Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus

Available for the first time in a single volume Ranier Maria Rilkes two most beloved sequences of poems rendered by his most faithful translator. Rilke is unquestionably the twentieth centurys most significant and compelling poet of romantic transformation and spiritual quest. His poems of ecstatic identification with the world exert perennial fascination. In Stephen Mitchells versions of Rilkes two greatest masterpieces readers will discover an English rendering that captures the lyric intensity fluency and reach of his poetry. Stephen Mitchell adheres impeccably to Rilkes text to his formal music and to the complexity of his thought; at the same time Mitchells work has authority and power as poetry in its own right.