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

4.0

Another one I picked up for my 2017 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. I don't remember the last time I voluntarily read poetry. I forgot that I do actually enjoy it. This collection was translated from German and the edition I read was a bilingual one, so it was interesting to see how much of the German I could read (answer: not much). Translating poetry is always difficult - there's a kind of spectrum from keeping the technical characteristics of the poem intact to keeping its meaning and tone. This translation was at the "meaning and tone" end of the scale. The original poems are sonnets and follow various sonnet rhyme schemes, while the translation follows no sonnet rules other than the 4-4-3-3 stanzas. I liked it though because it made the poetry feel natural and impressionistic instead of forced.

The poems are a memorial for a friend of Rilke's daughter, who died around 19 years old, so they can at times be morbid and dreary. But the beautiful imagery inspired by Orpheus keeps them from being too depressing. Overall a moving and lovely collection and a natural translation.