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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