Rainer Maria Rilke's poems creatively expressed ideas that are hard to put into words, and his writings on the work of sculptor Auguste Rodin glorified their skill at creating tiny surfaces that reflect light to bring sculptures to life. 

The poet’s apparent hero worship of Rodin’s sculpting talents is of great interest to Dr Nicholas Reynolds, a Lecturer in Modern Languages and Literatures at Trinity University, Texas.  But it was a turbulent relationship that led to a final break in 1913, which echoes one of Rilke’s prose stories that suggests that two masters cannot be in the same room. 

Read the original chapter: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74470-0_7

Listen to more about Dr Reynolds work in a previous episode here