Rilke, Rainer Maria

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It is destiny.
Beautiful, Humble, and Sincere
Excellent - A Classic
A Classic
Encouragement and Commitment for a Writer's Life

Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke (Modern Library)
Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke (Modern Library)

ASIN: 0486422453

Amazon.com

It would take a deeply cynical heart not to fall in love with Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. At the end of this millennium, his slender book holds everything a student of the century could want: the unedited thoughts of (arguably) the most important European poet of the modern age. Rilke wrote these 10 sweepingly emotional letters in 1903, addressing a former student of one of his own teachers. The recipient was wise enough to omit his own inquiries from the finished product, which means that we get a marvelously undiluted dose of Rilkean aesthetics and exhortation.

The poet prefaced each letter with an evocative notation of the city in which he wrote, including Paris, Rome, and the outskirts of Pisa. Yet he spends most of the time encouraging the student in his own work, delivering a sublime, one-on-one equivalent of the modern writing workshop: <blockquote> Go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside. </blockquote> Every page is stamped with Rilke's characteristic grace, and the book is free of the breathless effect that occasionally mars his poetry. His ideas on gender and the role of the artist are also surprisingly prescient. And even his retrograde comment on the "beauty of the virgin" (which the poet derives from the fact that she "has not yet achieved anything") is counterbalanced by his perception that "the sexes are more related than we think." Those looking for an alluring image of the solitary artist--and for an astonishing quotient of wisdom--will find both in Letters to a Young Poet. --Jennifer Buckendorff

Book Description

In 1903, Rilke replied in a series of 10 letters to a student who had submitted some verses to the well-known Austrian poet for an assessment. Written during an important stage in Rilke's artistic development, these letters contain many of the themes that later appeared in his best works. Essential reading for scholars, poetry lovers.

Customer Reviews:

It is destiny........2007-04-06

In this collection of letters to the aspiring poet, we are exposed to Rainer Maria Rilke at his rawest level. He shows us why he writes, how he writes, and what inspires him to write. Rilke's prose style is wonderfully complex: one is reminded of his poetry in his word choice and tone.

Rainer Maria Rilke was perhaps the greatest poet of the 20th century. These letters are certainly something that everyone should read - people will learn more about themselves as they learn more about Rilke

Beautiful, Humble, and Sincere.......2007-02-17

Letters to a Young Poet is a short read that you can run your eyes and your soul over again and again! But just because it is a short read does not mean it has to be a quick read. Rilke's words were so rich and full that I had to read his letters slowly. I found I enjoyed savoring his beautifully sculpted words even though part of me wished to devour them.

Mr. Kappus, a young poet struggling with life in military school, discovers that he is enrolled in the same military school that Rilke used to attend. Therefore, he decides to seek Rilke's advice and opinions in his poetic endeavors through written correspondence. This book is a compilation of ten letters Rilke sends in response to Mr. Kappus's letters. After the letters themselves, the book builds background context to the letters by informing the reader about Rilke's life and state of mind during the time these letters were written.

I found this book inspiring and saddening at the same time. It isn't really the advice Rilke offers that I value and enjoy so much. My love for this collection of letters stems from the incredible word pictures that Rilke paints in my head and his touchingly sincere style of writing. For example he paints a visual of patience with, "Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer." His words stir something in the heart.

He writes with such intensity and depth that you can see each lesson taught and each thought that is shared has been earned at a high cost to the writer. He speaks to the young poet on solitude and patience for which he has himself been battling to achieve. As I read, I began to feel that maybe he is actually advising and encouraging himself as much as Mr. Kappus through writing these letters.

At first I didn't really find the ending section of the book on the life of Rilke very interesting. In fact, it bored me until I got to the background of about Rilke's sixth letter which contained more of Rilke's own words from correspondence he had with other people. But when I went back and read the letters again, I saw even more depth and emotion in them revealed by the context built in that ending biographical section.

This is one of those books I'd keep handy for repeated reading. The reason I rated the book a 4 instead of 5 is because I don't know if this book is for everyone. I really enjoyed it, and I truly believe most will. But I could see some that will read it and just not find the beauty in it. If you love the magnitude of words, this book is for you. Drink it deeply and enjoy!

Excellent - A Classic.......2007-01-08

Timeless wisdom. A classic must read for everyone. I finally picked up a copy after having read many inspiring quotes from the book. Well worth it!

A Classic.......2007-01-08

It was an act of impulse that prompted Franz Xaver Kappus, a young and obscure poet, to send a letter to the great Rainer Maria Rilke. Franz was inspired to write the letter because he shared a common teacher with Rilke; presumably he included some of his poems in the letter to Rilke and asked for his opinion of them. This correspondence, which started in 1903, would continue for five more years.

"Letters to a Young Poet" collects ten of Rilke's letters (the letters from Franz to Rilke are omitted). The content of the letters are varied; it includes Rilke offering insights into the creative process, the difficulties and joys of writing, problems in aesthetics, solitude, memory and more. All of the letters are passionate and extremely evocative. Reading the letters one gets the sense that Rilke was a person who thought and felt deeply. For him, solitude (not ordinary, but bordering on monastic solitude) was a pre-requisite for artistic creation and self-discovery, a rite of passage through which great truths might be discovered: "The necessary thing is after all but this: solitude, great inner solitude. Going-into-oneself and for hours meeting no one--this one must be able to attain."

As for Franz Xaver Kappus, as he himself says in the preface, "life drove me off into those very regions from which the poet's warm, tender and touching concern had sought to keep me." However, the letters remain as treasures to other readers. Stephen Mitchell's is probably the best of the English translations. The edition translated by M.D. Herter Norton is also a good one, all the more so because an appendix relates the (complicated) personal context within which Rilke wrote the letters.

