Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation

Gass, William H.

ISBN 10: 0375403124 / ISBN 13: 9780375403125

Verlag: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999

Beschreibung

4th printing. Light stain to jacket base and bottom binding corners of pages, top edge lightly foxed, ink owner information on front endpaper. 1999 Hard Cover. 225 pp. The greatly esteemed essayist, novelist, and philosopher reflects on the art of translation and on Rainer Maria Rilke's duino elegies-and gives us his own translation of Rilke's masterwork. After nearly a lifetime of reading Rilke in English, William Gass undertook the task of translating Rilke's writing in order to see if he could, in that way, get closer to the work he so deeply admired. With Gass's own background in philosophy, it seemed natural to begin with the Duino Elegies, the poems in which Rilke's ideas are most fully expressed and which as a group are important not only as one of the supreme poetic achievements of the West but also because of the way in which they came to be written -- in a storm of inspiration. Gass examines the genesis of the ideas that inform the Elegies and discusses previous translations. He writes, as well, about Rilke the man: his character, his relationships, his life. Finally, his extraordinary translation of the Duino Elegies offers us the experience of reading Rilke with a new and fuller understanding.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 2347798

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation
• Verlag: Alfred A. Knopf
• Erscheinungsjahr: 1999
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 0375403124
• ISBN-13: 9780375403125
• Einband: Hard Cover
• Auflage: 4th Printing.
• Zustand: Good
• Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Good

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe

The renowned essayinst, philosopher, and novelist presents a close-up study and rendering of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetic masterpiece Duino Elegies as he reflects on the art of translating a work from another language while maintaining the true essence of the original. 15,000 first printing.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

William H. Gass was born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1924. He has been the recipient of grants from the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, as well as the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Medal of Merit for Fiction, the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism (1985 and 1996). He has also won the Pushcart Prize (1976, 1983, 1987, 1992), and his work has appeared four times in <b>Best American Short Stories</b>. He lives in St. Louis, where he is the director of the International Writers' Center.