As languages go I think German is relatively easy to pick through as an English speaker. If you have facing-page versions and a dictionary you can figure out what's going on more or less. The game-changer is the way German, as an inflected language, is very flexible with word-order, so where words are relative to each other sets off all sorts of resonances that Rilke especially I think works to the max. In English we keep adding extra stuff to make up the difference, as Michael points out. Thank you for reading!
I agree, I have a very strong bias for Snow, I initially reacted badly to Mitchell's, but over the years, guess whose version seems to work all of a sudden.
I think I was always put off by this vatic bent— the Tao, the Old Testament, Rumi, Whitman, Homer, even Neruda!—and this cheerful embrace of so many traditions that one person could not possibly know well made it hard for me to look at the lines with a clear eye, but MR makes a convincing case!
I love the granular specificity of these readings. I haven't (and can't) read Rilke in the German but MR's review makes me feel like I could.
As languages go I think German is relatively easy to pick through as an English speaker. If you have facing-page versions and a dictionary you can figure out what's going on more or less. The game-changer is the way German, as an inflected language, is very flexible with word-order, so where words are relative to each other sets off all sorts of resonances that Rilke especially I think works to the max. In English we keep adding extra stuff to make up the difference, as Michael points out. Thank you for reading!
Loved this piece. Thank you.
Thank you for reading, and writing!
I agree, I have a very strong bias for Snow, I initially reacted badly to Mitchell's, but over the years, guess whose version seems to work all of a sudden.
I think I was always put off by this vatic bent— the Tao, the Old Testament, Rumi, Whitman, Homer, even Neruda!—and this cheerful embrace of so many traditions that one person could not possibly know well made it hard for me to look at the lines with a clear eye, but MR makes a convincing case!