A Year with Rilke: The Depths of His Own Being

October 21, 2011

The Depths of His Own Being

A blue cow

by Marc Chagall

Only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another as something alive and will sound the depths of his own being.

Borgeby gärd, Sweden, August 12, 1904

Letters to a Young Poet

2 comments:

GeorgeFri Oct 21, 12:53:00 PM GMT+2
Ready for everything, excluding nothing. An admirable goal, one Iwork on daily, but I wonder if Rilke was able to achieve this lofty goal, put it in practice with every moment of his life.
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stevenFri Oct 21, 01:33:00 PM GMT+2
oh my!! the most beautiful words and painting . . . a pointed stick embedded in rilke's words. aim high. aim very very high! steven
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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!

About the Blog

We, Lorenzo and Ruth, are blog friends who, upon discovering our shared admiration for Rainer Maria Rilke's writings in a new volume of daily readings, decided to launch this blog.

Lorenzo (in Spain) has a home blog called The Alchemist's Pillow. Ruth (in the U.S.) has a home blog called synch-ro-ni-zing. Both of us also write poems and receive inspiration from Mary Oliver, Rumi, and many other poets.

We hope you will be inspired by this site, and we'd love to hear your responses in comments.

The Challenge of Translation

How can a poem written by Rilke, or anyone, be translated into another language, when a poem by its nature is a snapshot of a feeling, idea or story that also sings in lyricism, cadence, rhyme (sometimes) and other nuances that contribute to the poem intrinsically?

C. John Holcombe has thoroughly and generously explored the "problems" of translation in an article linked here, in which he explores the poem Herbsttag by Rilke. You can read fourteen versions of the first stanza by different translators, as well as a revelation of the issues of translation: word choice when there is no perfect equivalent; diction; word order (maintain the original or rearrange for effect?); rhyme; balance; and looking at the context of the poet's previous work.