The Duino Elegies are a collection of ten poems written by Rainer Maria
Rilke (1875–1926), a Bohemian-Austrian poet. The elegies are intensely
religious, mystical poems that employ a rich symbolism of angels and
salvation weighing beauty and existential suffering while addressing
issues such as the limits of the human condition, loneliness, love and
death. Rilke began writing the elegies in 1912 while a guest of Princess
Marie von Thurn und Taxis (1855–1934) at Duino Castle near Trieste,
and they were dedicated to her upon publication. Aside from brief
episodes of writing in 1913 and 1915, Rilke did not return to the work
until a few years after the end of World War I. With a sudden, renewed
inspiration—writing in a frantic pace he described as a "boundless
storm, a hurricane of the spirit"—he completed the collection in
February 1922 while staying at Château de Muzot in Veyras, Switzerland.
The delay in completing the work was because he suffered frequently from
severe depression caused by the events of the war. The Duino Elegies are
recognized by critics and scholars as his most important work, and have
influenced many subsequent poets and writers.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duino_Elegies>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
338 BC:
A Macedonian army defeated the combined forces of Athens and
Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony over the
majority of Ancient Greece.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chaeronea_(338_BC)>
1870:
Tower Subway (pictured), the world's first underground tube
railway, opened beneath the River Thames in London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Subway>
1903:
The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization started the
Ilinden Uprising against the Ottoman Empire in Macedonia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilinden%E2%80%93Preobrazhenie_Uprising>
1923:
Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States
after Warren G. Harding suffered a fatal heart attack.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding>
1947:
A British South American Airways airliner crashed into Mount
Tupungato in the Argentine Andes, the wreckage from which was not found
until 1998.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSAA_Star_Dust_accident>
1989:
Sri Lankan Civil War: The Indian Peace Keeping Force began
killing 64 minority Sri Lankan Tamil civilians over a two-day period in
Valvettithurai, Sri Lanka.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Valvettiturai_massacre>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
dolorous:
Solemnly or ponderously sad.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dolorous>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete
until they have been proved to have their counterparts in the world of
fact.
--John Tyndall
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Tyndall>