Duino elegies translation5/10/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() His concern was not to translate literally, but to create poetic equivalents in German, which in practice generally resulted in new, distinctly Rilkean, poems. Rilke himself undertook translations of poems by Dante, Michelangelo, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mallarmé, Valéry, and many others, often as an exercise to provide new impulses for his own work. This ongoing transformation of the poetry into ever new incarnations is entirely in keeping with the idea of Verwandlungat the heart of Rilke's work itself. Yet, in a world where Rilke is increasingly regarded as 'too difficult' to feature on an undergraduate syllabus, the continued enthusiasm of translators and poets to engage productively with his work is welcome evidence that the special fascination which he, above all other twentieth-century German poets, has long held for English-speaking audiences is far from over. Given the regularity with which Rilke's poetry has been translated into English since the 1930s – there exist, for instance, some twenty published versions of the Duino Elegies– one might be forgiven for wondering whether new translations of his works are really needed. ![]()
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