Sonnets to Orpheus

by Rilke, Rainer Maria; Crucefix, Martyn

• ISBN13: 9781907587221
• ISBN10: 1907587225
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-10-01
• Publisher: Enitharmon Press

Summary

In 55 sonnets Rainer Maria Rilke plays an astonishing set of philosophical and sensual variations on the Orpheus myth. ‘Praising, that’s it!’ he declares; nature, art, love, time, childhood, technology, poverty, justice – all are encompassed in poems that spark with insight and invention, among the most joyful and light-footed that Rilke ever wrote. Translated by Martyn Crucefix.

Author Biography

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was born in Prague and led a nomadic existence, living in Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy and France before his death in Switzerland from leukaemia. He dedicated himself exclusively to his work, including the New Poems (1907-8), the semi-autobiographical novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) and Sonnets to Orpheus (1923). The Duino Elegies (1923) is acknowledged as his masterpiece. Martyn Crucefix has won numerous prizes including a major Eric Gregory award and a Hawthornden Fellowship. He has published five collections, and his translation of Rilke’s Duino Elegies, published by Enitharmon in 2006, was shortlisted for the Cornelius M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation and hailed as “unlikely to be bettered for very many years” (Magma).