Description
Book SynopsisA full-length study of the work of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). The Life of the Work studies the breadth of Rilke's work, including translations and late poems written in French.
Trade ReviewLouth provides the most comprehensive, and also the most careful, account available in any language of the breadth of Rilke's writing. ...The book's usefulness and pleasure as an extended commentary on Rilke's work [is] held together above all by Louth's alert, thoughtful and always unshowy voice as a critic. * Ian Cooper, Modern Language Review *
With his almost Empsonian purchase on syntax and sensibility, Louth's study will be indispensable for anyone with a serious interest in this most mysterious and masterly of poets. * Ben Hutchenson, Times Literary Supplement *
To come to Rilke's poems in Charlie Louth's company is to learn to read. ... a definitive work that should not be missing from any Rilke library. * Jeremy Adler, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [translated from the original article to English] *
Rilke: the Life of the Work is comprehensive, erudite, always clear. * Martyn Crucefix, Agenda *
This book has many outstanding merits and virtues ... but its greatest merit is that it exists. Only a miracle of dedication on the part of its author could have produced it. * Michael Minden, Journal of European Studies *
The theme of Louth's book is nothing less than Rilke's 'work' itself, more precisely what it means to see his work as having a 'life'...One of the great strengths of Louth's study is the way it opens up thematic patterns within a chronological framework. It shows the life of the work in its overall extension and development, but also shows it gathering preoccupations and dwelling in them-as lives do. * Ian Cooper, Modern Language Review *
Table of Contents1: Rilke's Openings 2: Beginnings 3: Das Buch der Bilder and Das Stunden-Buch 4: Neue Gedichte 5: Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge 6: Rilke's Requiems 7: The Interim I: 1907-1914 8: The Interim II: 1914-1922 9: Duineser Elegien 10: Die Sonette an Orpheus 11: Tender Taxes and Other Departures Epilogue: Reading Rilke Chronology of Translations Chronology of Rilke's Life
