 Duino Elegies was published by Insel @-@ Verlag in Leipzig , Germany in 1923 . Prominent critics praised the work and compared its merits to the works of Hölderlin and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . In 1935 , critic Hans @-@ Rudolf Müller was the first to describe the collection as inherently " mystical " and promote Rilke as a " mystic " spiritual guide . 
