![]() ![]() ![]() Apart from a brief Introduction and a few end notes on translation issues, the poems stand on their own here – there is no parallel German text, for instance. So Barton has now produced a lively, English version which reads well (one of his aims). But for Barton – as I guess it was for me – it is a personal issue and we are assuredly thankful to those who consider the results worthy of publication because there remains a hunger for Rilke’s work. Perhaps the question for the would-be translator is more about the time and energy spent on such a widely available text when other works by other poets languish untranslated. But – as Barton also argues – it is at least our own pebble and Rilke’s work both allows and demands further translation and discussion it is without doubt complex, profound and obscure enough. As someone who has contributed his own translation of the work ( published by Enitharmon Press in 2006), I know the feeling of throwing a pebble into a landslide. Matthew Barton himself raises the question as to whether anything could “possibly justify yet another English version” of Rilke’s Duino Elegies (1922). ![]()
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