Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus

Rilke's poems of spiritual quest and ecstatic identification with the world have exerted a perennial fascination for contemporary readers. In Stephen Mitchell's versions of Rilke's two greatest masterpieces, readers will discover an English rendering that captures the lyric intensity, fluency, and reach of his poetry. Mitchell adheres impeccably to Rilke's text, to his formal music, and to the complexity of his thought; at the same time, his work has authority and power as poetry in its own right.