Encouragement and Commitment for a Writer's Life.......2006-10-05

Letters to a Young Poet
by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Joan M. Burnham)

Published: New World Library.
Number of Pages: 95, plus additional 18 pages of text, including Forward, Introduction,
About the Author, About the Translator, and Recommended Reading Lists
Year Published: 2000
Price: $15.00
Widely available at large and niche book stores and on-line (ISBN - 1-57731-155-8)

Ideal Audience: The most profound impact of this lovely little book will be on serious writers who want wise counsel, reassurance, and encouragement to pursue the writing life. That having been said, there is enough substantive content that, properly presented, the book could be a useful tool for creative writing teachers at the accelerated high school level or above.

Brief Summary: Rilke was a Czechoslovakian poet of some note in his lifetime (1875-1926) who in his late twenties and early thirties exchanged letters with a younger poet, the now nearly-unknown Franz Xaver Kappus, who sent Rilke some of his work for comment. The book contains 10 of Rilke's letters, edited and translated from the original German, from that correspondence. Dated over a period of five years, the letters evolve from providing general advice on literary devices (such as the use of irony), to opinions on topics related to writing, including the value of others' criticisms, to philosophizing on the virtues of solitary work, the uses of adversity, and the impact of building a life around one's art. As one would expect from a poet, Rilke's observations are intensely personal, heartfelt, and beautifully written (subject to the caveat of their having been read only in translation).

Because he specifically declined to critique Kappus' submissions to him, Rilke is not a source for substantive lessons on techniques, especially those thought of as pertaining primarily to the novel, such as plot arc, character development, etc. He speaks most eloquently and timelessly on a writer's need to incorporate experiences, a child's perspective, and, especially, aloneness into the creative process.

Although the format of Letters to a Young Poet was driven by actuality rather than as a clever construct, the book stands as an effective example of the opportunities of the form and could certainly be taught that way, particularly to younger writers exploring various creative writing devices in either fiction or non-fiction. There are also passages of great lyrical beauty that could be used in a classroom or workshop as examples of description or metaphor.

Sample Excerpts: The following passage is typical of Rilke's commitment to encouraging a young writer's confidence and reliance on his own judgment as opposed to external critiques:

When considering analysis, discussion, or presentation, listen to your inner self and to your feelings every time. Should you be mistaken, after all, the natural growth of your inner life will guide you slowly and in good time to other conclusions. Allow your judgments their own quiet, undisturbed development, which, as with all progress, must come from deep within and can in no way be forced or hastened. (p. 25-26)

Rilke's skill as a poet is evident in his evocative descriptions and phraseology, as in the following written from Rome:

Unending streams of lively water flow over the old aqueducts in the large city. They dance in the city squares over white stone bowls and spread themselves out in wide roomy basins. They rustle by day and raise their voice to the night. Night here is grand, expansive, soft from the winds, and full of stars. . . . And staircases are here, steps conceived by Michelangelo, steps that were modeled after downward gliding waters, broad in their descent, one step giving birth to another, as wave from wave. (p. 46-47)

As philosopher, Rilke can be inspiring:

We can be sure of very little, but the need to court struggle is a surety that will not leave us. It is good to be lonely, for being alone is not easy. The fact that something is difficult must be one more reason to do it. (p. 62-63)

Primary Strength: I was deeply affected by Rilke's reassurances that a writer's life can be - even needs to be - difficult. He wisely advises making peace with the isolation and loneliness that seem to be endemic with writers, and his tone of encouragement and deep affection for those who chose an artistic life does not waver.

Primary Weakness: Some readers may find Rilke's philosophy obvious and dated. Certainly a writer or teacher of writing seeking how-to guidance or exercises to strengthen specific techniques will not find them here.

Urgency Rating: As a classic of its type and for the sincere reassurances it offers, this book should be on the nightstand of every struggling writer. Teachers who care about how their students live as writers (as opposed to just producing decent writing) would do well to READ THIS PROMPTLY and consider incorporating in their attitudes and interactions its spirit of encouragement and commitment.

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations

Average customer rating:

"The point is to live everything"
A journey through the roots of the speech!
Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Considerations, etc.
Self Discovery For The Strong Willed
Eloquent Meditations on Art and Life

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
Rainer Maria Rilke , and John J. L. Mood
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Letters to a Young Poet
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke (Modern Library)
The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke (Modern Library)

ASIN: 0393310981

Book Description

<B>An anthology of Rilke's strongest poetry and prose for both aficionados and new readers.</B>

Here is a mini-anthology of poetry and prose for both aficionados and those readers discovering Rainer Maria Rilke for the first time. John J. L. Mood has assembled a collection of Rilke's strongest work, presenting commentary along with the selections. Mood links into an essay passages from letters that show Rilke's profound understanding of men and women and his ardent spirituality, rooted in the senses.

Combining passion and sensitivity, the poems on love presented here are often not only sensual but sexual as well. Others pursue perennial themes in his work—death and life, growth and transformation. The book concludes with Rilke's reflections on wisdom and openness to experience, on grasping what is most difficult and turning what is most alien into that which we can most trust.

Customer Reviews:

"The point is to live everything".......2006-07-07

"Do not seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now." Perhaps then without noticing it everything will resolve gradually along some distant day into the answer."

