Scan barcode
A review by moreteamorecats
Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke
5.0
Poulin's translation makes certain different choices than I might. For example, "Weltsraum" tends to become "cosmic space". This material is certainly susceptible to New Age or deep-ecology readings; my own, naturally, tend to be more para-Christian than anything. Matter of taste perhaps. At a technical level, on the other hand, I have to admire Poulin managing to keep an English sonnet rhyme scheme in his translations while still keeping a sense of the German's freedom.
All that said, the point here is the poems themselves, which are incomparably rich meditations on embodiment, time, and mortality, with a healthy side of angels and gods. Someday, I'll write something about angels, apocalypse, and the nature of human worship. It will draw on Rilke here, and [a:Walter Benjamin|1860|Walter Benjamin|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1225048463p2/1860.jpg], and [a:Tony Kushner|35822|Tony Kushner|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1209471902p2/35822.jpg], and Messiaen, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, and it will be fabulous.
All that said, the point here is the poems themselves, which are incomparably rich meditations on embodiment, time, and mortality, with a healthy side of angels and gods. Someday, I'll write something about angels, apocalypse, and the nature of human worship. It will draw on Rilke here, and [a:Walter Benjamin|1860|Walter Benjamin|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1225048463p2/1860.jpg], and [a:Tony Kushner|35822|Tony Kushner|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1209471902p2/35822.jpg], and Messiaen, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, and it will be fabulous.