Duino Elegies

by Rainer Maria Rilke, David Young (Translator)

Overview

One of the literary masterpieces of the century, this translation is now presented with facing-page German.

We have a marvelous, almost legendary, image of the circumstances in which the composition of this great poem began. Rilke was staying at a castle (Duino) on the sea near Trieste. One morning he walked out on the battlements and climbed down to where the rocks dropped sharply to the sea. From out of the wind, which was blowing with great force, Rilke seemed to hear a voice: Wer, wenn ich schriee, horte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? (If I cried out, who would hear me up there, among the angelic orders?). He wrote these words, the opening of the first Duino Elegy, in his notebook, then went inside to continue what was to be his major work and one of the literary masterpieces of the century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393328844
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/01/2006
Edition description:	Bilingual Edition
Pages:	204
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), the author of Sonnets to Orpheus, Duino Elegies, and Letters to a Young Poet, was one of the greatest poets of the German language.

Read an Excerpt

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic

orders? And even if one of them pressed me

suddenly to his heart: I'd be consumed

in his stronger existence. For beauty is nothing

but the beginning of terror, which we can just barely endure,

and we stand in awe of it as it coolly disdains

to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.

-from "The First Elegy"

Table of Contents

Translator's Note     7
Introduction     9
Die erste Elegie     14
The First Elegy     15
Die zweite Elegie     22
The Second Elegy     23
Die dritte Elegie     28
The Third Elegy     29
Die vierte Elegie     36
The Fourth Elegy     37
Die funfte Elegie     42
The Fifth Elegy     43
Die sechste Elegie     50
The Sixth Elegy     51
Die siebente Elegie     54
The Seventh Elegy     55
Die achte Elegie     62
The Eighth Elegy     63
Die neunte Elegie     68
The Ninth Elegy     69
Die zehnte Elegie     74
The Tenth Elegy     75
Commentary     83

What People are Saying About This

Denise Levertov

"Far and away Rilke's best contemporary translator."

Editorial Reviews

For a decade and a half...snow has gradually been building a reputation as Rilke's best contemporary translator in English. His version of the Elegies should cement that reputation, and elevate it: Snow may be the best translator that Rilke has ever had.
—The New Republic

Brian Phillips

Waterfield who received a doctorate in classics and English literature at Christ Church, Oxford and has worked as a music instructor in the UK and Germany, offers what he considers a poetic, rather than literal, translation of Rainer Marie Rilke's "The Duino Elegies." A brief introduction to Rilke and this collection of poems, is followed by both the original German and English translation of the ten elegies, with additional introductions before each poem. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Translation Prize

'Alison Croggon's transformative and impassioned translation of Rilke's Duino Elegies attempt the extraordinary - to bring existence into a temporal-spatial focus. Signature, regret, pain, trauma, wonder, euphoria, wonder, rapture and an immersion in the senses are all contained in the crispness and experiential sensibility that guides Croggon's relationship with the original poems. Croggon lives in the wild beauty of these elegies and makes them glow in translation... This is an incendiary work.' - John Kinsella

'Alison Croggon's new translation of the Elegies has a directness, immediacy, sensuality, and violence that distinguishes her from precursors like J.B. Leishman and Stephen Spender.' - Australian Book Review

'Croggon shows us how to do things with lyric in ways I can only envy.' - Jill Jones

'Alison Croggon is one of the most powerful lyric poets writing today.' - Australian Book Review

'Alison Croggon's transformative and impassioned translation of Rilke's Duino Elegies attempt the extraordinary - to bring existence into a temporal-spatial focus. Signature, regret, pain, trauma, wonder, euphoria, wonder, rapture and an immersion in the senses are all contained in the crispness and experiential sensibility that guides Croggon's relationship with the original poems. Croggon lives in the wild beauty of these elegies and makes them glow in translation... This is an incendiary work.' - John Kinsella

'Croggon's poems offer something intense, difficult and fragile, but simultaneously intimate and hugely rewarding in the reading.' - Cordite Poetry Review

'Alison Croggon is one of the most powerful lyric poets writing today.' - Australian Book Review

From the Publisher