# Rainer Maria Rilke



## Ilan Bouchard (Nov 27, 2006)

Among my favorite poets, Rainer has written two books of poems (sonnets and elegies) and a compilation of letters in which he discusses poetry and poets in general.  All of it is quite fascinating.

It's a shame that he's German, because I'm forced to read translated works, which simplifies the writing some (particularly so for the sonnets, which still retain their rhyme and rhythm).  Nevertheless, he's an incredible writer, and I encourage everyone who enjoys poetry to take a look at his works.


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## Ilan Bouchard (Dec 9, 2006)

You all lack any amount of culture.   


Seriously though, how can a guy who's portrait looks like this be anything but brilliant:







_Seriously though_, _someone_ must have read _something_ about his works?  I'll post up some of my favorite works soon, when I have the time to find and write them out.


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## Jolly McJollyson (Dec 9, 2006)

He looks like Liam Nieson in "Batman Begins"

As far as his works go...listen to them read aloud in German and read along.  That way you can hear them as they were meant to sound.  Also, learn German.  We can never understand language until we've learned as many languages as possible.

C'est la verite.

Wo deng xue wai wen.


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## TsuTseQ (Dec 10, 2006)

I agree with you on the languages idea Jolly. I have a Rilke book I haven't read too deeply yet. It has both the original German and the English translations, and, I have to admit, from the ones I've read, the English translations are not bad at all. Perhaps it has something to do with the common linguistic root for both.


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## Jolly McJollyson (Dec 10, 2006)

TsuTseQ said:
			
		

> I agree with you on the languages idea Jolly. I have a Rilke book I haven't read too deeply yet. It has both the original German and the English translations, and, I have to admit, from the ones I've read, the English translations are not bad at all. Perhaps it has something to do with the common linguistic root for both.


English is a corrupted language, though, as far as the Germanic roots are concerned.  We've too much Latin influence.  See, I bet the English translations are good, but my problem with translation is that you lose the actual sound of the poem as it was originally written.


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## TsuTseQ (Dec 10, 2006)

Yes and no. While we have a lot of latin influence in our language, there are many germanic alternatives to latin words that help maintain a similar cadence in the translated poetry, plus the sentence structure is very similar as well. Some of the subtleties are lost in translation, that is true, but they're still pretty well done. Besides, German is also fairly corrupted. There are many influences from other languages in German as well, but the amount varies from dialect to dialect.


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## Jolly McJollyson (Dec 10, 2006)

TsuTseQ said:
			
		

> Yes and no. While we have a lot of latin influence in our language, there are many germanic alternatives to latin words that help maintain a similar cadence in the translated poetry, plus the sentence structure is very similar as well. Some of the subtleties are lost in translation, that is true, but they're still pretty well done. Besides, German is also fairly corrupted. There are many influences from other languages in German as well, but the amount varies from dialect to dialect.


I would never call any language uncorrupted, I just meant that German sounds wildly different from English, and the actual sounds of the words themselves are gone in a translation.


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## strangedaze (Dec 10, 2006)

try:

Letters to a Young Poet.

correspondences between rilke and, well, this young poet. good for writers who dig abstract poetry stuff.


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## Cipher2 (Dec 13, 2006)

I have read some Rilke, I own two books: Letters to a Young Poet and Ahead of All Parting, the selcted poetry and prose. It has the original German as well as the translation. I read both since I am learning German anyway.

Even though poetry to me is another language anyway, this was reccomended by a trusted source to me and it is good. Some childish part of me finds it funny that he was given a girl's name.

If you like that you might like Goethe

The translation is always made to read good poetry in English rather than to keep to the original. I sometimes think that the translators try to do too much.  I suppose they cannot assume that everyone is interested in how it is said in German.


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