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

_______________________________ 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

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

dolorous: Solemnly or ponderously sad. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dolorous

___________________________ 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