Sonett XIX am Orpheus

Rainer Maria Rilke (Prague, 1875 – Montreux, 1926)

Rilke wrote his Sonnets to Orpheus in 1922. They are inspired by and dedicated to the death of Vera Knoop, a talented dancer who developed an illness and died at the age of nineteen. In his work, Rilke makes an identification of Love and Death. Orpheus is the character who unites the two worlds.

In Sonnet XIX he speaks of the power of music over the change and movement of the world. Only song sanctifies and honors above the earth.