilke took 10 years to complete the Duino Elegies.
He began the cycle in 1912 while visiting the castle of Duino, where he wrote the first two elegies and started the third. The process was interrupted by World War I, which left him emotionally paralyzed and slowed his progress significantly. After years of writing very little, he experienced a burst of productivity in February 1922, during which he finished the remaining five poems of the cycle in just three weeks.1