Reading Rilke

by William H. Gass

  The Duino Elegies of Rainer Maria Rilke

  1. Schloss Duino, Jan. 21, 1912.

  2. Schloss Duino, late Jan.–early Feb. 1912.

  3. Begun at Schloss Duino early in 1912; continued and completed in Paris, late Autumn 1913.

  4. Munich, Nov. 22 and 23, 1915.

  5. Château de Muzot, Sierre, Switzerland, Feb. 14, 1922.

  6. Lines 1–31, Ronda, Spain, Jan.–Feb. 1913; lines 42–44, Paris, late Autumn 1913; lines 32–41, Château de Muzot, Feb. 9, 1922.

  7. Château de Muzot, Feb. 7, 1922.

  8. Château de Muzot, Feb. 7–8, 1922.

  9. The first six lines, Schloss Duino, March 1912; the remainder, Château de Muzot, Feb. 9, 1922.

  10. Lines 1–12 at Schloss Duino, Jan.–Feb. 1912; continued in Paris during late Autumn 1913; a new conclusion, lines 13 to the end, at Château de Muzot, Feb. 11, 1922.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Translations of the Elegies in Order of Publication

  Duineser Elegien. Elegies from the Castle of Duino, translated by V. Sackville West. London: The Hogarth Press, 1931.

  Duino Elegies, translated by J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender. New York: Norton, 1939.

  Sonnets to Orpheus. Duino Elegies, translated by Jessie Lamont. New York: Fine Editions Press, 1945.

  Duineser Elegien. The Elegies of Duino, translated by Nora Wydenbruck. Vienna: Amandus, 1948.

  The Duino Elegies, translated by Harry Behn. Mount Vernon, N.Y.: Peter Pauper Press, 1957.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Works, vol. 2, Poetry, translated by J. B. Leishman. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1960.

  Duino Elegies, translated by C. F. MacIntyre. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1961.

  The Duino Elegies, translated by Stephen Garmey and Jay Wilson. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

  Duinesian Elegies, translated by Elaine E. Boney. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1975.

  Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

  Duino Elegies, translated by David Young. New York: Norton, 1978.

  Duino Elegies, translated by Gary Miranda. Portland, Oreg.: Breitenbush Books, 1981.

  The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Random House, 1982.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poems [including the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and tenth Elegies], translated by Albert Ernest Flemming. 2nd expanded edition, New York: Methuen, 1985.

  Duino Elegies, translated by Robert Hunter. Eugene, Oreg.: Hulogos’i Communications, 1987.

  Rilke. Duino Elegies, translated by Stephen Cohn. Manchester, England: Carcanet, 1989.

  The Duino Elegies, translated by Louis Hammer and Sharon Ann Jaeger. Old Chatham, N.Y.: Sachem Press, 1991.

  Duino Elegies, translated by David Oswald. Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon Verlag, 1992.

  Translations of the Sonnets to Orpheus

  Sonnets to Orpheus, translated with notes and commentary by J. B. Leishman. London: The Hogarth Press, 1936.

  Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by M. D. Herter Norton. New York: Norton and Co., 1942.

  Sonnets to Orpheus. Duino Elegies, translated by Jessie Lamont. New York: Fine Editions Press, 1945.

  Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by C. F. MacIntyre. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1960.

  Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

  Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Charles Haseloff. Privately printed. Brooklyn: The Print Center, 1979.

  The Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Kenneth Pitchford. Harrison, N.Y.: The Purchase Press, 1981.

  The Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Stephen Mitchell, with notes and variants. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.

  Translations of the New Poems Only

  New Poems, translated, with notes and introduction, by J. B. Leishman. London: The Hogarth Press, 1964.

  New Poems [1907], translated by Edward Snow. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984.

  New Poems: The Other Part [1908], translated by Edward Snow. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1987.

  Selections and Other Volumes of Poetry

  The Best of Rilke, translated by Walter Arndt, with a foreword by Cyrus Hamlin. Hanover, N.H.: Univ. Press of New England, 1989.

  The Book of Fresh Beginnings: Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated with an introduction by David Young. Oberlin, Ohio: Field Translation Series, 20, 1994.

  The Book of Hours, translated by A. L. Peck, with an introduction by Eudo Mason. London: The Hogarth Press, 1961.

