Re: hats off!

hi jennifer,

mitchell enjoys a fairly secure status as a translator
of rilke. though he does take liberties. my german
is nearly nonexistent, but i noticed, for example, in
the 'requiem for a friend' that he has rilke address
paula by name in a line or two. (and that he
introduced a rose on his desk when there was none. if
i recall this correctly....) a crucial aspect of the
'requiem' is that rilke *never* uses paula's name in
the poe
m, nor even identified her in the title. it is always
'friend'. this put me off mitchell a bit.

but for fidelity to text, the translations of m.d.
herter norton, done over a period of 15 years are
noted for her accuracy of meaning. she translated a
slew of his work:

the lay of the love and death of cornet rilke
the stories of god
letters to a young poet
the notebooks of malte laurids brigge
translations from the poetry of r.m.rilke (selections
from 'book of images', 'new poems', a few very early
verses, and the complete 'life of mary')
the sonnets to orpheus
the letters of r.m. rilke in 2 volumes.

for complete translations of the highly important 'new
poems' (1907 and 08), see edward snow. (he also does
a complete translation of 'book of images' (1902 &
06). and crucially he does a readable effort of
'uncollected poems' (1909-1926). for the thorny 'duino
elegies' i prefer the famed 1939 effort by j.b.
leishman and stephen spender. the french poems (most
of the 400 were written after the elegies and sonnets)
have been translated only by a. poulin.

kim
> I'm so sorry that, after weeks of lurking, I'm
> introducing myself with a
> question that's not directly related to Salinger,
> but I can't help it; you
> people seem to be in the know. I've only recently
> found Rilke and I've been
> getting all of my translations from Stephen
> Mitchell. Do you Rilke readers
> out there think Mitchell is true to the original, or
> do you recommend someone
> else?
> Thank you,
> Jennifer
> -
> * Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with
> the message
> * UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Mon Sep 30 12:00:26 2002