Duino Elegies and Other Selected Poems

Duino Elegiesare the ten magnificent poems that defined the Austrian poet, RainerMaria Rilke's artistic vision of life, death, eternity, and the humancondition. Marievon Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe invited Rilke to stay at her castle inDuino, onthe coast of the Adriatic Sea near Trieste. He stayed alone in the castle for about four months and, on a cold day inJanuary, 1912, when he was contemplating how to answer a business letter thathe received, he walked out into the freezing windy morning and, walking along apath by the bastions looking down at the violent waves of the Adriatic a coupleof hundred feet below him, he heard someone speak, but when he turned around,he was alone and the voice that he heard spoke the famous opening lines of theFirst Elegy: ?Wer, wenn ich schriee, h?rte mich denn aus der Engel/ Ordnungen??(?Who,if I cried out, would hear me among theAngelic/ Orders??). Dr. Gartner presents a new translation ofRilke's magnum opus as well as of a selection of ten famous poems fromRilke's collected works.