Rilke is a poet who brings mystery and existensial questioning into every rich and suggestive line he writes. His poetry is ripe and weighted with meaning.
In this small book there are selections from his letters, in which he spontaneously reflects on Love as he addresses intimately his correspondents. There are too his poems on Love whose metaphoric questioning and ambiguity also seem to bring the reader into a poetic space of special mystery and beauty.

"The more one is, the more abundant is everything one experiences. If you want to have a deep love in your life, you must save up for it and collect and gather honey."

Rilke's own personal love life bears not only the mark of his questioning , and deep search for meaning. It also marks the record of his meeting and abandonment. The real love of his life despite his many deep love connections was with his own vocation for which he left his wife and young daughter.

"What ruthless magnificence and yet how terrible to ignite love; what conflagration, what disaster, what doom.To be on fire yourself, of course , if one is capable of it: that may well be worth life and death."

One may not always understand, one may not always agree, one may not always approve but when one reads Rilke what knows one is in the presence of great and deep poetry.

A journey through the roots of the speech!.......2005-04-17

There have been very few poets with such creative mind, potency and inexhaustibleness as R.M.R. He was a cosmic poet of introspective flight loaded if you want of musical intimacy, his thoughts seem to be Chopin's Nocturnes and he sings his rapture homage to the night as a few indeed but the most impressive character is behind that radiant language's use there is a shaman speaking by him.

You may not argue the lack of time concerning to Rilke: the poetry simply doesn't understand about absences and coordinates of space or time, simply it appears and seduces you with the exemplary serenity of an astonished child. O course his nocturnal visions were expanded by Nietzsche and Lou Andreas Salomé.

This fundamental text will lead you to another spheres where the Fourth Wall, in what dreams and love walk freely without rules, engagement in the most absolute disobey 's spirit , the essential premise of the artists, children and heroes.

"Life and death: they are one, at core entwined. Who understands himself from his own strain, presses himself into a drop of wine and throws himself into the purest flame".

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Considerations, etc........2001-09-13

Some 25 years ago i was given a copy of this enlightening book by the author, himself. It continues to be one i re-read and enjoy. Dr. Mood is an inspiration, in that he is both a sexy man as well as one who has been blessed with the love of an extraordinarily brilliant woman, which leads me to believe he's eminently qualified to speak on the subject as one who has given, as well as enjoyed a great love in spite of difficulties. An excellent addition to the library of anyone in search of truths.

Self Discovery For The Strong Willed.......2000-05-24

Approximately 1 year ago, I was introduced to Rilke. Since then I have purchased a few of his books. This is one of my favorites, at this point in my life. He seems to have this way of reaching into your inner soul and grabbing a hold of your reality and making you face it, in a very non-threatening, passionate sort of way. I would highly recommend this book to anyone on a self-discovery path.

Eloquent Meditations on Art and Life.......2000-03-28

I recieved this book as a gift many years ago and it has been with me ever since. There are passages in this book that can be read through out life and never lose their initial power on the reader.

Amazon.com

Stephen Mitchell offers what are perhaps the most masterful and intimate translations of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry to date, infusing it with all the power, eloquence, rhythm and lightness of its original voice. Includes the Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus.

Book Description

"This miracle of a book, perhaps the most beautiful group of poetic translations this century has ever produced," (Chicago Tribune) should stand as the definitive English language version.

Customer Reviews:

Mitchell's translations take great liberties.......2007-02-12

Mitchell's translations are sometimes quite unfaithful to Rilke, and some of his renderings clumsy--even if the poem had been his own English-language creation. However, in some cases, he significantly alters the meanings of lines. A good example of this is in Rilke's famous "Der Schwan" in which Mitchell renders "draws back past him in streams on either side" from "unter ihm zurückziehn, Flut um Flut." "Wave by wave" becomes "on either side" and "beyond him" becomes "past him." The distortions in other places go beyond the aesthetic to alter the content of Rilke's poem, as in the final line of "Der Panther," which Mitchel renders "plunges into the heart and is gone" instead of something like "plunges into his heart to be." "To be," to remain, to exist, is a heckuva ways from "gone." I think Mitchell's translations are a shame, given that it can be so difficult to find bilingual editions. In this case, I'd recommend at least comparing this volume to Hofman's Twentieth Century German Poetry before purchasing. Certainly if you have no German, you'd want accurate translations.

The angel of the word!.......2006-11-11

Rainer Maria Rilke' s exquisite stylistic sobriety and his thought's deepness makes of him one of the most absorbing and interesting poets of the second half of the XIX Century. His febrile style contrasts with the delicacy of his verses, loaded of penetrating vision and prolific display of visual images that conveys us with the mythic roots.

The words in Rilke's poetic have major expression, density and expression; a strong expansiveness and excel significance.

His reading is an absolute must for any hard reader I any corner of the world.

a lifeline.......2006-05-12

This is one book I cannot live without.
I can't read German, so I am grateful for the translation, and Rilke's genius is not lost in translation. :)

Favorites? I can't name just one. You who never arrived...For the sake of one poem...The Prodigal Son...Spanish dancer...
Oh, the sheer beauty and power of his words make the familiar unfamiliar - alive. Whenever I feel down, I find myself leafing through these pages and the blues will slip away, making me appreciate life with all its ups and downs.

A book to read for a lifetime!

Wonderful.......2006-04-16

Du im Voraus
Verlone Geliebte, Nimmergekimmene,
Nicht weiss ich, welche Tone dir lieb sind.
Nicht mehr versuch ich, dich, wenn das Kommenende wogt,
Zu erkennen. Alle die grossen
Bilder in mir, im Fernen erfahrene Landschaft,
Stadte und Turme und Brucken und un-
Vermutete Wedung der Wege
Und das Gewaltige jener von Gottern
Einst durchwachsenen Lander:
Steigt zur Bedeutung in mir
Deiner, Entgehende, an.

