A new translation of the Elegies is always exciting; however colleagues
might like to know that it is, in fact, less than 15 years since Patrick
Bridgwater's translation was published by The Menard Press in 1999. I look
forward to "road-testing" this latest with EngLit students next semester!
Jo
Dr J M Catling
German and Comparative Literature
School of Literature and Creative Writing
UEA Norwich
>-----Original Message-----
>From: JISCmail German Studies List
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karen Leeder
>Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 12:37 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New Translation of Duino Elegies
>
>From Enitharmon. Apologies for cross-posting.KJL
>
>Dear Colleague
>
>I would like to draw your attention to a new translation of
>Rainer Maria Rilke’s great work, the Duino Elegies. Published
>this autumn, this will be the first British translation of
>these great poems for more than 15 years.
>
>Completed in the same year as the publication of Eliot’s The
>Waste Land, the Elegies constitute a magnificent godless poem
>in their rejection of the transcendent and their passionate
>celebration of the here and now.
>Troubled by our insecure place in this world and our fractured
>relationship with death, the Elegies are nevertheless
>populated by a throng of vivid and affecting figures:
>acrobats, lovers, angels, mothers, fathers, statues, salesmen,
>actors and children. This bilingual edition offers
>twenty-first century readers a new opportunity to experience
>the power of Rilke’s enduring masterpiece.
>
>Award winning poet, Martyn Crucefix, has completed this
>powerful and elegant new translation and has also contributed
>a thoughtful and helpful commentary to each of the poems which
>we feel will be of particular interest to students of this text.
>
>The edition is also provided with an clear and incisive
>Introduction by Karen Leeder of New College, Oxford, which
>puts these famous poems into context while exploring themes
>and style. Leeder comments, “These luminous new translations
>by Martyn Crucefix make it marvellously clear how the poem is
>committed to the real world observed with acute and visionary
>intensity”.
>
>Translator Details
>Martyn Crucefix’s poetry has won numerous prizes, including a
>major Eric Gregory award and a Hawthornden Fellowship and has
>been praised as “urgent, heartfelt, controlled and masterful”
>(Poetry London). His collections include Beneath Tremendous
>Rain (1990), At The Mountjoy Hotel (1993), On Whistler
>Mountain (1994), A Madder Ghost (Enitharmon, 1997) and An
>English Nazareth (Enitharmon, 2004). He is a founder member of
>the group ShadoWork, specializing in performing and writing
>collaboratively. For information on his work visit
>www.writersartists.net.
>
>£9.95 1 904634 23 0
>
>--
>Dr K.J. Leeder
>Reader in German
>Fellow and Tutor in German,
>New College, Oxford
>
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