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Introduction
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xvii introduction “Oh sage, Dichter, was du tust? —Ich rühme.”1 “Tell us poet, what you do? —I laud.” rainer Maria rilke was born on 4 december 1875 in Prague, the same year as Thomas Mann in Lübeck. offspring of Austrian parents residing in the capital of the ancient kingdom of Bohemia, rilke grew up surrounded by the rich German and czech cultural heritage that coexisted, combined and competed in the turn-of-the-century golden city of Prague, then the third largest city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was baptized rené Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria at the catholic church of St. Heinrich, just a few paces from where he lived with his parents on the Heinrichgasse 17 (Jindrišská) and very near the baroque palace of his maternal grandparents Entz-Kinzelberger on the noble Herrengasse 8 (Panská), where he lived after his parents separated in 1884, when he was 9 years old. He attended the Piaristen school on the Herrengasse, in the very centre of the old town, between the historic town square (Staroměstské náměstí) and the busy Wenceslas Square (Václavské náměstí). rené’s father, Josef rilke (1838-1906) was an Austrian civil servant, his mother Sophie (1851-1931, better known as Phia), was a well educated and very independent woman, who loved literature and published a book of aphorisms entitled Ephemeriden. rené attended the German charles university in Prague, named after Emperor charles iV, where he was matriculated first in the faculty of philosophy and later in the law faculty,but remained primarily engaged in his vast literary pursuits. in 90 poems the youthful rené invites us to a promenade through his hometown Prague and homeland Bohemia,2 manifesting keen and sympathetic observation of the czech people, their history, literature and songs. The poems are full of colourful descriptions of the many churches, convents, castles, towers, fountains and bridges, the great river Vltava, the astronomers of Kaiser rudolf ii, and the legends of rabbi Löw. Here are impressionistic visions of the four seasons, xviii dusk over the city contours, rain pelting on old roofs, deserted alleys, spooky cemeteries,horse-drawn carriages,noisy theatres,romantic narrow alleys in the Malá Strana, young lovers at the Loretto monastery, impromptu expressions of vital exuberance, since “das Leben ist eine Herrlichkeit”3 —life is splendorous.rilke sings,because singing is being. Master poet of modernism in German letters,and surely the greatest German lyric poet of the twentieth century, rené had rather modest beginnings as a writer.Some critics consider his early work trivial,mere exercises in rhyme and alliteration,youthful outbursts in the art nouveau style of the age. true, one does not encounter the metaphysical depth of the Duino Elegies, nor the aesthetic precision of the Dinggedichte. But why should we always expect masterpieces? Who would dare to look down with condescension upon the young Mozart’s symphony no. 4 in d major simply because the matured composer presented a few years before his death another symphony in the same key, the splendid symphony no. 38, also known as the Prague symphony? This is the first complete translation of the Larenopfer into English. Like all translations, these are but approximations. Free translations, as these are, occasionally stray from the original in order to signal an inherent idea and/or explore a shade of meaning.i endeavour to capture and preserve the tender musical sound and the rhythm of the poems, while remaining as faithful as possible to the imagery. But whereas rilke is always successful in his rhymes, which never sound hackneyed or forced, my translations endeavour to achieve rhyme whenever possible , yet refrain from rhyming at the expense of meaning and feeling. Later in his oeuvre, rilke himself would abandon rhyming altogether, as he did in the Elegies. i began to translate German verse purely for fun and it gradually became a happy addiction. i started with poems by Eichendorff and Hesse, then attempted translating the wonderful lyrics of the mature rilke, especially from the cycles Neue Gedichte, Das Buch der Bilder and Das Stundenbuch. When i discovered the Larenopfer and learned to my surprise that this cycle had never been translated into English, i sensed an unexpected challenge. Here is the product of my modest endeavours. of course, poems are written to be read in the original, and rilke’s German texts, also reproduced here, remain ever young and more spontaneous. [54.157.35.140] Project MUSE...