In the Image of Orpheus tells the inner story of Rilke’s literary career, tracing—step by step—the mythopoetic journey inscribed in the interweaving lines of the poet’s life and art. Blending biography with in-depth analyses of Rilke’s poetry and prose (from his little-known Visions of Christ through the Sonnets to Orpheus), the lively narrative draws upon Hillman and Jung, Plato and Petrarch, Apuleius, Ibn Arabi and Lou Andreas-Salomé, as it unfolds the poet-seer’s vision of the nature and destiny of the human soul—a vision as timely as it is timeless.