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Duino Elegies (Bilingual Edition) Bilingual Edition, Kindle Edition

by Rainer Maria Rilke (Author), David Young (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 10 ratings
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One of the literary masterpieces of the century, this translation is now presented with facing-page German.


We have a marvelous, almost legendary, image of the circumstances in which the composition of this great poem began. Rilke was staying at a castle (Duino) on the sea near Trieste. One morning he walked out on the battlements and climbed down to where the rocks dropped sharply to the sea. From out of the wind, which was blowing with great force, Rilke seemed to hear a voice: Wer, wenn ich schriee, horte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? (If I cried out, who would hear me up there, among the angelic orders?). He wrote these words, the opening of the first Duino Elegy, in his notebook, then went inside to continue what was to be his major work and one of the literary masterpieces of the century.
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  1. ISBN-13
    978-0393328844
  2. Edition
    Bilingual
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  5. Publication date
    June 17, 2006
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    1506 KB
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Named for the Castle of Duino, on a rocky headland of the Adriatic, the Duino Elegies speaks in a voice that is both intimate and majestic on the mysteries of human life and our attempt, in the words of the translator, 'to use our self-consciousness to some advantage: to transcend, through art and the imagination, our self-deception and our fear.'

About the Author

RAINER MARIA RILKE (1875–1926) was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00K3F5BQK
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Bilingual edition (June 17, 2006)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 17, 2006
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1506 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 203 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 10 ratings

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  1. David Young

    David Young

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
10 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Ray A Burleigh
5.0 out of 5 stars The poetry of a unique man who loved life, lived alone, but was welcomed everywhere he went.
Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2021
Verified Purchase
Unusual language, unusual ideas. The book forces you to rethink many of your own ideas.
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Guillermo Maynez
5.0 out of 5 stars All Angels are terrible
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2011
The "Duino Elegies" were composed during ten years by Rilke, a man of profound sensibility who, in spite of being a recluse by vocation, had many friends. All known testimonies picture him as a kind and generous man. These, his most famous poems, have an extraordinary beauty: taking as starting point the figure of Angels ("All Angels are terrible"), he reflects on love, the intensity and difficulty of lovers' relationships, youth and its slow descent into old age and death, the life of human beings, trees, flowers; identity and its changing forms in consciousness. As its name indicates, it is a melancholy work, but not desperate. Poetry flows in a spiral, returnin time and again to its central themes, with flights towards extasis and descents into resignation ebfore death and incommunication. Here you can appreciate the magisterial lyricism of this great German poet, born in Prague.
3 people found this helpful
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hjm_50
1.0 out of 5 stars horrid translation
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2013
Verified Purchase
I haven't read other translations of the Elegies so I can't compare, but this one was so frustrating I've already given it away. I was looking forward to having the original German printed side-by-side to study it, but what this revealed pretty quickly was how much of the original nuance and meter was lost in the contortion to colloquial American English. Young also broke up Rilke's complex, prose-like text into triadic lines, as if American readers needed smaller pieces to chew on. Perhaps. But I hated it. Between the colloquialisms and the line breaks, it came across to me as awkward and artificial, an effort to dumb-down Rilke's work.
8 people found this helpful
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Dav
5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you!
Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2011
I came to this translation of the Duino Elegies without knowledge of any other and with just a smattering of German. Of Rilke, I knew just a few short lyrics. It was a challenging and disturbing experience and, finally, a very lofty one to traverse the world offered us here. The English, considered on its own, has a wonderful melody not revealed quickly, for the style is subtle and understated. To those who don't know the work, this edition, with the original and the English on facing pages offers a wonderful opportunity to add a masterpiece to their storehouse.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

J. Hill
5.0 out of 5 stars A thing of beauty
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 24, 2019
Verified Purchase
When I first opened this book, I thought I was going to be disappointed because this translation was not in the original metre nor the original rhythms. But having read the introduction and understood what the translator was doing I returned to the text and soon came to be certain that the translation would have delighted Rilke himself. Young translates both the words and the thought in a way that reflects for a more modern audience the beauty of the original. After reading this, indeed, I find other translations staid and dull in comparison. This is indeed a thing of beauty.
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