The Story
Long hailed as a masterwork of modern German literature, The Book of Hours (1905) marks the origin of Rainer Maria Rilke's distinctive voice and vision--where clarity of diction meets unexpected imagery and first-person poetry discovers its full lyric possibility. In these audacious poems, a devout but candid speaker addresses an ultimately unknowable deity, passing through love, fear, guilt, anger, bewilderment, loneliness, tenderness, and exaltation in his search for meaning.
In this dual-language edition, Edward Snow, "the most trustworthy and exhilarating of Rilke's contemporary translators" (Michael Dirda, Washington Post), makes Rilke's achievement accessible as never before in English. Snow retains a striking fidelity to the German text while also conveying the captivating psychological presence that animates Rilke's best poems.
Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 04/07/2026
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781324123460
About the Author
Rilke, Rainer Maria: - Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), the author of Sonnets to Orpheus, Duino Elegies, and Letters to a Young Poet, was one of the greatest poets of the German language.Snow, Edward: - Edward Snow has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for his Rilke translations. A professor at Rice University, he lives in Houston, Texas.
Description
Long hailed as a masterwork of modern German literature, The Book of Hours (1905) marks the origin of Rainer Maria Rilke's distinctive voice and vision--where clarity of diction meets unexpected imagery and first-person poetry discovers its full lyric possibility. In these audacious poems, a devout but candid speaker addresses an ultimately unknowable deity, passing through love, fear, guilt, anger, bewilderment, loneliness, tenderness, and exaltation in his search for meaning.
In this dual-language edition, Edward Snow, "the most trustworthy and exhilarating of Rilke's contemporary translators" (Michael Dirda, Washington Post), makes Rilke's achievement accessible as never before in English. Snow retains a striking fidelity to the German text while also conveying the captivating psychological presence that animates Rilke's best poems.
Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 04/07/2026
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781324123460
About the Author
Rilke, Rainer Maria: - Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), the author of Sonnets to Orpheus, Duino Elegies, and Letters to a Young Poet, was one of the greatest poets of the German language.Snow, Edward: - Edward Snow has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for his Rilke translations. A professor at Rice University, he lives in Houston, Texas.