You who never arrived
In my arms, Beloved, who were lost
From the start,
I don't even know what songs
Would please you. I have given up trying
To recognize you in the surging wave of the next
Moment. All the immense images in me-the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
Cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
Suspected turns in the path,
And those powerful lands that were once
Pulsing with the life of the gods-
All rise within me to mean
You, who forever elude me.

This has been a passage from Rilke's `You who never arrived', one of the many beautiful and profound poems in this extraordinary collection, provided with an equally extraordinary translation by Stephen Mitchell. Rilke is almost universally established as the most important European poet of the 20th century. The poems in this collection will stay in your mind and in your heart long after you finish reading.

excellent translation.......2005-08-24

I do not read German and must rely on English translations of Rilke's poetry and prose. The William Gass book on Rilke and translation is a pretty reliable guide here but there is no substitute for reading Rilke in different translations. I have a preference for Edward Snow as translator but admire very much the Stephen Mitchell translations, as in this volume. Readable and understandable which is not always the case with the Leishman translations.
I have read a lot of poetry through the years - good, bad, mediocre - and Rilke is rapidly becoming my favorite.

Average customer rating:

Book from my young adulthood
To be honest...
An intellectual goldmine...
it really is a novel
unpleasantness

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Rainer Maria Rilke
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Letters to a Young Poet
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke (Modern Library)
The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke (Modern Library)

ASIN: 0393308812

Book Description

This is the definitive, widely acclaimed translation of the major prose work of one of our century's greatest poets -- "a masterpiece like no other" (Elizabeth Hardwick) -- Rilke's only novel, extraordinary for its structural uniqueness and purity of language. First published in 1910, it has proven to be one of the most influential and enduring works of fiction of our century.

Malte Laurids Brigge is a young Danish nobleman and poet living in Paris. Obsessed with death and with the reality that lurks behind appearances, Brigge muses on his family and their history and on the teeming, alien life of the city. Many of the themes and images that occur in Rilke's poetry can also be found in the novel, prefiguring the modernist movement in its self-awareness and imagistic immediacy.

Customer Reviews:

Book from my young adulthood.......2007-06-14

I discovered this book quite by accident, so it has a a special place for me. I found it at a used book sale in my home town, pop. 2000, and was so curious as to what exactly it was about, I bought it, figuring it had to have some value. Needless to say, it was like nothing I'd read at that point, being all of 21. It didn't matter to me that the book was plotless (as has been noted elsewhere)--the prose was gorgeous.
I still have my copy, and have gone back to it a number of times in the last 20 years. At one point I read aloud, to my wife, the last section in which Rilke/Malte gives his interpretation of the Prodigal Son story. I didn't know when I began, but it would soon reduce me to tears. So you could say it spoke to me very personally about love and "not wanting to be loved", which is part of his theme about the Prodigal.
A gem of a book, but probably not for everyone...but then, that's true for many books!

To be honest..........2005-09-04

I don't normally do this, but I'm going to fess up to not understanding what The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge was all about. So for readers who don't want to see a Lit 101 excerpt here, please continue reading my review.

First, the style is tricky, but manageable. Rainer Maria Rilke was primarily a poet, and it shows here in many ways, but this is still a prose story. It is told in snippets of thought, supposedly from a notebook (hence the title) or diary of some kind, but not like any I've imagined. Brigge is a young man in a foreign city pondering, I think, life and everything. Particularly death. This comes as no surprise as it's what most poets ponder. Throughout, he tells stories about his family and upbringing. I got the sense he was searching for something in his mind/emotions, but what that is I don't know. Inner peace, I would imagine. Or maybe the meaning of life. That's usually a safe assumption.

For this unliterary philistine, the strengths and weaknesses of the Notebook were found in whether Brigge's reminiscences were interesting to read about or not. Some, like the appearance of the long dead ghost at the supper table, stick in my mind. Others don't. I'd share with you which ones don't, but I've forgotten them. Somehow they all fit together. Or at least Brigge wants them too. He may have found the meaning of life or he may not have. The author was a bit vague about such things as actual conclusions.

I liked it well enough. The mood was properly dark and searching. Literarily inclined Goth teens might get into it. I tried (no, it wasn't assigned in a class), but I think I failed. Best of luck to future readers.

An intellectual goldmine..........2003-04-26

This proto-existentialist novel features a main character (Malte) that is frightened by the possibility of faceless-ness; that is, he is terrified by the collapse of a coherent subject/identity in modernity. This work is highly critical of the traditional narrative where everything occurs in a logical and temporal order that is coherent and teleological. Through the character of Malte, Rilke illustrates the decay of such an understanding of one's self and the chaos that results.

Rilke read a lot of Nietzsche prior to writing this book, and many of the same themes Nietzsche contemplated in The Gay Science and Thus Spake Zarathustra are reworked by Rilke in this novel. It is my interpretation that Rilke was trying to work out a theory of modern, fragmented, existential subjectivity and then offer some way to make such a life livable. Rilke explores such themes as memory's transience, unpredictability, and instability, the role of a God in a world after the "death of God", and a dissolving of the conceptual categories between the self and the other, or the inside and the outside, all play into this fascinating book.

The book is written in notebook form, which plays into the notion of fragmentary identity and problematic narrative. Entries jump from the past to the present to imagined futures in an often random and chaotic order. There is no "plot" to speak of, although there are bits and pieces of narratives, but nothing sufficient enough to create a comprehensible 'Malte'. All the while, you are in the mind of a character that is trying and failing to make sense of it all (to 'impose' a narrative).

