The Rose Window and Other Verse from New Poems

by Rainer Maria Rilke, Ferris Cook (Illustrator)

Generally regarded as the greatest lyric poet of modern Germany, Rainer Maria Rilke has long been one of America's most popular foreign-language authors. This book is a selection of 60 poems taken from one of Rilke's best-known works, the two-volume New Poems, written from 1903 to 1908. Each poem is printed in English translation opposite the original German version and is illustrated with a delicate pencil sketch by Ferris Cook that echoes the imagery of the poem. 60 illustrations.

Genres: Poetry

149 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

A mystic lyricism and precise imagery often marked verse of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose collections profoundly influenced 20th-century German literature and include The Book of Hours (1905) and The Duino Elegies (1923).

People consider him of the greatest 20th century users of the language.

His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

His two most famous sequences include the Sonnets to Orpheus , and his most famous prose works include the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge .

He also wrote more than four hundred poems in French, dedicated to the canton of Valais in Switzerland, his homeland of choice.

Reviews

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suddenly a shaft of moonlight
shines out fiercely, as if somewhere
the archangel had unsheathed his brilliant sword.
~from "Townscape"

I'm really working on clearing out books that have been sitting on the TBR shelves for much too long. The Rose Window & Other Verse from New Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke has been hanging out for about 10 years or so. I fell in love with Rilke's poetry in college. I went out immediately and bought myself The Complete French Poems and have read and reread those. Then in about 2000, I found this pretty little book sitting in the clearance bin of a now defunct bookstore. And somehow managed to never read it. So...I put it down for a number of reading challenges just to ensure that I would finally do so.

This book of poetry isn't quite as compelling as translated French poems. I think perhaps it suffers from the fact that there are multiple translators rather than just one--nine translators in all. I would get into a certain rhythm (or rather the translator seemed to) and then a poem would come along that brought things to a screeching halt. Word choice and order seemed a bit off. Then there would be a few more good ones. It made for very uneven reading. My favorite poems were "Early Apollo" and "The Angel of the Meridian" (both translated by the same person), "The Poet" and "Townscape" (translated by a second person) and "Lullaby" (translated by a third). My rating for the entire collection: three and a half stars.

{This review is mine and was first posted on my blog . Please request permission before reposting any portion. Thanks.}

[Jasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich sehe dich, Rose, halbgeöffnetes Buch,
es enthält Seiten genug,
das Glück zu beschreiben,
und niemand wird sie entziffern. Zauber-Buch

öffnet sich dem Wind und dem, der es versucht
mit geschlossenen Augen zu lesen ....
und Schmetterlingen, die verwirrt entgleiten,
weil sie schon Gedanken mit ihm teilten.

-------------------------------

Fenster, o Maß der Erwartung,
so viele Male erfüllt, wenn sich ein Leben
wendet und sehnt in Ungeduld
nach einem anderen Leben.

Anziehend bist du und du trennst,
veränderlich wie das Meer, -
Scheibe, in der die Gestalt sich spiegelt,
plötzlich mit dem Dahinter vermengt.

Muster der Freiheit, in Gefahr gebracht
vom Schicksalsverlauf;
Halt, der Ausgleich zwischen uns schafft
und dem großen Zuviel des Draußen.

[Etola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished my first collection of Rilke poetry. There's really not much I can say that would do it justice, except that it was breathtaking and incredible. Some of the poems were hard to "get," but like a gourmet meal with a complicated pallet of flavors that needs to be savored, or a fine jewel hidden in an intricate puzzle-box, the reward was rich and well worth the mental effort. His poems are the works of a man of deep thought, who approached both the transcendental and the ephemeral aspects of this world with reverance.

I look forward to reading more of his work.

[Robert Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes to be reminded of pure lyricism . . . and of how sketchy my German is . . . (thank you, bilingual edition)

[peenit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Rilke ❤️ makes it awesome to be alive

[Silvio · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite poet - another confirmation. Beyond genius.
Pure Grace. Pure Beauty. Pure Truth.

I love Rilke's circular/spirallic way of perceiving.
And his circular/spirallic way of expressing.

The Spiral of Depth.
Dancing periphery.
Circling around God.

Deep looking.
Deep wonder.
Deep connections.
Deep recognition.



Being.

Expansion.

To live our lives in widening circles.
Circling around God.

PS: The German-English translation in this book was wonderful - but no translation can even come close to the fullness of the German originals.

[Caitlin Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first collection of Rilke's poems that I discovered and quickly fell in love with.