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A bilingual edition of a seminal work by the greatest German poet of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Rilke - Book of Hours - Stevie Krayer Translation
It is pity that ZenPoet's review comes up on the page selling Stevie Krayer's translation of Rilke's Book of Hours (Salzburg, 1995), because his/her review is of the Annemarie Kidder translation.Krayer passes the test of ZenPoet's justified complaints about the Kidder translation.Stevie Krayer's translation of the Book of Hours is the best that is possible to do in English.She inevitably loses rhythm and rhyme in staying close to Rilke's words and heart for his subject-matter.But the thread of the poems follows right through the three volumes within the Book of Hours.This translation is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the appauling Barrows/Macey translation, which is sadly a best-seller, and which turns Rilke into an American New Ager.The Stevie Krayer translation really allows the English reader to *study* Rilke's Book of Hours.

Rilke Uncovered
Any translation is by default interpretation.Kidder, eloquent and lucid, gives Rilke life to the postmodern reader.Congratulations.

a poet speaks a unique language
the original weight and tone and turn of phrase are crucial to hearing Rilke "in his own voice". it is the sign of a genuinely gifted translator to achieve this - something of a self-less act, a putting aside of one's own prejudices and predilections in honour and respect for the poet's unique expression. a translator is not an editor and should seek to become transparent, not put him/herself in the way as a critical filter. this demands that the translator is fully "in tune" with the poet's "song". translating is an act of carrying-over, conveying something sacred in its most faithful form. it is clear that the translator comes from a background and has learned criteria that prejudice the translation of Rilke. the book of hours has become a vehicle for the translator's own views. and that is a great pity. i look forward to a new more faithful translation in the future - else i must take up german to properly appreciate Rilke's unique voice!

andrew lovatt - editor, deaddrunkdublin & other imaginal spaces

Nice to have a new, complete translation however...
I'd like to see a more careful (more direct) translation of this great work. This version is good, certainly a much better reading than the disastrously attempt at rewriting by Anita Barrows. But why rewrite and interpret in the translation, I'd prefer more precision. Some examples from the first page: the beautiful passage, 'I live my life in expanding (growing) circles' has a phrase 'Ich weiss noch nicht' very easy to translate as 'I know not yet' or 'I don't yet know' here it is translated as 'yet unclear of my role' (which adds interpretation, and misses some of the beauty of Rilkes style). And 'um den uralten Turm' is translated 'around the tower of old', which is not bad but isn't'around the ancient tower.' more poetic? And the wonderous conclusion of the passage is 'bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm oder ein grosser Gesang' which is translated as 'be it falcon or storm or another magnificent song? instead of the direct 'am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song'.

Another example in this paragraph is 'Ich kreise um Gott'.und ich kreise jahrtausendelang? this passage poetically uses the word 'kreise' twice to create a symmetry 'I circle around God'. and I circle (for) thousands of years? instead it is translated 'I circle around God and I spin amidst thousands of years' (which is very nice, but not what I see in the German). So for the paragraph we have 'I circle around God, around the tower of old, and I spin amidst thousands of years; yet unclear of my role, be it falcon or storm or another magnificent song.' instead of 'I circle around God, around the ancient tower, and I circle for thousands of years; and I know not yet, am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song.'Well, in any case, I do recommend this translation as the best available, but hope another will appear in the near future or this one will be revised.
Updated. now that I've done my own translation, I realize how difficult it is to translate poetry, so I'm give this one 4 stars. I think adding footnotes would help, by explaining the alternatives for translating a sentence and would help get the meaning through and free the translator to seek the poetic. ... Read more

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Rilke's great cycle of ten elegies, perhaps his most profound poetic achievement, had its inception on the morning of January 21, 1912, but was interrupted by the First World War and not completed until a decade later. The Duino Elegies are not only the result of an extraordinary kind of contact with the unseen world; they are an attempt to understand that world in its holistic relationship to the visible, tangible world. This powerful rendering of the cycle is a product of the collaboration between a poet, Norris, and a Germanist, Keele. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Breathtaking
"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror we can just barely endure, and we admire it so because it calmly disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible."- Rainer Maria Rilke, First Elegy

