Synopses & Reviews
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelicorders? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly to his heart: I'd be consumed
in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we can just barely endure,
and we stand in awe of it as it coolly disdains
to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.
-from "The First Elegy"
Over the last fifteen years, in his two volumes of New Poems as well as in The Book of Images and Uncollected Poems, Edward Snow has emerged as one of Rainer Maria Rilke's most able English-language interpreters. In his translations, Snow adheres faithfully to the intent of Rilke's German while constructing nuanced, colloquial poems in English.
Written in a period of spiritual crisis between 1912 and 1922, the poems that compose the Duino Elegies are the ones most frequently identified with the Rilkean sensibility. With their symbolic landscapes, prophetic proclamations, and unsettling intensity, these complex and haunting poems rank among the outstanding visionary works of the century.
Review
"I have been engrossed in English versions of the
Duino Elegies for years, and Snow's is by far the most radiant and, as far as I can tell, the most faithful . . . Reading this rendition provided new revelations into Rilke's symbolic landscapes of art, death, love, and time."--Frederic Koeppel,
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis)"This translation of the Elegies is the finest that I have ever read . . . Snow has gradually been building a reputation as Rilke's best contemporary translator in English. His version of the Elegies should cement that reputation, and elevate it."--Brian Phillips, The New Republic
Description
Includes bibliographical references.
About the Author
Edward Snow is a professor of English at Rice University. North Point Press has published his translations of Rilke's
New poems [1907],
New Poems [1908]:
The Other Part,
The Book of Images and
Uncollected Poems. He is the recipient of an Academy of Arts and Letters Award for the body of his Rilke translations, as well as the Academy of American Poets' Harold Morton Landon Translation Award and the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. He is also the author of
A Study of Vermeer and
Inside Breugel.