What is it about Rilke's work, and in particular the Duino Elegies, that fascinates so many readers? One answer might be that Rilke draws from a diverse cultural background. Popular culture continues to absorb Rilke's writing and reproduces it in surprising venues ranging from self-help manuals to films to contemporary Indie rock groups. Composers such as Britain's Oliver Knussen, Russia's Dimitri Shostakovich, Denmark's Per Nørgård, Norway's Arne Nordheim and America's Morten Lauridsen have all set Rilke to music. Auden, and American poet James Merrill but also writers from Iran (Sadegh Hedayat), the former Czechoslovakia (Milan Kundera), and India (Amitav Ghosh) - among many others. Rilke's work has inspired not only major English-speaking writers such as American novelists Thomas Pynchon, British poet W. Translations into many languages are still being actively produced, with at least seven new translations into English alone since the turn of the millennium. One of the most famous cycles of poems written in German in the twentieth century, and arguably one of the best known from any era, Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies (published in 1923) have remained remarkably influential into the twenty-first century.
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