Most Popular Books by Rainer Maria Rilke

Presents Rilke''s 1922 Sonnets to Orpheus, written in a burst of inspiration, and expressing a vision of a state of being in which all the ordinary human dichotomies are reconciled in an infinite wholeness. Also included is his Letters to a young poet, an influential series of letters written to a young officer cadet on the subject of poetics.

The definitive bilingual version of Rilke''s New Poems--faithful to the original German, with insightful commentary on every poem. Essential.

From the writer of the classic Letters to a Young Poet, reflections on grief and loss, collected and published here in one volume for the first time. “A great poet’s reflections on our greatest mystery.”—Billy Collins “A treasure . . . The solace Rilke offers is uncommon, uplifting and necessary.”—The Guardian Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke’s voluminous, never-before-translated letters to bereaved friends and acquaintances, The Dark Interval is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death’s place in our lives. Following the format of Letters to a Young Poet, this book arranges Rilke’s letters into an uninterrupted sequence, showcasing the full range of the great author’s thoughts on death and dying, as well as his sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence. Presented with care and authority by master translator Ulrich Baer, The Dark Interval is a literary treasure, an indispensable resource for anyone searching for solace, comfort, and meaning in a time of grief. Praise for The Dark Interval “Even though each of these letters of condolence is personalized with intimate detail, together they hammer home Rilke’s remarkable truth about the death of another: that the pain of it can force us into a ‘deeper . . . level of life’ and render us more ‘vibrant.’ Here we have a great poet’s reflections on our greatest mystery.”—Billy Collins “As we live our lives, it is possible to feel not sadness or melancholy but a rush of power as the life of others passes into us. This rhapsodic volume teaches us that death is not a negation but a deepening experience in the onslaught of existence. What a wise and victorious book!”—Henri Cole

Composed in 1899 when Rilke was only twenty-three, the interconnected tales of Stories of God were inspired by a trip to Russia the young poet had made the year previously. It is said that the vastness of the Russian landscape and the profound spirituality he perceived in the simple people he met led him to an experience of finding God in all things, and to the conviction that God seeks to be known by us as passionately as we might seek to know God. All the great themes of Rilke''s later powerful and complex poetry can be found in the Stories of God , yet their charming, folktale-like quality has made them among the most accessible of Rilke''s works, beloved by all ages.

Intimately connected in themes and regarded as the poet''s masterpieces, these verses offer meditations on love, death, God, and the meaning of life. This edition features acclaimed translations by Jessie Lemont.

This collection of haunting, mystical poems of the night by the great Rainer Maria Rilke is the only English translation to bring them all together In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented his friend Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing 22 poems meticulously inscribed in his own hand and bearing the title Poems to Night. This evocative sequence of poems, which echoes some of the great themes of German romanticism, is now thought to represent one of the key stages in the creative breakthrough and spiritual evolution of the preeminent European poet of the twentieth century. This translation was the 1st to bring all the poems together in English and is enhanced by the translator''s valuable introduction and a rich selection of further poems Rilke dedicated to night at various stages of his life, providing fascinating insight into Rilke’s development. The poems recall all of the great poet’s important themes: death and longing, the troubling reconciliation of beauty and suffering, and a search for transcendance. These deep questions circle the imagery of night in Rilke’s intensely lyrical style: darkness, the stars and the moon wheel through the verses, and the play of light and dark beomes an evocation of life’s duality. No other poet was as singularly devoted to beauty or as capable of gifting its consolations to the reader—a volume to cherish on stormy nights and peaceful ones.

"An inspirational collection of poetry, based on the Book of Hours - psalms and prayers for various times throughout the day - used by monks, offers prayers and songs that address such concerns as spirituality in the modern age and the sufferings of war, poverty, and disease."--The publisher

This is the definitive, widely acclaimed translation of the major prose work of one of our century''s greatest poets -- "a masterpiece like no other" (Elizabeth Hardwick) -- Rilke''s only novel, extraordinary for its structural uniqueness and purity of language. First published in 1910, it has proven to be one of the most influential and enduring works of fiction of our century. Malte Laurids Brigge is a young Danish nobleman and poet living in Paris. Obsessed with death and with the reality that lurks behind appearances, Brigge muses on his family and their history and on the teeming, alien life of the city. Many of the themes and images that occur in Rilke''s poetry can also be found in the novel, prefiguring the modernist movement in its self-awareness and imagistic immediacy.

