A review by hilaritas
Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke

5.0

This is probably the best translation of Rilke into English. Mitchell doesn't keep the rhyme scheme in the Sonnets, but he captures the tone better than anyone. On re-reading these for the nth time, the Elegies spoke to me more. Rilke's ecstatic annihilation of the space between life and death, and his passion for mystical union with the immense void, are in line with my own current place in life. It's that metaphysical yearning that can consume a person and subsume all other realities to the roaring void of pure being. The Sonnets, while beautiful, don't have that same wild ecstasy.