Rainer Maria Rilke

"The Santa Claus of loneliness" was W. H. Auden's tag for his fellow poet, Rainer Maria Rilke.
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Rilke was a solitary who spent, according to his French master, Paul Valery, "eternal winters long in excessive intimacy with silence." --Time, Santa Claus of Loneliness, June 12, 1964, review of Rainer Maria Rilke: The Years in Switzerland, by J. R. von Salts, translated by N. K. Cruickshank

Rainer Maria Rilke: What his career--taken along with Bertolt Brecht's--tells us about fame, by Clive James, Slate, Posted Friday, March 23, 2007, at 1:22 PM ET