The testament : (& other texts) / Rainer Maria Rilke ; edited by Rainer J. Hanshe ; translation & introduction by Mark Kanak.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926, author.

Contributor:

Hanshe, Rainer J., editor.

Kanak, Mark, translator, writer of introduction.

Standardized Title:

Works. Selections. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926--Translations into English.

Rilke, Rainer Maria.

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926.

Genre:

personal correspondence.

prose poems.

Essays

Personal correspondence

Prose poems

Translations

Personal correspondence.

Essays.

Prose poems.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 144 pages : illustrations, facsimiles, 20 cm

illustration

Edition:

First Contra Mundum Press edition.

Other Title:

The testament : and other texts

Place of Publication:

New York : Contra Mundum Press, 2025.

Language Note:

In English, translated from the original German.

Summary:

"Rilke's Testament opens with the outbreak of WWI, a devastating world event that prevents the poet from returning to 'the incomparable city of Paris,' and which is entwined with his own debilitating crises. [...] Written while suffering an impasse with the Duino Elegies and just before he and Merline Klossowska discover the Chateau de Muzot, which would become a fertile sanctuary for the nomadic poet, Rilke turns to translation as a pontifex to carry him through the muteness. Having at last opened some free associative realm, he begins sketching terse reflections, lyrical draft letters, and dense, wistful prose, fragmentary writings that speak to the powers of destruction and creation. Long secret, this enigmatic and charged series of experimental texts is the record of the close of a remarkable winter, wherein the work of poetry, the artist's struggle with life, is tested in the crucible of solitude and the sinister expanse of blank pages. An illumating ars poetica, Rilke's Testament constitutes the mortal risk of not going beyond love, and the risk of the potential death of the artist, where the silencing of the logos puts creative potency under threat. This world premiere English translation also includes essays on politics, poetry, sound, the sacred and sexuality, and the complete poem sequence "From the Literary Estate of Count C.W.," all works dating from 'the testament years.'" -- Back cover.

Contents:

Translator's introduction. Rilke's testament of solitude

(Draft of a political speech)

Primal sound

(Preface to a reading of my own works)

The testament

From the literary estate of Count C.W.

Letter from a young worker.

ISBN:

9781940625805

1940625807

OCLC:

1547662902