What themes about life and death appear in the Duino Elegies?

In the Duino Elegies, Rainer Maria Rilke presents a profound meditation on human existence, ultimately asserting that the affirmation of life and death are identical.1

Moving away from traditional Christian dualism, which separates the immanent from the transcendent, Rilke advocates for a monistic view of a "cosmic inner space." This perspective gathers life, death, earth, and all dimensions of time into a single, all-encompassing unity. Within this framework, the Elegies serve as a new myth for modern humanity, assigning humans the specific task of transforming the visible world into the invisible through sensory perception—a process Rilke famously described as being the "bees of the invisible".1

The poet acts as a representative of humanity, tasked with "praising" or "extolling" existence before the "Angel," a figure representing a higher order of being. While the poems acknowledge the "terror" of beauty and the precariousness of a life "suspended over an abyss," they ultimately sound an affirmative note, justifying life as a unified, meaningful entity.1