The later Martin Heidegger always lauded Rilke (despite Rilke's being too metaphysical) for being able to express ways of interacting with the world that were non-humanist. He was especially interested, and wrote significantly about, a passage (p. 46 in the Vintage paperback edition) where Malte imagines a house and its inhabitants from a single mutilated wall that is left remaining. I'm not too sure what his relation to the text as a whole was, so I'll leave it at that.

This book is an intellectual paradise and is rich in treasures as long as you are willing to look for them.

it really is a novel.......2002-03-11

though it seems to be a collection of strange lyric essays moving from simple snapshots to fantastic recollections and musings. There are seeds planted early that expand and flower, painfully and beautifully and so truthfully. This is what books should do for people. Every sentence, as foreign as it can seem, you've known all your life, and you see it now in words. I don't know anything about german, but this translation is incredibly beautiful, I cannot imagine the original could work any better than this. There is no desire to move forward, you move through the pages and can't imagine having to look up. Blah blah and more blah, its really good.

unpleasantness.......2001-09-22

[....]Loving another does not entitle one to their love in return, but being loved by another does place one
under an obligation. This is the awful truth that Rainer Maria Rilke's semi autobiographical hero,
Malte Laurids Brigge, seems to be trying to evade. In fact, this is very much the dilemma of modern
man, for no matter how much we love God, our love will not necessarily influence Him, but His love
for us places us under an obligation to Him. Of course, the easiest way out of this dilemma is simply
to deny the existence of God, which has been the response of Modernity.

Unfortunately, this still leaves the problem of fellow humans, and the obligations that their love puts
us under. Thus, Rilke, who wrote the book after running away from his wife and young child, says of
Brigge :

[H]e had decided never to love, in order not to put anyone in the terrible position of being loved.

Or, as Sartre more famously said :

Hell is other people.

Both quotes reflect an understanding that love ultimately places limits on human freedom, by creating
interdependence.

Brigge's/Rilke's reaction, one which has been all to common in our age, was to turn completely
inward and become totally self-absorbed, to disregard others. And in the absence of God and of other
people what is the central fact of the self ? Mortality. So it is little surprise that an obsession with
death thoroughly permeates the Notebooks. If you really want to read about an effete and morbidly
self-centered intellectual who is down and out in Paris (of course Paris), this is the book for you.

But if you don't share in the pathologies, it's likely to be off-putting, at least it was for me. [The beauty of Rilke's language]
certainly does not redeem the depressing story. Rilke's concerns are those you would expect of the
man that Michael Dirda describes above : only his own unpleasant self. In the end the book is mainly
interesting as an influential expression of a philosophy of mere existence that has proven enormously
damaging, contributing mightily to the unfortunate atomization of humanity in the 20th Century.

Book Description

Long considered the definitive English translation of Rilke's brilliant and haunting masterworks, A. Poulin's edition of Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus provides an essential introduction to some of the most passionate and intensely creative visionary poetry of the twentieth century. With a new foreword by the esteemed poet Mark Doty and a fresh new design, Poulin's revered translation is certain to acquaint a new generation of readers with the works of Rilke.

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant poem, horrible translation.......2007-05-07

The Duino Elegies is one of the most breathtaking turns of 20th-century poetry (I don't want to say "great" or "canonical" here) but it has suffered a long history of bad translations into English that push the agendas of translators over faithfulness to the text. You're better off finding an early translation than picking this up, at least until a (good) poet takes the project on--Jerome Rothenberg, where are you when we need you?

The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke (Modern Library)

Average customer rating:

"It is possible to love to such an extent that the shortcomings of one's beloved begin to appear touching , even wonderful, ...

The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke (Modern Library)
Rainer Maria Rilke
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Essential Rilke
You Alone Are Real to Me: Remembering Rainer Maria Rilke (American Readers Series, 7)

ASIN: 0679642927
Release Date: 2005-03-22

Book Description

“You have to live life to the limit, not according to each day but by plumbing its depth.”
–RAINER MARIA RILKE

In this treasury of uncommon wisdom and spiritual insight, the best writings and personal philosophies of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, are gleaned by Ulrich Baer from thousands of pages of never-before translated correspondence.

The result is a profound vision of how the human drive to create and understand can guide us in every facet of life. Arranged by theme–from everyday existence with others to the exhilarations of love and the experience of loss, from dealing with adversity to the nature of inspiration, here are Rilke’s thoughts on how to live life in a meaningful way:

Life and Living: “How good life is. How fair, how incorruptible, how impossible to deceive: not even by strength, not even by willpower, and not even by courage. How everything remains what it is and has only this choice: to come true, or to exaggerate and push too far.”

Art: “The work of art is adjustment, balance, reassurance. It can be neither gloomy nor full of rosy hopes, for its essence consists of justice.”

Faith: “I personally feel a greater affinity to all those religions in which the middleman is less essential or almost entirely suppressed.”

Love: “To be loved means to be ablaze. To love is: to shine with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to last.”

Intimate, stylistically masterful, brilliantly translated, and brimming with the wonder and passion of Rilke, The Poet’s Guide to Life is comparable to the best works of wisdom in all of literature and a perfect book for all occasions.

Customer Reviews:

"It is possible to love to such an extent that the shortcomings of one's beloved begin to appear touching , even wonderful, ..........2006-06-28

This is a profound and beautiful book. Ulrich Baer, editor and translator of the volume has gone through the more than seven- thousand letters Rilke wrote in his lifetime and selected those he felt had the most to say about living and loving in the world. He orders the letters into sections which begin with his title and are followed by a line from Rilke.

