Rilke was born in Prague in 1875 (while it was still part of Austria-Hungary) and grew up there with an unsuccessful father and a terribly unhappy mother who, mourning the death of Rilke's baby sister, dressed him in girl's clothing as a child, the start of his depressive, repressive and Freudian outlook on life.
In fact, in 1897, he met and fell in love with Lou Andreas-Salome, who had studied psychoanalysis with Freud, and the two of them shared an intellectual bond and traveled together extensively, most importantly to Russia in 1899, where Rilke met Leo Tolstoy. Unfortunately, Lou was already married, so Rilke had to settle for Clara Westhoff, a sculptor he met on an artist's retreat in 1900.
In 1902, he moved to Paris to work with Rodin, and ended up meeting Cezanne, continuing to work with both artists. He was quite prolific in Paris, writing in French as well as German, and stayed there until 1910 when he decided to travel again, to Spain, Trieste, and then to Germany. in 1914, World War I broke out and Rilke was stuck. He lived in Munich until he was called up in 1916 and attended basic training in Vienna. He used his connections in high places to skip out later that year.
Rilke moved to Switzerland in 1919 and finished his lyrical poems. He fell ill in 1923, and was diagnosed with leukemia shortly before his death in 1926. For some reason, roses and mythology have often played large parts in Rilke's work.
Here (in German) and here (in English) you can read the Dunio Elegien, one of his most famous works.
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