{"product_id":"duino-elegies-the-sonnets-to-orpheus-isbn-9780307473738","title":"Duino Elegies \u0026 The Sonnets to Orpheus","description":"Available for the first time in a single volume, Ranier Maria Rilke’s two most beloved sequences of poems rendered by his most faithful translator. Rilke is unquestionably the twentieth century’s most significant and compelling poet of romantic transformation and spiritual quest. His poems of ecstatic identification with the world exert perennial fascination. In Stephen Mitchell’s versions of Rilke’s two greatest masterpieces readers will discover an English rendering that captures the lyric intensity, fluency, and reach of his poetry. Stephen Mitchell adheres impeccably to Rilke’s text, to his formal music, and to the complexity of his thought; at the same time, Mitchell’s work has authority and power as poetry in its own right.“Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Rilke’s most demandingly difficult and loveliest work instantly makes every other rendering obsolete. No doubt about it, Rilke has at last found, in Mr. Mitchell’s version, the ideal poetics and the perfect translator.” —William Arrowsmith\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The gifts Mr. Mitchell brought to his earlier book he also brings to this one – an eye for a strong line; a sympathetic tact that allows him to supply a word from what is only suggested or to swell one of Rilke’s almost subliminal, one-word metaphors into a whole English phrase; the ability to reproduce the tone of common speech in Rilke; a knack for ingeniously simple versions of certain crucial Rilkean terms; and the use of off-rhymes to solve the formal problems of translating these “conjugated” sonnets. At times, Mr. Mitchell’s versions actually enhance the original... This is a beautifully designed, elegant and spacious volume, and it is splendidly annotated.” —Michael Hofmann,\u003ci\u003e The New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Stephen Mitchell’s translations are masterful re-creations of the original, giving both precise renderings of Rilke’s language and sensitive interpretations of his poetic intent.” —\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“An undisputed masterpiece by one of the greatest modern poets, translated here by a master of translation.” —\u003ci\u003eVillage Voice Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Perhaps the most beautiful group of poetic translations [the twentieth] century has produced.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Chicago Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Rilke almost always converts the energies of thought into telling images. In accomplishing this most impressive ‘imaging’ in English, Stephen Mitchell proves his mastery of the art of translation. . . .  This is, without any doubt, the best English rendering of Rilke. It is as faithful to the original as the translation of poetry can hope to be, faithful not only to its linguistic meaning but to its poetic expressiveness.” —Erich Heller, \u003ci\u003ePoetry\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Stephen Mitchell’s translations bring the qualities that I most cherish in the originals into English with new intimacy and authority. Rilke’s voice, with its extraordinary combination of formality, power, speed and lightness, can be heard in Mr. Mitchell’s versions more clearly than in any others. His work is masterly.” —W. S. Merwin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mitchell’s translation of the \u003ci\u003eDuino Elegies\u003c\/i\u003e–Rilke’s masterpiece–is the best that has been made. . . .  Intensely readable, yet he has not simplified the ideas.” —Stephen Spender,\u003ci\u003e The New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Stephen Mitchell treats English with courtesy, is forceful without forcing any issue and gains his ends by propriety of persuasion. . . . It is easy to feel that if Rilke had written in English, he would have written in this English.” —Denis Donoghue, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eRainer Maria Rilke \u003c\/b\u003e(1875-1926) is one of the greatest lyric German poets. Born in Prague, he published his first book of poems, \u003cb\u003eLeben und Lieber\u003c\/b\u003e, at age nineteen. He met Lou Salomé, the talented and spirited daughter of a Russian army officer, who influenced him deeply. In 1902 he became the friend, and for a time the secretary, of Rodin, and it was during his twelve-year Paris residence that Rilke enjoyed his greatest poetic activity. In 1919 he went to Switzerland where he spent the last years of his life. It was there that he wrote his last two works, \u003cb\u003eDuino Elegies \u003c\/b\u003e(1923) and \u003cb\u003eThe Sonnets to Orpheus \u003c\/b\u003e(1923).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Translator:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eStephen Mitchell \u003c\/b\u003ewas born in Brooklyn in 1943 and studied at Amherst, the University of Paris and Yale. Considered one of the preeminent translators of his generation he has translated many classic texts including \u003ci\u003eGilgamesh\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Bhagavad Gita\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTao Te Ching\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eBook of Job\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cb\u003eTHE SONNETS TO ORPHEUS\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFIRST PART\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA tree ascended there.  Oh pure transcendence!\u003cbr\u003eOh Orpheus sings! Oh tall tree in the ear!\u003cbr\u003eAnd all things hushed.  Yet even in that silence\u003cbr\u003ea new beginning, beckoning, change appeared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCreatures of stillness crowded from the bright\u003cbr\u003eunbound forest, out of their lairs and nests;\u003cbr\u003eand it was not from any dullness, not\u003cbr\u003efrom fear, that they were so quiet in themselves,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ebut from just listening. Bellow, roar, shriek\u003cbr\u003eseemed small inside their hearts. And where there had been\u003cbr\u003eat most a makeshift hut to receive the music,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ea shelter nailed up out of their darkest longing,\u003cbr\u003ewith an entryway that shuddered in the wind—\u003cbr\u003eyou built a temple deep inside their hearing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eII\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd it was almost a girl and came to be\u003cbr\u003eout of this single joy of song and lyre\u003cbr\u003eand through her green veils shone forth radiantly\u003cbr\u003eand made herself a bed inside my ear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd slept there. And her sleep was everything:\u003cbr\u003ethe awesome trees, the distances I had felt\u003cbr\u003eso deeply that I could touch them, meadows in spring:\u003cbr\u003eall wonders that had ever seized my heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe slept the world.  Singing god, how was that first\u003cbr\u003esleep so perfect that she had no desire\u003cbr\u003eever to wake? See:  she arose and slept.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere is her death now? Ah, will you discover\u003cbr\u003ethis theme before your song consumes itself?—\u003cbr\u003eWhere is she vanishing? . . . A girl almost . . . .A Dual Language Edition","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302055727333,"sku":"NP9780307473738","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307473738.jpg?v=1767725750","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/duino-elegies-the-sonnets-to-orpheus-isbn-9780307473738","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}