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Duino Elegies New Edition
Author(s): Rainer Maria Rilke (Author), Elisabeth Frink (Illustrator), Peter Porter (Foreword), Stephen Cohn (Translator)
- Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd
- Publication Date: 1 July 1996
- Edition: New
- Language: English
- Print length: 104 pages
- ISBN-10: 0856358371
- ISBN-13: 9780856358371
Book Description
With all his contradictions, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is one of the fathers of modern literature and the Duino Elegies one of its great monuments. Begun in 1912 but not completed until 1922, they are `modern’ in almost every sense the word has acquired; yet Rilke was by temperament anti-moderhn, a snob and a romantic. He was devoted to the three A’s: Architecture, Agriculture, Aristocracy. The Duino Elegies aroused real excitement among English readers when the now-dated Leishman/Spender versions first appeared in the 1930s. Stephen Cohn, the distinguished artist and teacher, has worked for over three years to complete this outstanding new translation. Peter Porter writes: `Your translation must have grandeur, essential size in its component parts, and speed to catch the marvellous twists of Rilke’s imagination.’ He adds, `Cohn has met all these requirements.’ These versions show a rare empathy with the originals and an instinct for the right diction and cadence. They are, says Porter, `the most flowing and organic I have read.’
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
RAINER MARIA RILKE (1875-1926) is widely regarded as the greatest German language poet since Goethe. Rilke worked for some time as Rodin’s secretary at Meudon, and the sculptor’s example lies behind the `new’ bias of the poems of 1907 and 1908. These Neue Gedichte-the New Poems-are among the most accessible works by this outstanding lyric poet.
