In part through critical biography, in part through a close reading of "The Book of Hours" as well as many poems from his Diaries, this book challenges new ideas about what went into the making of Rilke in the early period of his association with Lou Salomé. The Diaries Rilke wrote between 1898 and 1900 are examined in great depth to show that behind the grand story of his poetic emergence lies the fundamental reality of his repression by Lou and what this would sow by way of a sublimated achievement as sublimely poignant as it is finally tragic.