Word: rilkeã
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...under Austro-Hungarian control). Before I evaluate the translation, I must admit that I do not speak a single word of German. Accordingly, I will address the book as a reader for whom it was intended: one who does not know the language and therefore needs another to present Rilke??s poetical universe...
...thick it is. Though this is technically another “selected” Rilke, it is far more thorough than Mitchell’s or Bly’s. The sheer amount of translation here is both admirable and convenient; it is the most complete recent collection of Rilke??s works in English. This is the culmination of Snow’s several previously-published translations of Rilke??s individual volumes, revised and collected in this larger book...
While Mitchell’s translations are looser and more creatively liberal, Snow’s have an interest in direct syntactical facsimile; with a more direct approach to the formulation of Rilke??s images. In “Going Blind,” a poem from “New Poems,” Rilke describes observing a woman who is ostensibly doing just that. The poem ends with a paradigmatic Rilke image—in observing her impediments, he suddenly perceives a flash of transcendent elegance. Mitchell writes, “and yet: as though, once...
This attitude perhaps provides us with a clearer image of what Rilke is doing intellectually; however this often obscures the emotional force of Rilke??s poems. In the third poem of Rilke??s sonnet sequence, “Sonnets to Orpheus,” he addresses a youth, a “Jüngling,” who presumably has been writing bad love poems. Here is Snow’s translation: “It’s [i]not[/i], youth, when you’re in love, even / if then your voice...
...affects us in a certain way. So, assuming translations maintain a reasonable accuracy, it really is a matter of personal preference which translation you choose. For me, Mitchell did the job. However, I believe Snow has put together a translation that will present the ideas and emotions embedded in Rilke??s poems equally enjoyable to others...