4thace reviewed Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke
Review of 'Sonnets to Orpheus' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
The thing that makes me admire this collection is also the thing that makes it hard to find a way in to them. These were written in a very short span of time in a fit of inspiration in a state where it seemed more like taking down dictation than assembling lines of poetry around some central poetic thought, and afterwards Rilke spoke of them as being mysterious even to himself. The sonnets are packed with all sorts of images with no attempt to impose a rational order upon them beyond those of meter (which is rather varied compared to traditional English sonnets) and rhyme. For instance, sonnet 2:8 starts talking about children's playmates, mentions a lamb with a talking scroll, alien carriages, houses, then ends up at the flight of balls. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to translate these enigmatic pieces where one cannot count on …
The thing that makes me admire this collection is also the thing that makes it hard to find a way in to them. These were written in a very short span of time in a fit of inspiration in a state where it seemed more like taking down dictation than assembling lines of poetry around some central poetic thought, and afterwards Rilke spoke of them as being mysterious even to himself. The sonnets are packed with all sorts of images with no attempt to impose a rational order upon them beyond those of meter (which is rather varied compared to traditional English sonnets) and rhyme. For instance, sonnet 2:8 starts talking about children's playmates, mentions a lamb with a talking scroll, alien carriages, houses, then ends up at the flight of balls. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to translate these enigmatic pieces where one cannot count on even those connections but have to make a sort of music reminiscent of the original.
For some years now I've imposed the discipline of automatic writing upon myself once a week, and these sometimes read like those strange eruptions from the subconscious. There are ecstacies, darkness, and confusion, and sometimes endings which hint at a sudden hint of insight. My German is not very good, but in this edition I liked being able to sound out the originals to get a little glimpse of the original effects that Rilke was hearing and by going over to the English text put some sense to some of the words I do not recognize. I've tried the exercise of writing something that tries to echo the style, and found that even if the effort was 99% unsuccessful I felt like I was still taking away something valuable. I will probably pick these up again after spending time with more grounded, more tractable verse just to see if the sensation I picked up when first reading these will endure.