The DuinoElegies are quite possibly the greatest work of Rainer Maria Rilke, himselfone of the greatest poets, German language or otherwise, of all time.Theelegies, writen in the cold vast chambers of Duino Castle, deal with allthe greatest issues of human existence:love, death, tragedy, God, andlife's very meaning.Their language reflects their origin:like theCastle's empty stone hallways, the words are perfectly formed; they arefragile and beautiful; weightless and profound.Rilke's first elegy beginswith a reflection on the awesome, terrifying power of beauty.He longs toexperience it, but knows that it would destroy him.As he writes on, thereader grows to understand and feel not only Rilke's longing, but his fear. The terrible beauty, looming behind all the elegies, is present in thetext.The poems inspire wonder, raise profound quetions with ineffableanswers, and fills us with awe as it calmly disdains to destroy us.

TheGerman text is perfect, but MacIntyre's translation is splendid and bestconveys the work's haunting and desolate undertones.While it seems to methat everyone should own and cherish the Duino Elegies, it is an absoluterequirement for anyone seeking to construct a serious collection of greatpoetry. ... Read more

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These poems, selected from Das Buch der Bilder and the two parts of Neue Gedichte, show Rilke's deep concern with sculpture and painting. Written in his less mystical period (1900-1908), the poems exhibit Rilke'sparticular artistic and poetic power. Rainer Maria Rilke was one of Germany's most important poets. His influences include the paintings of the Worpswedders and the French Impressionists, the sculpture of Rodin (to whom he was both friend and secretary), and the poetry of Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé, and other symbolists. His poetry is innovative, enigmatic, and entertainingly idiosyncratic. C.F. MacIntyre's translations are both true to the original and poetic in their own right, and in each book he includes an introduction and notes. German text faces the English translation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wonderful
I think that these poems are very beautifully written. Some have a sort of dark feeling to them. Very enlightening. ... Read more

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The essence of a poet is his poetry
This is an excellent study of the poetry and thought of Rilke. It includes much biographical material, and analysis of Rilke's character but is by no means a full biography. One relationship that of Rilke with Lou- Andreas Salome is centered on here. And other important relationships in his life including his apprenticeship with Rodin, his affairs with a long line of mistresses, his relationship to his wife, Clara Westhoff, and to their daughter are not really treated here. There is however discussion of Rilke's relation to the mother who he in one sense was repelled by and who in another formed and remained central to his being. There is also an indication of the effect of his meeting with Paul Valery on the composition of the last great work, ' The Sonnets of Orpheus'.
Peters opens with a chapter on Rilke's influence and fame, a fame which it would seem is more than just the misunderstandings gathered around a name, but rather sprung from a very wide appreciation of a great poet. The heart of the book is however in Peters' reading of the works of Rilke, his tracing the path of his early probings to the great climax in 'Duino Elegies' and 'Sonnets from Orpheus'.
Peters understands Rilke as a poet who contains and holds contradictory elements within his poetry, light and darkness, life and death, intense inwardness and intense perception of the world, in Rilke's symbolic terms, the dolls and the angels, - As Peters sees it.

" He found in the rose the symbols in which all these contradictions were jubilantly affirmed because they were seen to arise from a common source, the primoridal unity of being. "

" Your innumerable state does it make you discern
in a mixture where everything blends
the unutterable harmony of nonbeing and being
which we ignore?"

Or in another seminal poetic passage.
"Rose ,o pure contradiction, delight,
to be nobody's sleep beneath so many
eyelids."

Rilke is a power of intense paradoxical power of great metaphorical brillance. Peters provides an excellent outline of the composition of the Duino Elegies, singling out for special treatment Elegy four in which Rilke's depression is most deeply expressed, and Elegy Nine which many believe to be his supreme work. Peters says, " The theme of the Elegies is transformation. It is our task- "whatsoever we are" to transform the world into invisible vibrations of the heart."

I have been reading Rilke and his critics for some years without feeling I have truly grasped the essence, or understand his work line - by- line. This present work I think improved my understanding.
I would recommend to all those who wish to better know his work. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Mystic Poetry
Rilke is generally regarded as Romantic so the use of "mystic" in describing this work slightly misuses terms.But I use it to describe his "inspired" groping towards something "beyond".This specific translation my not appeal to everyone as it is firmly couched within the specific academic style of its period, and being thirty-eight years removed from the actual publication of the original admirably expresses the original.The introduction is both scholarly and contextualizing.I appreciate the de-mystification of Rilke's "entrustment" of these songs providing the artistic ground upon which Rilke produced these sonnets.

