Publisher's Synopsis
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), the greatest German language poet since Goethe, worked for a time as Rodin's secretary at Meudon. The sculptor's example lies behind the 'new' bias of the poems of 1907 and 1908. The Neue Gedichte are the most accessible work of this outstanding lyric poet.
John Bayley writes of these translations: 'we feel that not only has Rilke emerged in English with his personality unaltered, but that something new has been added to English poetry itself.'
This is the first paperback edition of Stephen Cohn's celebrated translations and includes the complete German language text parallel with the English.
Stephen Cohn is a sculptor, painter and printmaker. Peter Porter wrote of his translations of the Duino Elegies (Carcanet): 'Cohn has added a natural eloquence of his own which makes his versions of the Elegies the most flowing and organic of those I have read.'