The Sonnets of Orpheus I by Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by Joshua Jennings- A ShortWorks Publication ShortWorks is an independent publishing group that compiles short, compelling works, from arts, music and literature to social criticism and history to science and technology. www.shortworks.co

This translation of the Larenopfer, or offerings to the household god Lar, are songs that Rilke sings to his hometown Prague and to his beloved Bohemia, short poems on the parks, fountains, churches, bridges and palaces of Prague, not forgetting Rabbi Löw''s legends, the Jewish cemetery, the Thirty Years War and, of course, young love. This cycle of 90 poems offers the reader a unique view into Rilke''s fascinating world, the turn-of-the-century atmosphere of Prague, then the third largest city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Here a young German of the ruling bourgeoisie shows great appreciation of contemporary Czech literary works and enthusiasm for the cause of Czech cultural identity. The book therefore possesses not only literary merit but is also of considerable sociological and historical interest. --Red Hen Press.

Available for the first time in a single volume, Ranier Maria Rilke’s two most beloved sequences of poems rendered by his most faithful translator. Rilke is unquestionably the twentieth century’s most significant and compelling poet of romantic transformation and spiritual quest. His poems of ecstatic identification with the world exert perennial fascination. In Stephen Mitchell’s versions of Rilke’s 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 Rilke’s text, to his formal music, and to the complexity of his thought; at the same time, Mitchell’s work has authority and power as poetry in its own right.

A stunning, revelatory new translation of the only novel by one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, from one of “the most trustworthy and exhilarating of Rilke’s contemporary translators” (Michael Dirda, Washington Post). A groundbreaking masterpiece of early European modernism originally published in 1910, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge unspools the vivid reflections of the titular young Danish nobleman and poet. From his Paris garret, Brigge records his encounters with the city and its outcasts, muses on his family history, and lays bare his earliest experiences of fear, tenderness, and desolation. With a poet’s feel for language and a keen instinct for storytelling, Rainer Maria Rilke forges a dazzlingly fractured coming-of-age narrative, kaleidoscopic in its alternation of vivid present encounters and equally alive memories of childhood. Strikingly contemporary, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge reveals a writer metabolizing his own experiences to yield still-essential questions about fiction and reality, empathy and psychosis, and—above all—life, love, and death. In a fascinating introduction, award-winning translator Edward Snow explores the overlaps between Rilke’s experiences and those of his protagonist, and shows with granular attention the novel’s capacity for nuance and sympathy. Snow’s exquisite translation captures as never before the astonishing cadences and musical clarity of the poet’s prose. It reveals The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge as an urgent contemporary achievement, more than one hundred years after it was written.

This volume marks the first translation of these prayer-poems into English. Originally written in 1899, Rilke wrote them upon returning to Germany from his first trip to Russia. His experience of the East shaped him profoundly. He found himself entranced by Orthodox churches and monasteries, above all by the icons that seemed to him like flames glowing in dark spaces. He intended these poems as icons of sorts, gestures that could illumine a way for seekers in the darkness. As Rilke here writes, "I love the dark hours of my being, for they deepen my senses." Translated by Mark S. Burrows.

“The ultimate expression of intergenerational literary wisdom.” —Andrew Solomon, The New Yorker A work that has inspired generations, this new edition of Letters to a Young Poet features a fresh translation of Rilke’s ten classic letters, along with the missing letters from the young poet himself. For nearly a century, eager writers and young poets, as well as those simply looking for a purpose in life, have embraced the wisdom of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, first published in 1929. Most readers and scholars have long assumed that the letters from the young poet were forever lost to posterity. Yet, shockingly, these letters were recently uncovered in Germany, and now the acclaimed translator Damion Searls has not only cast a fresh eye on Rilke’s original letters but also those of the “young poet,” Franz Xaver Kappus, an Austrian military cadet and an aspiring poet. This timeless edition, in addition to presenting their dialogue together for the first time in English, provides a new window into the workings of Rilke’s visionary poetic and philosophical mind, allowing us to reexperience the literary genius of one of the most inspiring works of twentieth-century literature.