A classic work that remains vividly relevant today
Edward Snow, who has earned multiple awards for his translations, applies his gift to the original German poems written almost a century ago by master poet Rainer Maria Rilke in Sonnets To Orpheus. A bilingual German/English edition each poem in both languages on every two-page spread, Sonnets To Orpheus resonates with introspective contemplation on the finality of time, transition, change, and death; Rilke wrote it only four years before his own passing. A classic work that remains vividly relevant today. Does it really exist, Time the Destroyer? / When, on the peaceful mountain, does it crush the fortress? / And this heart, always the gods' possession, / when does the Demiurge pillage it?

Best translation of the alluring Sonnets to Orpheus
The Sonnets to Orpheus was written by Rilke over a few days' period during his winter visit to Switzerland. It came to form almost magically, "with no doubts in any of the words" in Rilke's introduction.

The Sonnets tell the classical Greek tragedy of Orpheus, who with his gift of music on the lyre charmed death to give his love back from the underworld, only to lose her forever when he broke his promise and looked back to see if she was still with him.

This work is considered an interesting development in German poetry because of its improvisational creativity of the author, and is difficult to translate because of the liberties taken in the writing. In my opinion this translation is best one to date: in contrast to the popular translation by M. D. Herter Norton, which strived for accuracy at the cost of eloquence.

Charming, entertaining, bittersweet, and always the contradiction between optimism and tragedy in a fatalistic touch, this is one of my favourite literary work to date. ... Read more

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The summer of 1926 was a time of trouble and uncertainty for each of the three poets whose correspondence is collected in this moving volume. Marina Tsvetayeva was living in exile in France and struggling to get by. Boris Pasternak was in Moscow, trying to come to terms with the new Bolshevik regime. Rainer Maria Rilke, in Switzerland, was dying. Though hardly known to each other, they began to correspond, exchanging a series of searching letters in which every aspect of life and work is discussed with extraordinary intensity and passion. "An extraordinary correspondence.... Makes us weep for what seems a vanished golden age of European culture." -- John Bayley ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

these letters should have been kept private
here we have three great poets. sounds inviting, interesting, wonderful. instead boris writes like an infatuated 14 year old. marina is often hysterical. their ego's are so soft, constant reassurance seems to be the name of the game. a polite letter from a bored rilke has marina and boris delirious with happiness, too excited to sleep, pouring over every 'the' and 'and', looking, searching for 'deeper meaning.' if this book is read as letters by three unknowns, i doubt it would be published. boris is a cad. after one letter stating undying love for marina, he wishes to leave his wife, leave his child, pack his suitcase and live happily ever after with an also married marina. i guess their life partners are expendable when it comes to poetry, or, more like it, the rich and pathetic fantasy world of boris and marina. this is one of the most uninteresting books i have read. my advice - stick to the poetry and avoid these sickly sweet letters.

A revelation, a model, for the possibility of human communication
This book, the March/Sept. 2001 edition, is for me like a hot springs swimming pool for the tired body, what spring is to the birds, what rain is for parched meadows: a sensory experience that brings well-being to the sore human soul. The jacket cover comments by John Bayley and Mark Rudman give an accurate idea of what the correspondence was between these three writers 80 summers ago: yes, the letters among them are literature, and yes, reading them might make us weep for a vanished golden age of culture.But this collection of letters and poetry is for us today, addresses our global conflicts now; Rilke and Tsvetayeva knew that they were writing for the future; Pasternak knew that, too, but in these letters Boris comes across as more firmly rooted in the present moment (perhaps because he's best known as the author of a novel, Dr. Zhivago, immortalized by a David Lean film in the mid-1960s).