1) On LIfe and Living You have to live life to the limit
2) On Being with others To be a Part, that is Fulfillment for us
3)On Work: Get up Cheerfully on Days You have to Work
4) On Difficulty and Adversity The Measure by which we may know our Strength
5)On Childhood and Education; This Joy in Daily Discovery
6) On Nature It Knows Nothing of Us
7)On Solitude The Lonest People Above all Contribute Most to Commonality
8)On Illness and Recovery Pain Tolerates No Interpretation
9)On Loss, Dying and Death Even Time Does not 'Console' It puts things in Place and creates Order
10) On Language That Vast, Humming and Swinging Syntax
11)On Art Art Presents Itself as a Way of Life
12) On Faith A Direction of the Heart
13) On Goodness and Morality Nothing Good, Once it Has Come into Existence May be Suppressed
14) On Love There is no Force in the World but Love

In his rich repetitive introduction to the volume Baer discusses the special place letter-writing had in Rilke's life and work. Rilke in his letters has a spontaneity and poetic freedom beyond that in his very disciplined and exacting poems. But of course the themes of both forms of writing are common ones, and the letters a source of ideas and inspirations for the Poetry. What distinguishes the Letters from another form Rilke used to great advantage ' the Diary' is the consciousness of the 'you' at the other end.
Baer suggests one particular strength of Rilke's writing in the Letters is his nuanced awareness of the person at the other end, and his ability to reach out and feel and know how to express a message which will resonate in the heart of the recipient.
Baer gives a picture of Rilke the legendary Poet- waiting for the fruit to ripen ,as most notably in the great period in which he suddenly in weeks time wrote the 'Duino Elegies' and 'Sonnets to Orpheus'- in contrast to the daily workman letter-writing Rilke. Baer underlines that Rilke expresses in the letters his own rare and special vision of life, one which conjoins the everyday with the cosmic, which feels in the rhythms of rhyme our inner rhythm of biology and mind, which senses in its internalization of the worlds objects a fullness of being and lived life. Baer presents the picture of a poet of holy immanence whose idea of the aesthetic is not in the pretty only, but who forges and finds beauty in the ugly aspects of reality also.
Baer also tells the not always admirable tale of Rilke's personal life, the marriage to Clara Westhoff, the birth of their sole daughter Ruth, Rilke's abandonment of them, his seeking out his own fate but not without his fawning at aristocratic patrons, his love of love but often cruel abandonment of those loved, his loyalty to his own faith and vocation as poet, his apprentice- admiring relationship with Rodin and wisdom in being free of it, his great fame. And what is in a way most touching his keeping in touch through the letters as he deepened into a solitude which for him was far more blessing than curse.
It seems there now is a fashion started perhaps by Alain de Botton with his volume on Proust, of selecting out from the total work of great literary creators passages best encapsulating their wisdom and vision of life.
Many of the statements of this volume may seem exaggerated and in need of qualification. Yet even these statements are richly poetically suggestive. The work of a great poet for whom ripeness is within, and richness in feeling infuses all.

" The strings of sorrow may only be used extensively if one vows to play on them also at a later point and in their particular key all of the joyousness that accumulates behind everything that is difficult, painful and that we had to suffer, and without which the voices are not complete."

"I believe that one is never more just than at those moments when one admires unreservedly and with absolute devotion. It is in this spirit of unchecked admiration that the few great individuals whom our time was unable to stifle ought to be presented, precisely because ourage has become so very good at assuming a critical stance."

"After all, life is not even close to being as logically consistent as our worries; it has many more unexpected ideas and faces than we do."

Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke (Modern Library)

Average customer rating:

5 stars for the original poetry, 1 star for the translations
Lush, Alive and Vivid Addition to Your Rilke Collection
poetry from the soul
eloquent and thought provoking
Suspicious Translation

Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke (Modern Library)
Rainer Maria Rilke
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

Letters to a Young Poet
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The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

ASIN: 0679601619
Release Date: 1995-08-01

Customer Reviews:

5 stars for the original poetry, 1 star for the translations.......2006-12-01

Rilke is just about my favourite poet... a true master. In the German, his verse is just sublime.

These translations, however, are shockingly bad. Not only does the translator completely ignore (or distort) some of the key images, he invents new ones for no apparent reason. Mitchell seems to think he is there to improve on the original. He doesn't.

If you don't read German, you should only buy this to read Mitchell's verse. You won't be getting Rilke's.

Lush, Alive and Vivid Addition to Your Rilke Collection.......2006-01-29

I am a passionate, ardent admirer of Rilke so
before I even opened this book I knew I would
be delighted because of its sheer weight and size.

Oh, YES! I thought to myself.

And then I opened it - and the very first selection
is Rilke's evocative poem, "I live my life in
Widening Circles" with the German on one page
and the English on the facing page.

I don't even speak German - but I love looking
at Rilke's original words - just LOOKING at them
elevates me. I also think that the side-by-side
translation says something of translater Stephen
Mitchell's love for the original.

I also enjoyed the Selected Prose. In reading it
I felt like I was stepping into Rilke's den for
a chat and either strong coffee or a cocktail.

