In this landmark translation and commentary the National Book Award-winning poet Robert Bly brings his prowess as translator and critic to bear on the work of the indisputably major poets of the century.

Malte Laurids Brigge is a young Danish nobleman and poet living in Paris. Obsessed with death and the reality that lurks behind appearances, Brigge muses on his family's history and on the teeming alien life of the city. First published in 1910, Rilke's masterpiece has proven to be one of the most influential and enduring works of fiction of our century.

These translations by M.D. Herter Norton offer Rilke's work to the English-speaking world in an accurate, sensitive, modern version.

In April 1898 Rainer Maria Rilke, not yet twenty-three, began a diary of his Florence visit. It was to record, in the form of an imaginary dialogue with his mentor and then-lover, Lou Andreas-Salome, his firsthand experiences of early Renaissance art. The project quickly expanded to include not only thoughts on life, history, and artistic genius, but also unguarded moments of revulsion, self-doubt, and manic expectation. The result is an intimate glimpse into the young Rilke, already experimenting brilliantly with language and metaphor. "For the lover of Rilke, this superb translation of the...

Letters written over a period of several years on the vocation of writing by a poet whose greatest work was still to come.

'Flemming captures Rilke's style and mood with grace. He is a master at lining, and his use of contemporary meters, rhythm, and diction makes his translations more' readable' to a contemporary audience without losing the mysticism and lyrical quality of Rilke's poems. These translations suggest a new way to look at Rilke in English and are fine poems in their own right.' --Jack Zipes, Univ. of Wisconsin

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In 1903, a student at a military academy sent some of his verses to a well-known Austrian poet, requesting an assessment of their value. The older artist, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), replied to the novice in this series of letters -- an amazing archive of remarkable insights into the ideas behind Rilke's greatest poetry. The ten letters reproduced here were written during an important stage in Rilke's artistic development, and they contain many of the themes that later appeared in his best works. The poet himself afterwards stated that his letters contained part of his creative genius,...

At the turn of the twentieth century, the city of Prague hosted a cosmopolitan culture whose literary scene abounded in experimental writers. Two of the city's natives are featured in this dual-language volume: Franz Kafka, whose fiction is synonymous with the anguish of modern life; and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose stories unfold in the same transcendent lyricism as his verse.
Twelve of Kafka's stories from the compilation Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor) appear here, along with two tales from Ein Hungerkunstler (A Hunger Artist). Rilke's stories include -Die Weise von...