The Book of HoursRainer Maria RilkeLabel: WW Norton & CoDescription: 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 The 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.