In this collection of excerpts from his essays, notebooks, and letters, pre-eminent modern poet Rainer Maria Rilke meditates on subjects as varied as a dolls, walking among trees, and the great sculptor Rodin. Where Silence Reigns, a sampling from his essays, notebooks, and letters, shows Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), the pre-eminent modern poet of solitude and inwardness, seeking to reconcile his personal conflict between the claims of "life" and the claims of art. His subjects are commonplace, seemingly innocuous at times: the encounter between a man and a dog, a collection of dolls, a walk among trees. But always the deceptively simple external phenomenon is seen as the symbol, the catalyst of an intensely felt inner experience. As he confided to his friend Frau Wunderly-Volkart: "Oh, how often one longs to speak a few degrees more deeply! My prose... lies deeper... but one gets only a minimal layer further down; one’s left with a mere intimation of the kind of speech that may be possible THERE where silence reigns." In addition to occasional pieces and notebook entries, this volume contains selections from the strange and haunting "Dream-Book," the lyrical "Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke," and the entire "Rodin-Book"––Rilke’s appreciation of the great sculptor whom he had served as secretary.

An anthology of Rilke''s strongest poetry and prose for both aficionados and new readers. Here is a mini-anthology of poetry and prose for both aficionados and those readers discovering Rainer Maria Rilke for the first time. John J. L. Mood has assembled a collection of Rilke''s strongest work, presenting commentary along with the selections. Mood links into an essay passages from letters that show Rilke''s profound understanding of men and women and his ardent spirituality, rooted in the senses. Combining passion and sensitivity, the poems on love presented here are often not only sensual but sexual as well. Others pursue perennial themes in his work—death and life, growth and transformation. The book concludes with Rilke''s reflections on wisdom and openness to experience, on grasping what is most difficult and turning what is most alien into that which we can most trust.

This selection of poems from throughout Rilke''s creative output is arranged chronologically, placing poems of similar themes and / or modes of expression close to one another, making bed-fellows of poems rarely seen together. The aim is to illuminate the underlying themes which Rilke said he had arrived at very early in his life

Perhaps no cycle of poems in any European language has made so profound and lasting an impact on an English-speaking readership as Rilke''s Duino Elegies. These luminous new translations by Martyn Crucefix, facing the original German texts, make it marvellously clear how the poem is committed to the real world observed with acute and visionary intensity. Completed in 1922, the same year as the publication of Eliot''s The Waste Land, the Elegies constitute a magnificent godless poem in their rejection of the transcendent and their passionate celebration of the here and now. Troubled by our insecure place in this world and our fractured relationship with death, the Elegies are nevertheless populated by a throng of vivid and affecting figures: acrobats, lovers, angels, mothers, fathers, statues, salesmen, actors and children. This bilingual edition offers twenty-first century readers a new opportunity to experience the power of Rilke''s enduring masterpiece. Book jacket.

Rilke''s prayerful responses to the french master''s beseeching art "For a long time nothing, and then suddenly one has the right eyes." Virtually every day in the fall of 1907, Rainer Maria Rilke returned to a Paris gallery to view a Cezanne exhibition. Nearly as frequently, he wrote dense and joyful letters to his wife, Clara Westhoff, expressing his dismay before the paintings and his ensuing revelations about art and life. Rilke was knowledgeable about art and had even published monographs, including a famous study of Rodin that inspired his "New Poems," But Cezanne''s impact on him could not be conveyed in a traditional essay. Rilke''s sense of kinship with Cezanne provides a powerful and prescient undercurrent in these letters -- passages from them appear verbatim in Rilke''s great modernist novel, "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge," "Letters on Cezanne" is a collection of meaningfully private responses to a radically new art.

