LV. Rilke and Jens Peter Jacobsen

That the Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen played an important rôle in the life and thought of Rainer Maria Rilke is a fact well documented in Rilke's letters, and critical investigations have long begun to recognize the relationship by brief or lengthier references. Many of the letters, which spread over a period ranging from 1897 to 1924, have appeared in print, but a number containing references to Jacobsen still remain unpublished. Supplementing the letters, Rilke sometimes talked about Jacobsen, as he had occasion to do in 1925 while he was supervising the French translation of Malte Laurids Brigge or when the topic of conversation concerned matters so closely connected with both Jacobsen and Rilke as the behavior of words.