  The Book of Images, translated by Edward Snow. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1991.

  Correspondence in Verse with Erika Mitterer, translated by N. B. Cruickshank, with an introduction by J. B. Leishman. London: The Hogarth Press, 1953.

  Fifty Selected Poems, translated by C. F. MacIntyre. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1940. [The 2nd ed., 1941, is called Translations from Rilke.]

  From the Remains of Count C.W., translated with an introduction by J. B. Leishman. London: The Hogarth Press, 1952.

  The Lay of the Love and Death of the Cornet Christopher Rilke, translated by Leslie Phillips and Stefan Schimanski. London: Lindsay Drummond, 1948.

  The Lay of the Love and Death of the Cornet Christopher Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Random House, 1983.

  The Life of the Virgin Mary, translated with an introduction and notes by C. F. MacIntyre. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1947.

  The Life of the Virgin Mary, translated with an introduction by Stephen Spender. London: Vision, 1951.

  Poems from The Book of Hours, “Das Stundenbuch,” translated by Babette Deutsch. Norwalk, Conn.: New Directions, 1941.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Later Poems, translated with an introduction and commentary by J. B. Leishman. London: The Hogarth Press, 1938.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems, translated by J. B. Leishman, published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. London: The Hogarth Press, 1934.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems, translated by B. J. Morse. 1941.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems, translated by Jessie Lemont. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1943. [Reprinted as 154 Selected Lyrics, London, 1945.]

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems 1906–26, translated by J. B. Leishman. New York: New Directions, 1956.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poems, translated by J. B. Leishman. London: The Hogarth Press, 1941. [Reprinted as a Penguin in 1964.]

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poems, translated by Ruth Spiers. Cairo: The Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop, n.d. (ca. 1943).

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poems, translated by Albert Ernest Flemming. New York: Methuen, 1986.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Works, vol. 2, Poetry, translated J. B. Leishman. New York: New Directions, 1960.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems 1912–1926, selected and translated with an introduction by Michael Hamburger. Redding Ridge, Conn.: Black Swan Books, 1981. [Subtitle on interior leaf: “An Unofficial Rilke.”]

  Requiem and Other Poems, translated with an introduction by J. B. Leishman. London: The Hogarth Press, 1935.

  Requiem for a Woman and Selected Lyric Poems, translated by Andy Gaus, with an introduction by A. S. Wensinger. Putney, Vt.: Threshold Books, 1981.

  Rilke: Between Roots, translated by Rika Lesser, with a note by Richard Howard. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986. [A revision of the limited edition titled Holding Out, Omaha: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1975.]

  Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties, translated with a commentary by John J. L. Mood. New York: Norton and Co., 1975.

  Rilke’s Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996.

  Rilke, The Rose Window and Other Verse from New Poems, selected and illustrated by Ferris Cook. Boston: A Bulfinch Press Book, Little, Brown and Co., 1997.

  Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, tran
slated with commentary by Robert Bly. New York: Harper and Row, 1981. [Includes all of the poems in The Voices.]

  The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell, with an introduction by Robert Hass. New York: Random House, 1982.

  The Tale of the Love and Death of Cornet Christopher Rilke, translated by M. D. Herter Norton. New York: Norton and Co., 1932.

  Thirty-One Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated with an introduction by Ludwig Lewisohn. New York: B. Ackermann, 1946.

  Translations from the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, by M. D. Herter Norton. New York: Norton and Co., 1938. [Many editions since, 1962, 1993.]

  Uncollected Poems, Rainer Maria Rilke, selected and translated by Edward Snow. New York: North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.

  The Unknown Rilke, translated by Franz Wright, with an introduction by Egon Schwartz. Oberlin, Ohio: Field Translation Series, 8, 1983.

  The Voices, translated by Robert Bly. Denver: Ally Press, 1977. [A ten-poem pamphlet.]

  Rilke’s French Poems

  Saltimbanques, French Prose Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. Port Townsend, Wash.: Graywolf Press, 1978.

  The Roses & The Windows, translated by A. Poulin, Jr., with a foreword by W. D. Snodgrass. Port Townsend, Wash.: Graywolf Press, 1980.

