Selected poems of Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875-1926

Book - 1981

For poetry lovers and students of literature and literary criticism, a National Book Award-winning poet brings his prowess as a translator and critic to bear on the work of one of the major German poets of the century.

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Subjects
Published
New York : Harper & Row ©1981.
Language
English
German
Main Author
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875-1926 (-)
Other Authors
Robert Bly (-)
Edition
1st ed
Item Description
English and German.
Includes indexes.
Physical Description
xi, 224 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780060907273
9780060104320
  • I live my life
  • I have many brothers
  • We don't dare
  • I love the dark hours
  • You darkness, that I come from
  • I have faith
  • I am too alone
  • You see, I want a lot
  • Because One Man
  • My life is not
  • I find you
  • And then that girl
  • I can hardly believe
  • This is my labor
  • All of you undisturbed cities
  • How many thousands
  • Just as the watchman
  • In this town
  • Sometimes a man stands up
  • The king of the world
  • Already the ripening barberries
  • It's possible
  • And the great cities
  • And where is he
  • The Way In
  • Childhood
  • From Childhood
  • Sense of Something Coming
  • Loneliness
  • Human Being at Night
  • Sunset
  • The Solitary Person
  • Autumn
  • Storm
  • The Neighbor
  • Pont du Carrousel
  • The Ashantis
  • Evening in Skane
  • Moving Forward
  • October Day
  • The Man Watching
  • Title Poem
  • The Song the Beggar Sings
  • The Songs the Blind Man Sings
  • The Song the Drunkard Sings
  • The songs the Widow Sings
  • The Songs the Idiot Sings
  • The Songs the Orphan Sings
  • The Songs the Leper Sings
  • The Panther
  • The Swan
  • Roman Countryside
  • Leda
  • Archaic Torso of Apollo
  • The Solitary Man
  • Buddha In side the Night
  • "We Must Die Because We Have Known Them"
  • Mourning
  • Left Out to Die
  • Again, Again
  • On Music
  • Imaginary Biography
  • Fox Fire
  • Just as the Winged Energy of Delight
  • A Walk
  • Palm
  • For Erika
  • A tree rising
  • It was girl, really
  • A god can do it
  • O you lovers that are so gentle
  • Don't bother about a stone
  • Is he from our world
  • To praise is the whole thing
  • Where praise already is
  • Only the man who has raised his strings
  • You stone coffins of the ancient world.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Bly's Rilke harkens back to those personal-selection anthologies that were once so popular--Milton Cross' book of The World's Most Cherished Operas, say, or Stephen Vincent Benet Selects The Best of Whitman. The Rilke that Bly translates and comments upon is very much a Bly-ish poet: vatic, praise-giving, or drilling down into the ""Tiefen""--depths--for psychologically echoing imagery. The late, dark Duino Elegies are passed over in favor of the more laudate omnis Orpheus sonnets (translated better by Al Poulin, Jr.). And Bly's English equivalents frequently march to an ecclestiastical beat: ""Ich glaube"" is ""I have faith"" rather than ""I believe""--a portentous spurning of active verbs that often takes away the springiness, the chewiness of Rilke, in the middle-years poetry in particular. But ""Herbst"" (""Autumn""), ""Romische Campagna"" (""Roman Countryside""), ""An Die Musik"" (""On Music"")--these breathtaking marvels of poetry sing nonetheless; Bly's English strains, successfully, to render their extraordinariness. (In some instances, there are no better translations than Bly's.) So: there's a fractioned Rilke on display here, approximately a three-quarter one--and yet with work this great it's about enough. The German originals are interleaved. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.