This would be an excellent introduction to Rilke
or a fine compliment to anyone's Rilke Library.

poetry from the soul.......2004-12-02

I recently discovered Rilke, and am much the better for it - his craft with words literally gives one goosebumps. The poetry portion of _Ahead of All Parting_ is dual language, so readers of German can enjoy the original as well as Mitchell's translations. The book also contains copious notes about many of the poems (when they were written, what was going on in Rilke's life) as well as a section of his published and unpublished prose, which I found almost as vivid and beautiful as his poetry. The book itself is also physically beautiful - the pages are delicate, further adding to the sensusousness of the reading experience.

eloquent and thought provoking.......2004-06-03

ahead of all parting is a book that i treasure above all others. after reading a friends copy, i immediately ran to the bookstore that same night, and paid full price for it. something i rarely do, by the way. rilke is one of the most eloquent and beautiful writers that i know of. his poetry is some of the most thought provoking and uplifting that i have ever read. he saw things and felt things differently than the average person, and in turn used that to build his poetry and prose. mitchell is the best english translator for rilke's work, it's not perfect, but it's not bad. i have nothing but praise for rainer maria rilke. for all poetry lovers out there, i definately recommend you pick up a copy of this book, you will not regret it.

Suspicious Translation.......2004-02-22

The three stars I give this book are more for Rilke than for his rather poor translator.

I first became suspicious of Stephen Mitchell when I noticed some rather careless mistakes in this book (for instance, translating the German word for Moon into sun).

But I was no longer suprised by these flaws when I noticed some other works that Mitchell has translated:
the Bhagavad-Gita
The Book of Job
The Gospel
The Tao-Te-Ching

I suppose it is theoretically possible for there to exist an individual that is so immensely talented with languages that he is capable of translating adequately texts from Sanskrit, Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Classical Chinese, and German.... But I don't think Mitchell is that individual.

Book Description

Edited by Yevgeny Pasternak, Yelena Pasternak, and Konstantin M. Azadovsky

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. Letters: Summer 1926 takes the reader into the hearts and minds of three of the twentieth century's greatest poets at a moment of maximum emotional and creative pressure.

Customer Reviews:

A revelation, a model, for the possibility of human communication .......2007-01-03

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.......2002-04-12

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.

Book Description

While visiting Russia in his twenties, Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the twentieth century's greatest poets, was moved by a spirituality he encountered there. Inspired, Rilke returned to Germany and put down on paper what he felt were spontaneously received prayers. Rilke's Book of Hours is the invigorating vision of spiritual practice for the secular world, and a work that seems remarkably prescient today, one hundred years after it was written.

Rilke's Book of Hours shares with the reader a new kind of intimacy with God, or the divine--a reciprocal relationship between the divine and the ordinary in which God needs us as much as we need God. Rilke influenced generations of writers with his Letters to a Young Poet, and now Rilke's Book of Hours tells us that our role in the world is to love it and thereby love God into being. These fresh translations rendered by Joanna Macy, a mystic and spiritual teacher, and Anita Barrows, a skilled poet, capture Rilke's spirit as no one has done before.

Customer Reviews:

Glad to have the German alongside the translated poems.......2007-01-02

As previous reviewers have noted, _Rilke's Book of Hours_ has its shortcommings, most notably the way in which the poems have been translated. While I am more forgiving of the translations than others, it is valid concern.

First, the German - Rilke's poetry is spiritually transcendent, moving and sublime. This collection is marvelous. However, the translations are a bit sticky. Certainly some slack must be given anyone who translates literature, poetry especially so. And while I was not happy to see some of Rilke's poems "reinterpreted," the translators were quite upfront and honest with their intentions.

Certainly purists will take issue with the English translations. Nonetheless, I found this a wonderful, beautiful collection of spiritually moving and thought-provoking poems.

90% Rilke, 10% Translator.......2006-03-28

Rilke wrote exceptional poetry. This book offers prayers he felt compelled to write after visiting Russia and encountering a simpler form of Christianity. It is engaging and powerful to wrestle with God and the human condition as they intersect. Rilke holds himself open and offers the reader language, terror and beauty in the face of an exceedingly complex yet personal God.

Rilke himself deserves five out of five stars. However,as has been noted in other reviews, this book bears the scars of interpretation from its translators. The muddled stories of conversion to Buddhism tip their hats to their interpretive goals. Consider the following end note:

"I,55 We have omitted two lines that didn't fit in the cup. It wasn't just the first murder that fragmented God's ancient names (see I,9), but also our presumptuous attempts to describe God. From the Tao Te Ching: 'The Way that can be named is not the Way.'"

I had bought the book to read Rilke, not some deconstructed version of him. So, although the writing is a fantastic set of poetry, I would caution the reader to move on to another translation that is more about Rilke as Rilke wrote. I wish I had examined my copy more closely before I purchased it.

Rilke's Century-Old Spiritual Poetry Made Bountifully New Again.......2005-12-22

I adore, truly adore the writings - and the heart - of
Rainer Maria Rikle - and as I read each author's preface
to this award winning translation, I felt as if I was
finding two kindred spirits who love Rilke as much
as I do.

Listen to this from the opening notes:

"Most of all we acknowledge the young man who, standing
at the brink of this fearsome century, opened the treasure
house of his huge heart."

I am not a German scholar - all I know in German is
how to say "I love you" - so I can not read Rilke in
the original German. I have read other reviews which
find fault with this translation. I found myself
appreciating the thoroughness of their choices... and
the care they put into word selection and the time
they studied other translations with the intent to
honor the original German.

I have spent the last several days revelling in this
volume and was thrilled to discover this pair of
translators have another Rilke volume on the way.

The book includes a brief history of the poems themselves
and the life of Rilke (vis a vis the collection of poems.)
The included commentary explains their choices.

