Rilke: New Poems (English and German Edition)
There have been many distinguished translators of Rilke; so many, in fact, that there is even an excellent book by novelist and critic William Gass: Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation (1999). Cadora—guitarist, writer, and translator, whose collection The Millennial Fictions (2009) won the Eisner Prize for Prose—is the latest. In his introduction, Cadora states, “I am convinced that, without the rhyme schemes, Rilke would not be Rilke, and I have endeavored to keep them exact where I could.” This decision shapes the book. Many of the poems are sonnets, and while Rilke’s immense creativity within formal constraints is apparent, English is not as rhyme rich and some of Cadora’s versions sound like tongue twisters. His renderings of the canonical poems, such as “The Panther,” “Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes,” and “Archaic Torso of Apollo” (to name a few), are worthwhile additions to the enormous body of Rilke’s work already translated by others. Cadora’s willingness to translate more than four hundred poems is admirable, since many themes recur and develop. This is an uneven but worthwhile volume. --Michael Autrey