Book SynopsisRainer Maria Rilke's work spans the divide between turn-of-the-century Europe's decadence and its post First World War revolutionary modernism, always struggling to develop, to seek and reach beyond itself. 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. Each poem is to a greater or lesser extent conscious of others. The aim is to illuminate the underlying themes which Rilke said he had arrived at very early in his life. In his powerful new translation, skilfully shaped into current English, Ian Crockatt succeeds in catching Rilke's blend of crafted sensuality and inward-focused spiritual searching, while his comprehensive introduction and notes to this selection are both informative and enlightening.Table of ContentsIntroduction / 9, The Ribbon / 23, I Love my Nature's Darkest Hours / 23, Entrance / 25, Early Apollo / 25, The Fountain / 27, A Tree Rises! - O Pure Transcendence! / 27, The Gazelle / 29, Spanish Dancer / 31, Birth of Venus / 31, Exposed on the Mountains of the Heart / 37, 'We must die because we know them' / 37, You, Whom I Knew Like a Flower / 39, Washing the Corpse / 41, Requiem for a Friend (extract) / 43, Death / 51, Lament / 53, And It Was a Girl, Almost / 53, Orpheus. Euridice. Hermes / 55, The Tower / 61, Encounter in the Chestnut Avenue / 63, O This is the Animal That Cannot Be / 65, You, Never-arriving One / 67, Love Song / 69, The Abduction / 69, Leda / 71, Parting / 73, The Convalescent / 73, Christ's Descent into Hell / 75, Duino Elegies: The First Elegy / 77, On the Verge of Night / 83, To Music / 83, Gong / 85, A God Can Do It. But You Tell Me How / 87, The Solitary / 89, You See, I Want a Lot / 89, Portrait / 91, Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy / 93, The Asylum Garden / 97, Look at the Flowers / 99, O Lacrimosa / 101, Be Ahead of All Parting / 103, The Red Scarf / 105, Notes / 106, iographical Notes / 112,
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