Rainer Maria Rilke
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.
Random House, 1982. First printing. Edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell, with an introduction by Robert Hass. 0394524349 xliv/356 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6.5" x 9.5", is bound in gilt-lettered quarter red cloth and beige paper-covered boards. Author's initials appear blind stamped in lower outside corner of front cover. Book shows very light shelfwear. Binding is firm. Previous owner's name and date of 1982 appear at top of front flyleaf. Pages are clean and bright. Text is bilingual in German and English. Price-clipped dust jacket displays moderate wear, with two small closed tears at top edges.
One of the twentieth century's great originals, Rilke's poetry stands beside the philosophy of Nietzsche and the sculpture of Rodin. These pages clearly reflect the development of his art from the early exploration of love and death, anguish and ecstasy, to the more precise poetry of his later period, acutely aware of a sense of alienated terror. This bilingual edition contains the full text of his "Duino Elegies," complete with an appendix of fragments, alongside generous selections from "The Sonnets to Orpheus" and the earlier volumes of poetry.