Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is one of the greatest lyric German
poets. Born in Prague, he published his first book of poems, Leben
und Lieber, at age nineteen. He met Lou Salome, the talented and
spirited daughter of a Russian army officer, who influenced him
deeply. In 1902 he became the friend, and for a time the secretary,
of Rodin, and it was during his twelve-year Paris residence that
Rilke enjoyed his greatest poetic activity. In 1919 he went to
Switzerland where he spent the last years of his life. It was there
that he wrote his last two works, Duino Elegies (1923) and The
Sonnets to Orpheus (1923).
About the Translator-
Stephen Mitchell was born in Brooklyn in 1943 and studied at
Amherst, the University of Paris and Yale. Considered one of the
preeminent translators of his generation he has translated many
classic texts including Gilgamesh, The Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching
and the Book of Job.
“Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Rilke’s most demandingly
difficult and loveliest work instantly makes every other rendering
obsolete. No doubt about it, Rilke has at last found, in Mr.
Mitchell’s version, the ideal poetics and the perfect translator.”
—William Arrowsmith
“The gifts Mr. Mitchell brought to his earlier book he also brings
to this one – an eye for a strong line; a sympathetic tact that
allows him to supply a word from what is only suggested or to swell
one of Rilke’s almost subliminal, one-word metaphors into a whole
English phrase; the ability to reproduce the tone of common speech
in Rilke; a knack for ingeniously simple versions of certain
crucial Rilkean terms; and the use of off-rhymes to solve the
formal problems of translating these “conjugated” sonnets. At
times, Mr. Mitchell’s versions actually enhance the original...
This is a beautifully designed, elegant and spacious volume, and it
is splendidly annotated.” —Michael Hofmann, The New York Times Book
Review
“Stephen Mitchell’s translations are masterful re-creations of the
original, giving both precise renderings of Rilke’s language and
sensitive interpretations of his poetic intent.” —Library
Journal
“An undisputed masterpiece by one of the greatest modern poets,
translated here by a master of translation.” —Village Voice
Literary Supplement
“Perhaps the most beautiful group of poetic translations [the
twentieth] century has produced.” —The Chicago Tribune
“Rilke almost always converts the energies of thought into telling
images. In accomplishing this most impressive ‘imaging’ in English,
Stephen Mitchell proves his mastery of the art of translation. . .
. This is, without any doubt, the best English rendering of Rilke.
It is as faithful to the original as the translation of poetry can
hope to be, faithful not only to its linguistic meaning but to its
poetic expressiveness.” —Erich Heller, Poetry
“Stephen Mitchell’s translations bring the qualities that I most
cherish in the originals into English with new intimacy and
authority. Rilke’s voice, with its extraordinary combination of
formality, power, speed and lightness, can be heard in Mr.
Mitchell’s versions more clearly than in any others. His work is
masterly.” —W. S. Merwin
“Mitchell’s translation of the Duino Elegies–Rilke’s masterpiece–is
the best that has been made. . . . Intensely readable, yet he has
not simplified the ideas.” —Stephen Spender, The New York Review of
Books
“Stephen Mitchell treats English with courtesy, is forceful without
forcing any issue and gains his ends by propriety of persuasion. .
. . It is easy to feel that if Rilke had written in English, he
would have written in this English.” —Denis Donoghue, The New York
Times Book Review
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