Review: 'The Duino Elegies: Deluxe Edition' by Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by the Sackville-Wests

Rainer Maria Rilke is one of those towering giants of German-language poetry that has intimidated me for quite a while. I see the occasional phrase or stanza on Tumblr that makes me want to dig in deeper, so Pushkin Press' The Duino Elegies came at the perfect time. Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 22/2/2022
Publisher: Pushkin Press

The first-ever English translation of Rilke’s landmark poetry cycle, by Vita and Edward Sackville-West ­– reissued for the first time in 90 years

In 1931, Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press published a small run of a beautiful edition of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies, in English translation by the writers Vita and Edward Sackville-West. This marked the English debut of Rilke’s masterpiece, which would eventually be rendered in English over 20 times, influencing countless poets, musicians and artists across the English-speaking world.

Published for the first time in 90 years, the Sackville-Wests’ translation is both a fascinating historical document and a magnificent blank-verse rendering of Rilke’s poetry cycle. Featuring a new introduction from critic Lesley Chamberlain, this reissue casts one of European literature’s great masterpieces in fresh light.

Will I get told off by my (German) mother for reading Rilke in translation? Probably. But this translation was a great first step in that direction. In an excellent introduction by Lesley Chamberlain we get an insight into the history of translating the Duino Elegies and specifically the difficulties encountered by translators. (See, Rilke's German is hard!) Vita and Edward Sackville-West were the first to attempt Rilke's Elegies, which was published through Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press. That's quite some literary history there, and yet this translation is only now getting reissued for the first time in 90 years!

The Duino Elegies is made up of ten, connected elegies which Rilke began writing in 1912 but weren't published till 1923. During those 10 years Rilke worked on them sporadically, affected by severe depression and his military service during WWI. The elegies are full of religious and mystical imagery, including a number of angels, while questioning beauty and suffering. While the term 'elegy' may suggests that is it all doom and gloom, there is a fervour and a hope and a love of life that shines through every line of Rilke's poetry. I was utterly gripped by this discussion of how we as humans encounter beauty, how we engage with it alongside the suffering we also see in the everyday. He uses the angels as a symbol for this. His angels don't follow Christian theology but rather represent that fine line between horror and awe, when something is so much larger than yourself you don't know whether to fear or adore it. The Duino Elegies is a stunning work.

Each elegy is translated by either Vita or Edward and they do a beautiful job. They maintain the loftiness and complexity of Rilke's poetry without antiquating it any further. It is a joy to have this translation back in print.

I give this book...

5 Universes!

Pushkin Press continues to fill my world with joy by bringing out stunning translations and editions like this. The Duino Elegies as translated by the Sackville-Wests is a treasure.