I know nothing of the Russian and German languages and cannot judge the translation as a "correct" one, but the reader who benefits from this book is one who wonders what people felt and how they lived during a time when the Soviet government was ratcheting up the tension that led to the period of the commissars and Stalin.When I began reading this book, I knew little about Rilke and Pasternak, and had never heard of Marina Tsvetayeva.But these writers--as human beings--were no different than anyone else in that they were subjected to the same pressures as anyone living in poverty and fear.Rilke, Pasternak, and Tsvetayeva reacted to their circumstances with beautiful words.They have proven to me--beyond a doubt--that even under the worst governmental regimes, the intelligence we give to our emotions and the joy we have in verbal expression will triumph.Today, we merely die of complacency.

Ultimately, this edition is Marina Tsvetayeva's book: her genius is evident in every phrase of her two essays inspired by the death of Rainer Maria Rilke--80 years ago, December 29, 1926--essays of lyrical prose-poetry translated beautifully by Jamey Gambrell, and appended to the end of the correspondence.The reader cannot simply turn to the back of the book and read Tsvetayeva's essay "Your Death"; one must read everything that comes before.This book also reminds me how indebted all writers and readers are to anyone who--often through extraordinary efforts--saved fragile paper documents, also the artistry and science of translators, archivists, and libraries, as well as the descendants and extended family of the writers.Thank you Alexandra Ryabinina, Yevgeny Pasternak and Yelena Pasternak, Konstantin Azadovsky, Margaret Wettlin and Walter Arndt for a truly astounding commitment to culture.

In the Company of Angels
Words have tremendous power, and reading the letters written from one person to another often helps us to know that person far more intimately than anythng else ever could.

During the summer of 1926, three extraordinary poets (two Russian and one German) began a correxpondence of the highest order.These three extraordinary people were Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva and Ranier Maria Rilke.Rilke, who is revered as a god by both Pasternak and Tsvetayeva, is seen by them as the very essence of poetry, itself.

None of these three correspondents is having a good year:Pasternak is still living in Moscow, attempting to reconcile his life to the Bolshevik regime; Tsvetayeva has been exiled to France with her husband and children and is living in the direst financial straits, with each day presenting a new hurdle in the struggle to simply "get by;" Rilke's situation is perhaps the worst of all...he is dying of leukemia in Switzerland.

Pasternak and Tsvetayeva have already exchanged years of letters filled with the passion and romance of poetry, itself.Although Pasternak saw Rilke briefly in 1900, Tsvetayeva has never laid eyes on her idol.These three poets are, however, connected by a bond far stronger than the physical.They are kindred spirits, and each find repetitions and echoes of himself in the other.

Tsvetayeva quickly becomes the driving force of this trio.This is not surprising given her character.She's the most outrageous of the three, the boldest, the neediest, the one most likely to bare her inner soul to its very depths.Tsvetayeva's exuberance, however, eventually has disatrous effects.

Although Pasternak and Tsvetayeva consider Rilke their superior by far, these are not the letters of acolyte to mentor, but an exchange of thoughts and ideas among equals.If you've ever read the sappy, sentimental "Letters to a Young Poet," you'll find a very different Rilke in this book.Gone is the grandiose, condescending Rilke.In his place we find an enthusiastic Rilke, one filled with an almost overwhelming "joie de vivre," despite his sad circumstances.

As Susan Sontag says in her preface, these letters are definitely love letters of the highest order.The poets seek to possess and consume one another as only lovers can.But even these lovers haven't suspected that one of their trio is fatally ill.Pasternak and Tsvetayeva are both shocked and devastated when Rilke dies.

Love, many people will argue, is best expressed when the people involved are able to spend time together.There is, however, something to be said for separateness, for there is much that can only come to the surface when the lover is separated from the beloved.

These letters can teach us much about Rilke, Pasternak and Tsvetayeva.They can also teach us much about the very depths of the soul...both its anguish and those sublime, angelic heights...areas not often explored by anyone, anywhere, at any time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Artists' Passions
I first read this book several years ago.At the time, I was struck by the depth of passion these two artists had for life and their unfettered ability to express this inner fire.I have never been so touched by a description of what I call an artistic encounter with life as I was touched by Rilke's description of the owl brushing it's wing against the face of the Sphinx in the stillness of the night so that it reverberated through his consciousness to deepen his understanding of sound and music.Recently, a dear friend of mine took a huge artistic leap of faith and has been struggling with the fear of change this has brought.I recommended this book to her and was inspired anew as I read her my favorite passages.Anyone who knows what it feels like to be inside the artistic flow will find kindred spirits inside this book. ... Read more

