Poems to Night (Pushkin Press Classics) - Softcover

Rilke, Rainer Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1805333135 ISBN 13: 9781805333135

Publisher: Pushkin Press Classics, 2025

Synopsis

'A gorgeous collection of odes to the night and darkness' ExBerliner

In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented his friend Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing twenty-two poems meticulously inscribed in his own hand and bearing the title Poems to Night. This evocative sequence of poems, which echoes some of the great themes of German romanticism, is now thought to represent one of the key stages in the creative breakthrough and spiritual evolution of the preeminent European poet of the twentieth century.

This translation was the first to bring all the poems together in English and is enhanced by the translator's valuable introduction and a rich selection of further poems Rilke dedicated to night at various stages of his life.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Translated by Will Stone.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is considered one of the greatest German-language writers to have ever lived. He published his first collection of verse, Leben und Lieder (Life and Songs), in 1894, while he was still at school, and continued to write poetry and prose throughout his life, becoming a master of both. He is perhaps best known for his Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus, and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Rilke died in Switzerland in 1926, after being diagnosed with leukaemia, and was buried in the churchyard of Raron. His chosen epitaph was 'Rose, oh pure contradiction, to be no-one's sleep under so many lids.'

Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator. His translations for Pushkin Press include a series of titles by Stefan Zweig, and the books Rilke in Paris and Conversations with Rilke. His essays, reviews and poems have appeared in a range of publications including the TLS, the London Magazine and the Spectator.

About this title

About the Authors

RAINER MARIA RILKE (1875 - 1926) is considered one of the greatest German-language writers to have ever lived. He is best known for his Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

Will Stone, born 1966, is a poet, essayist and literary translator. His first poetry collection Glaciation (Salt, 2007), won the international Glen Dimplex Award for poetry in 2008. Shearsman Books has re-published his subsequent critically appraised collections. Will's poetry translations include To the Silenced - Selected Poems of Georg Trakl (Arc, 2005) Emile Verhaeren Poems (Arc, 2013), Georges Rodenbach Poems (Arc, 2017) and Friedrich Hölderlin's Life Poetry and Madness by Wilhelm Waiblinger (2018). Pushkin Press published his translation of Montaigne by Stefan Zweig in 2015, Messages from a Lost World - Europe on the Brink by Stefan Zweig in 2016 and The Art of the City - Rome, Florence, Venice by Georg Simmel in September 2018. Encounters and Destinies - A Farewell to Europe by Stefan Zweig and Surrender to Night - Collected Poems of Georg Trakl will be published in 2019. Will has contributed poems, translations, essays and reviews to a range of publications including The London Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, Apollo Magazine, the RA Magazine, The White Review, Poetry Review and Agenda.

From the Back Cover

'A gorgeous collection of odes to the night and darkness' ExBerliner

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

O now we have, with what whimpering
caressed ourselves, shoulders and eyelids.
And night has withdrawn into the rooms
like a wounded beast, in pain through us.
 
Were you elected from all for me,
was the sister not sufficient?
Lovely as a valley to me was your essence,
and now too, from the prow of the heavens
 
it bows down an unfailing apparition
and he takes possession. Where to go?
Alas, with the gesture of mourning
you incline towards me, un-consoled.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pushkin Press Classics
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1805333135
• ISBN 13: 9781805333135
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96