COMPOSED IN A BURST of inspiration near the end of the poet''s life, Rilke''s Sonnets to Orpheus represents the consummation of the writer''s career, distilling the essence of his poetic wisdom in a gem-like sequence. This new translation--with the original German on facing pages--offers a clear window into the world of this endlessly scintillating cycle of poems. "Daniel Polikoff''s English version of Rilke''s last sonnet sequence, perhaps his greatest work, is wholly admirable. Rilke''s late work is extremely difficult to penetrate. Both its conceptual nature and Rilke''s unique use of the German language tend to resist interpretation. Astonishingly, Polikoff has found ways of rendering Rilke''s complexities into English and also preserving his metrical and rhyme schemes. Such an accomplishment is possible only with a deep understanding of Rilke''s vision and a knowledge of the root structure of German. Daniel Polikoff gives us Rilke in word and spirit in these splendid Sonnets."--LISEL MUELLER, National Book Award for Poetry (1981) for The Need to Hold Still; Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1997) for Alive Together: New & Selected Poems "Daniel Polikoff is the first to achieve the unimaginable: an English translation which brings the form and content of these Sonnets together into an organic confluence. These new translations lift our understanding of Rilke''s spiritual and aesthetic inspiration up to a whole different level, one accessible for the first time to the English reader. As a professor of German literature who has taught these sonnets for over thirty years, I can only thank Daniel Polikoff for this phenomenal accomplishment. His version should serve as the new standard for Rilke translations and belongs on the bookshelves of every poetry lover."--LUDWIG MAX FISCHER, author of Seasons of the Soul: The Poetic Guidance of Herman Hesse "This is a uniquely faithful, skillful, and eloquent translation of one of the greatest poems of the 20th century. I salute Daniel Polikoff and recommend his wonderful work to all seekers and lovers of poetry."--ANDREW HARVEY, author of Teachings of Rumi Poet-scholar Daniel Joseph Polikoff has published two books of poetry as well as a major work on Rilke and depth psychology: In the Image of Orpheus: Rilke-A Soul History.

An “elegant translation” of Rilke’s writings on sculptor Auguste Rodin that “offers a fresh look at an unlikely mentorship” and two extraordinary artists (The New York Times Book Review). Sculptor Auguste Rodin was fortunate to have his secretary Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most sensitive poets of our time. These two pieces discussing Rodin’s work and development as an artist are as revealing of Rilke as they are of his subject. Written in 1902 and 1907, these essays mark the entry of the poet into the world of letters. Rilke’s description of Rodin reveals the profound psychic connection between the two great artists, both masters of giving visible life to the invisible. Michael Eastman’s evocative photographs of Rodin’s sculptures shed light on both Rodin’s art and Rilke’s thoughts and catapult them into the 21st century.

Authoritative translations of two fundamentally united works by the influential German poet are presented along with the original German texts and explanatory notes

"Immensely readable...a significant piece of scholarship."—Fred Volkmer, New York Sun He would become one of the most important poets of the twentieth century; she a muse of Europe''s fin-de-siècle thinkers and artists. In this collection of letters, a finalist for the PEN USA translation award, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé, a writer and intellectual fourteen years his senior, pen a relationship that spans thirty years and shifting boundaries: as lovers, as mentor and protégé, and as deep personal and literary allies.

Collects correspondence between the revered poet and the European intellectual, tracing the early days of their affair and offering insight into how they interacted as lovers, mentor and protege, and literary allies.

Rainer Maria Rilke offers a compelling portrait of Parisian life, art, and culture at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1902, the young German writer Rainer Maria Rilke traveled to Paris to write a monograph on the sculptor Auguste Rodin. He returned many times over the course of his life, by turns inspired and appalled by the city''s high culture and low society, and his writings give a fascinating insight into Parisian art and culture in the last century. Paris was a lifelong source of inspiration for Rilke. Perhaps most significantly, the letters he wrote about it formed the basis of his prose masterpiece, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Much of this work, despite its perennial popularity in French, German, and Italian, has never before been translated into English. This volume brings together a translation of Rilke''s essay on poetry, ''Notes on the Melody of Things'' and the first English translation of Rilke''s experiences in Paris as observed by his French translator.

»Die Winterstürme durchdringen die Welt mit wütender Macht. Da sinkt auf schneeigen Schwingen die tannenduftende Nacht ...« Für Rainer Maria Rilke ist der Winter die Zeit des Fragens und der Erinnerung, aber auch eine Zeit der Besinnung und des Abschieds. In Gedichten, Briefen und Texten sinniert Rilke über die ruhende Natur und die Stille der Welt und wie kein anderer vermag er es, mit seinen Worten zu trösten und zu kräftigen: »Aber die Winter! Oh diese heimliche Einkehr der Erde.«

This collection features 12 stories by Franz Kafka, whose fiction is synonymous with the anguish of modern life, and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose stories unfold in the same transcendent lyricism as his verse. Twelve of Kafka''s tales from the compilation Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor), appear here, along with two tales from Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist). Rilke''s stories include "Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke" (The Ballad of Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke); "Die Turnstunde" (The Gym Class); and Geschichten vom lieben Gott (Stories About the Good Lord).