{"product_id":"duino-elegies-deluxe-edition-isbn-9781782277798","title":"Duino Elegies, Deluxe Edition","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe   first-ever English translation of Rilke’s landmark poetry cycle, by Vita and   Edward Sackville-West ­– reissued for the first time in 90 years\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn   1931, Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press published a small run of a   beautiful edition of Rainer Maria Rilke’s \u003ci\u003eDuino Elegies\u003c\/i\u003e, in English translation by the writers Vita and Edward   Sackville-West. This marked the English debut of Rilke’s masterpiece, which   would eventually be rendered in English over 20 times, influencing countless   poets, musicians and artists across the English-speaking world. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Published for the first time in 90 years, the Sackville-Wests’ translation   is both a fascinating historical document and a magnificent blank-verse   rendering of Rilke’s poetry cycle. Featuring a new introduction from critic   Lesley Chamberlain, this reissue casts one of European literature’s great   masterpieces in fresh light.\u003cb\u003eRainer   Maria Rilke \u003c\/b\u003e(1875-1926), considered one of the greatest German-language   writers, published his first collection of verse in 1894, while he was still at school, and   continued to write poetry and prose throughout his life, becoming a master of   both. Rilke died in Switzerland in 1926. \u003cb\u003eVita   Sackville-West \u003c\/b\u003ewas an English novelist, poet and garden designer. Born to an   artistocratic family, she became a prolific and   successful author, publishing many novels and a dozen volumes of poetry.   Sackville-West had a long, intense relationship with Virginia Woolf, and was   the main inspiration for the titular character in Woolf's Orlando. \u003cb\u003eEdward Sackville-West \u003c\/b\u003ewas an English novelist and music critic who, in his   later years, became a member of the British House of Lords.INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003eWhen he died in 1926 Rainer Maria Rilke was the greatest\u003cbr\u003epoet in German. His reinvention of the lyric language\u003cbr\u003ehad made the age-old themes of love, death and solitude\u003cbr\u003estrange and enchanting, and brought him readers all over\u003cbr\u003eEurope and across the United States. His translators into\u003cbr\u003eEnglish met him, and his translator into Polish corresponded\u003cbr\u003ewith him personally. Publishers clamoured to\u003cbr\u003ebring out his work, including the Duino Elegies, which was\u003cbr\u003eone of two final collections he published in his lifetime.\u003cbr\u003eBorn in Prague, then still part of the Austrian Empire,\u003cbr\u003ein 1875, Rilke led a difficult life. From 1901 he was married,\u003cbr\u003ewith a child, but for the rest of his career he moved\u003cbr\u003efrom rented address to address for the sake of his work.\u003cbr\u003eHe was slight, mostly very short of money and worried\u003cbr\u003eabout his health. On and off for many years he lived in\u003cbr\u003eParis, but when that city exhausted him he travelled to\u003cbr\u003equiet spots elsewhere in Europe. Once he went to Egypt.\u003cbr\u003eInvitations from wealthy well-wishers to stay in gentler\u003cbr\u003ecircumstances were always welcome, and one of those refuges\u003cbr\u003eoffered to him was the castle at Duino, on the Italian\u003cbr\u003eAdriatic coast near Trieste.\u003cbr\u003eIt belonged to the princely German Thurn und Taxis\u003cbr\u003efamily, and after Christmas 1911 they left Rilke in solitude\u003cbr\u003eto practise his art in their bleak fortress, with just a couple\u003cbr\u003eof servants in tow. Filling his first days alone with correspondence\u003cbr\u003eand walks—he wrote many letters, which have\u003cbr\u003ealso become part of his legacy—he suddenly found his\u003cbr\u003emark, and by mid-February 1912 the first two of the ten\u003cbr\u003eDuino Elegies were written, and a third begun. It is because\u003cbr\u003eRilke didn’t complete the cycle until 1922 (by which time\u003cbr\u003ehe was staying in another castle) that the Elegies have come\u003cbr\u003eto be thought of as a late work and the culmination of\u003cbr\u003ehis career. But they weave and develop many themes that\u003cbr\u003epreoccupied him for more than twenty years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe opening lines are famous:\u003cbr\u003eWho would give ear, among the angelic host,\u003cbr\u003eWere I to cry aloud? And even if one\u003cbr\u003eAmongst them took me swiftly to his heart,\u003cbr\u003eI should dissolve before his strength of being.\u003cbr\u003eFor beauty’s nothing but the birth of terror,\u003cbr\u003eWhich we endure but barely, and, enduring,\u003cbr\u003eMust wonder at it, in that it disdains\u003cbr\u003eTo compass our destruction. Every angel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIs terrible.\u003cbr\u003eYet these well-known lines are relatively unfamiliar in the\u003cbr\u003e1931 version by Edward and Vita Sackville-West. Though\u003cbr\u003ethe Sackville-Wests were the first to publish a complete\u003cbr\u003eEnglish translation,1 their book soon disappeared from\u003cbr\u003ecurrency, which the evident quality on display here shows\u003cbr\u003eto have been a mistake.The original English translation of Rilkes landmark poetry cycle, by Vita and Edward Sackville-Westreissued for the first time in 90 years","brand":"Pushkin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304405356773,"sku":"NP9781782277798","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782277798.jpg?v=1767725750","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/duino-elegies-deluxe-edition-isbn-9781782277798","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}