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Hailed as the greatest modern lyrical poet of Germany, Rainer Maria Rilke's genius lies in his passion for perfection, artistic integrity and 'willingness to remain a perpetual beginner'. The verse contained in this selection ranges from the objective, naturalistic descriptions of his earliest works to the increasingly effusive outpourings of half-religious ecstasy and anguish that characterize his later poems and culminates in the overwhelmingly personal vision of the famous "Duino Elegies" and "The Sonnets to Orpheus", in which his most intense experiences of living and being find their noblest expression. ... Read more

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Rilke's prayerful responses to the french master's beseeching art

For a long time nothing, and then suddenly one has the right eyes.

Virtually every day in the fall of 1907, Rainer Maria Rilke returned to a Paris gallery to view a Cezanne exhibition. Nearly as frequently, he wrote dense and joyful letters to his wife, Clara Westhoff, expressing his dismay before the paintings and his ensuing revelations about art and life.

Rilke was knowledgeable about art and had even published monographs, including a famous study of Rodin that inspired his New Poems. But Cezanne's impact on him could not be conveyed in a traditional essay. Rilke's sense of kinship with Cezanne provides a powerful and prescient undercurrent in these letters -- passages from them appear verbatim in Rilke's great modernist novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Letters on Cezanne is a collection of meaningfully private responses to a radically new art.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

How to create in seeingas poet and artist
Rilke understands Cezanne as one ' who lived in the innermost center of his work for forty years'. The old man who he describes being thrown stones at by children on his way to his studio where he worked and worked, and only worked from the time he found his vocation at the age of thirty, is the example to Rilke of the totally dedicated artist. This artist has that kind of patience which slowly lets his work enfold, layer upon layer. In this as always with Rilke remarkably beautiful and haunting collection of letters he tells of his encounter with the work of Cezanne and how the true artist brings into fuller being the object he sees and creates. Rilke is quoted in the introduction as he talks of " the scales of an infinitely responsive conscience.. which so incorruptibly reduced a reality to its color content that that reality resumed a new existence in a beyond of color, without any previous memories".
This statement so suggestive is typical of the Rilkean text which seems like poetry itself to offer more meanings than any single reading can grasp.
My brief remarks comment upon a few of those suggestions. I believe readers of this work will be inspired to seeing , reading, and in their own minds through the reading, creating of their own on a higher level.

Letters about the spirituality of art
The encounter with the work of Cezanne was one of the milestones in the life of the poet Rilke. The letters which are collected here show why. Rilke, like Cezanne, was a man who was religious in an unconventional way. He was not interested in any particular concept of God, but in the process of discerning the divine in the sheer existence of things as they are: "All talk is misunderstanding. Insight is just in work." What he admired most in Cezanne's work was his "devout objectivity", the ability to let objects speak for themselves without the intellectual interference by the artist and without preconceived notions. Rilke felt that when Cezanne painted the mountain Sainte Victoire, for example, he wanted to show the essence of the mountain, the mountain pure and simple, nothing more, nothing less.

The German edition of the Letters on Cezanne contains an excellent afterword which quotes the philosopher Martin Heidegger who wrote, "we come too late for the Gods, and too early for being," meaning we do not live in the safety of believing in the Gods any more, and we do not trust in simply being yet. Rilke was acutely aware of this state of suspension, and the collection of his letters on Cezanne gives us an idea of how Rilke as an artist intended to make sense of this life in suspension.

Painting thru the eyes of a poet
This book gives one a glimpse of a painters genius as seen through the eyes of a poet.Rilke possesses the poetic sensitivity to shed some light on Cezannes paintings.This along with Delacroixs Journal and Van GoghsLetters to Theo really afford one a literary appreciation of the greatEuropean artists. ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Translated by Edward Snow Winner of the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award.

Rilke's move to Paris in 1902 and his close association with Rodin led him in a new direction in his poetry.Between 1906 and 1908 he produced a torrent of brilliant work that he published in two volumes under the title Neue Gedichte: "New Poems."

As translator Edward Snow writes, these books "together constitute one of the great instances of the lyric quest for objective experience." ... Read more