  The Astonishment of Origins, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. Port Townsend, Wash.: Graywolf Press, 1982.

  Orchards, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. Port Townsend, Wash.: Graywolf Press, 1982.

  The Migration of Powers, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. Port Townsend, Wash.: Graywolf Press, 1984.

  Translations of The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

  The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge, translated by John Linton. London: The Hogarth Press, 1930.

  The Journal of My Other Self, translated by M. D. Herter Norton and John Linton. New York: Norton and Co., 1930.

  The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, translated by M. D. Herter Norton. New York: Norton and Co., 1949.

  The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Random House, 1982. [Reprinted in paperback, with an introduction by William H. Gass, New York: Random House, 1985.]

  Other Prose

  Diaries of a Young Poet, translated by Edward Snow and Michael Winkler. New York: Norton, 1997.

  Ewald Tragy, translated by Lola Gruenthal. New York: Twayne, 1958.

  Nine Plays, translated by Klaus Phillips and John Locke. New York: Ungar, 1979.

  “Preface,” translated from the French by Richard Miller, to Mitsou. Forty Images by Balthus. New York: Abrams for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Works, vol. 1, Prose, translated by G. Craig Houston, with an introduction by J. B. Leishman. New York: New Directions, 1960. [Reprinted as When Silence Reigns, with a foreword by Denise Levertov, 1978.]

  Rodin, translated by Jesse Lemont and Hans Trausil. New York: Fine Editions Press, 1945. [London edition by Grey Walls Press, 1946, with additional illustrations.] [Unauthorized reprint, Paris: collection “Le Ballet des Muses,” Courrier Graphique, n.d.]

  Rodin, translated by Robert Firmage. Salt Lake City: Peregrin Smith, 1979. [Richly illustrated.]

  Stories of God, translated by M. D. Herter Norton and Nora Purtscher-Wydenbruck, with an introduction by William Rose. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1932. [The New York edition by Norton and Co. in the same year has no introduction and lists only Herter Norton as the translator.]

  Two Stories of Prague, translated with an introduction by Angela Esterhammer. Hanover, N.H.: Univ. Press of New England, 1994.

  Letters

  The Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 2 vols., translated by Jane Bannard Greene and M. D. Herter Norton. New York: Norton and Co., 1945.

  The Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke and Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, translated with an introduction by Nora Wydenbruck. New York: New Directions, 1958.

  Letters on Cézanne, translated by Joel Agee, with a foreword by Heinrich Wiegand Petzet. New York: Fromm, 1985.

  Letters to a Young Poet, translated by M. D. Herter Norton. New York: Norton and Co., 1934, revised ed. 1954, reprinted 1962.

  Letters to a Young Poet, translated with an introduction by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Random House, 1984.

  Letters to Benvenuta, translated by Heinz Norden, with a foreword by Louis Untermeyer. New York: The Philosophical Library, 1951. [Reprinted by The Hogarth Press in 1953 minus two photographs.]

  Letters to Frau Gudi Nölke During His Life in Switzerland, edited with an epilogue and notes by Paul Obermüller, translated by Violet M. Macdonald. London: The Hogarth Press, 1955.

  Letters to Merline, 1919–1922, translated by Violet M. Macdonald, with an introduction by J. B. Leishman. London: Methuen and Co., 1951.

  Letters to Merline (1919–1922), translated by Jesse Browner from the French edition of 1950, Lettres Françaises à Merline. New York: Paragon House, 1989. [Advertised as available in English for the first time in this edition.]

  Rainer Maria Rilke: His Last Friendship, unpublished letters to Mrs. Eloui Bey, with a study by Edmond Jaloux. New York: Philosophical Library, 1952. [Translated from the French, La Dernière Amitie de Rainer Maria Rilke, by William H. Kennedy.]

  Rilke and Benvenuta: An Intimate Correspondence, edited by Magda von Hattingberg, translated by Joel Agee. New York: Fromm Intl., 1987.

  Selected Letters of Rilke, edited with an introduction by Harry T. Moore. New York: Anchor Books, 1960.

  Selected Letters, 1902–1926, of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by R. F. C. Hull. London: Macmillan and Co., 1946.

  Wartime Letters, 1914–1921, of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by M. D. Herter Norton. New York: Norton and Co., 1940.