In translation the cloud of reading is brought to light. My focus in this website is on the translations of the Elegies into English, both because I am technically interested in such translations and because it is in translation rather than just reading (where the mind can suspend what it doesn’t quite understand, or at least delay confrontation with it, and where we can lie to ourselves about what words mean) that the nuances of the voice of the lyrical subject and challenging obscurities, thematic and figurative, of Rilke’s original text come to the surface. Even in translation, they have spoken to successive generations since their publication in 1923, drawing readers such as André Gide, Paul Valery and W.H. For those who believe that the poetic voice speaks with a depth of its own, Rilke’s Duino Elegies are the ultima Thule.
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