I would recommend this book for Rilke and non-Rilke
fans a like. The words are timeless, lovely and
imblued with love.

Poems of spiritual yearning originally penned one hundred years ago by Rainer Maria Rilke.......2005-12-04

Co-translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy and a finalist for the Pen/West Translation Award, Rilke's Book Of Hours: Love Poems To God presents poems of spiritual yearning originally penned one hundred years ago by Rainer Maria Rilke. Presenting both the original German text and skillful English translations by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, Rilke's Book of Hours speaks of a reciprocal relationship between mortals and the divine, in which God needs us as much as we need Him. A preface and brief commentary round out this commemorative 100th anniversary edition of classic works of faith and inspiration. I find you there in all these things / I care for like a brother. / A seed, you nestle in the smallest of them, / and in the huge ones spread yourself hugely. // Such is the amazing play of the powers: / they who give themselves so willingly, / swelling in the roots, thinning as the trunks rise, / and in the high leaves, resurrection.

Poems for the theological unconventional........2005-08-28

Rilke's "Book of Hours" is a real treasure. Macy and Barrows give us a wonderful translation, as well as helpful biography of the poet. Context in poetry is important and we get that from the translators in both the Rilke's personal history and the history of his time.

Some of these poems are dark. Rilke was deeply effected by the povery he saw and it can be seen in his poetry. Some have accused him of romaticizing poetry, to which I respond, "What?" There is nothing remotely "romantic" about poverty and Rilke, through Macy and Barrows, gives it to us with all of its grit. Would that we had a similar modern sensitivity today when world poverty is undoubtedly worse.

Dark also are his poems on death. Like the ones on poverty, he tells it like it is. But he asks God to "give us each our own death, the dying that proceeds from each of our lives" (III,6) Isn't that what we all want? I know I do.

Poverty and death are not the only themes here. The Books of Monastic Life and Pilgrimmage contain some of the best writing on mysticism from a Western mind. As with all mystics, sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't, but Rilke's gift, as well as our translators, is to make his mysticism, his experience accessible to us. I am grateful that he did.

Average customer rating:

Marvelous
Great poetry, great translation, great text
A superb translation of 'Das Buch der Bilder'!
A marvelous translation of Rilke
Poetry you don't have to be afraid of!

The Book of Images
Rainer Maria Rilke
Manufacturer: North Point Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

New Poems: A Revised Bilingual Edition
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ASIN: 086547477X

Book Description

Now substantially revised by Edward Snow, whom Denise Levertov once called "far and away Rilke's best translator," this bilingual edition of The Book of Images contains a number of the great poet's previously untranslated pieces. Also included are several of Rilke's best-loved lyrics, such as "Autumn," "Childhood," "Lament," "Evening," and "Entrance."

Customer Reviews:

Marvelous.......2007-04-13

There is very little question that Rilke was the greatest German poet of the 20th century. The only question that remains is whether he was the greatest poet in any language. His brief, imaginative poems capture the essence of man in the modern period, alone, isolated, and without meaning.

Edward Snow has captured the grace and subtle imagery of Rilke in this altogether outstanding collection of poems, in large part because he is a great poet in his own right. Readers of Rilke will surely be familiar with a number of poems in this bilingual collection, such as Autumn:

"The leaves are falling, falling as if from far off,
as if the heavens distant gardens withered;
they fall with gestures that say "no."

And in the nights the heavy earth falls
From all the stars into aloneness.

We are falluing. This hand is falling.
And look at the others: it is in them all.

And yet there is One who holds this falling
With infinite softness in his hands." (85).

Great poetry, great translation, great text.......2002-08-05

Rilke ranks among the world's greatest poets. Each poem in the Book of Images is an elegant snapshot of a beautiful world. Snow's translation is superb, and he is commonly regarded as the preeminent English translator of Rilke's poetry. This text contains the translation and the original German side-by-side so that readers can gain a better appreciation of Rilke. The Snow translatio of the Book of Images is one of the greatest English-language poetic achievements.

A superb translation of 'Das Buch der Bilder'!.......2001-01-29

Rilke is that poet that you, if you are tormented by memories of high-school poetry lessons past (dactylic metre sound vaguely familiar?), ought try. His imagery is accessible, his meaning clear...and he manages simultaneously a beautiful degree of both spiritual and metaphorical richness.

Snow's translations of Rilke's poetry are superb; he consistently preserves the metric structure and is also conscious of the need to employ every word and consider every nuance of meaning, rather than simply settling for glossing it (a surprisingly common problem in poetry translation). In the challenging world of finding faithful poetry translation, Snow's work is outstanding...and the original material to my sense of literary aesthetics unsurpassed...little of Rilke's beauty is sacrificed in the execution of this translation. Rilke's simultaneous spareness, sensitivity, and richness endure here; rather than imposing himself upon the reader, Snow succeeds admirably at the translator's task, and brings Rilke to the English-speaking audience.

A marvelous translation of Rilke.......2000-06-10

Edward Snow has captured the essential grace of Rilke's poetry without sacrificing faithfulness to the original text. In this book of wonderful and exquisite poems, the lyric genius of Rilke comes through; Snow's own poetic sensibility is also clear. Some of my favorite Rilke poems (such as "Autumn" or "Memory") are rendered here in a way that perfectly suits their quiet, holy sense of both solitude and communion. Read it.

Poetry you don't have to be afraid of!.......1999-06-09

Rilke's Book of Images is a wonderful way to enter the world of poetry if you are hesitant because of bad memories of tough English courses in high school or college. Beautiful, powerful and accessible, you will love to sit down and get lost in the language and intensity of this work.

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