Talk:Duino Elegies

Old comments
I do have to say, biased as I am being from Duino, that this collection is quite popular among the germans, and I think it would merit it's own article at least in Italian and German. It all ends up kind of calling rilke a liar too, about his unhasty notes, which didn't read very unbiased, confusingly. ale 22:26, 1 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shomon (talk • contribs)

"hierarchies" is spelled incorrectly in the second paragraph of the article.

List of Elegies
The Elegies should be listed with key details such as original name, English translation of name and year of writing. AshLin (talk) 03:25, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You might want to read the article. It's already discussed there. As for the specific elegies, they're called "First Elegy", "Second Elegy"...etc. (Erste Elegie, Zwitte Elegie...), not really worth wasting space with a list of that sort.--ColonelHenry (talk) 04:41, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Structure

 * One could usefuly discuss their structure. The 5th is described as a pivot point, clearly inspired by Picasso's "The acrobats, family of saltimbanques," which hung in one of the mansions  in which Rilke was holed up. See "Duino Elegies (Study in Germanic Language & Literature)" Elaine Boney, 1975.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.204.142.171 (talk) 14:37, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * And what would you like to discuss in particular about their structure? As for Saltimbanques, read the article and tell me what you think is lacking.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:12, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


 * As I've mentioned pretty clearly above (so why are you asking?,) it's often pointed out that fifth is pivot point in mood and underlying topic. This is fairly obvious aspect. Structure is important aspect of the cycle. A generalized summary of published commentary on structure from nearly any source is missing, and would add much value to the article in its present form.

Really the only way for the average person to grasp the poem is to read a line-by-line commentary from a scholar, but of course that would not be viable here and I am not suggesting it.

A discussion of structure would be helpful along those lines and much more feasible, given limitations of Wikipedia. 108.204.142.171 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:51, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Just repeating that the Fifth Elegy (the last written) is an obvious "pivot point" representing a change of mood and topic tells me (and anyone else who happens by here) absolutely nothing. Considering I've read just about everything worthwhile on Rilke's work and Duino Elegies, I'd like you first to explain (a) what you mean precisely and specifically by it being a "pivot point" and the relevant transition or modulation of moods/topics in the elegies including any motifs (including changes in interpretation, fragmentation, or other techniques that establish the pivot), and (b) point me to any scholar or reliable source who points this out. Given my familiarity with the scholarship on the Rilke's work and the Elegies, I cannot recall encountering any respected academic argument or analysis along those lines in any of my research over the years, and having read it innumerable times over 10 years, I'd like to know what you're talking about to perhaps understand other deeper meanings of the text myself.  Right now your claim is meaningless without any further explanation or referring me to reliable sources.--ColonelHenry (talk) 22:22, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I too, can make similar assertions about having read a great deal about the work (but only in English) since my first encounter with it 32 years ago.

Hell, I've even personally discussed the poem with its first English (co-) translator, the late Stephen Spender!

So we can both fall into the silly logical fallacy of arguing from authority.

I mention plainly at very top of this section Boney's 1975 commentary and translation, widely available in University libraries, and a very valuable introduction with which you are doubtless familiar, covering the point I am trying to make.

So I can dig out my copy and try to edit this article. But I sense an obvious "OWNERSHIP" problem that would develop. 108.204.142.171 (talk) 21:35, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, insulting my intelligence, and trading insults won't get us elsewhere, so I'm going to ignore you after this post, anonymous IP editor. And Stephen Spender...please, be who you want to be while you hide behind the anonymous IP. FYI: I would have considered Boney's work when writing the article except her translation is considered among the worst of the English versions of the Elegies (the title's "Duinesian" should have been the first clue). Ingo Seidler lambasted it right after it came out in an appraisal of the other translations of the elegies. Further, her arguments in her 1982 essay on structural patterns within the Elegies was thoroughly unconvincing--a point further evinced by how it has been ignored by her fellow scholars in all subsequent serious studies of Rilke's work. In fact, Boney is only mentioned by anyone regarding the Elegies just to point out her ideas were unconvincing. I don't need to argue from any personal sense of authority, I cited 58 already well-established in the article--ones held in higher esteem than Ms. Boney. --ColonelHenry (talk) 03:30, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Stephen Spender, as you obviously know, visited countless American universities to hold discussions with small groups of students and the public. I encountered him in early 1980s, twenty years before you first read this poem, and about ten years before his death.
 * Also sorry you feel I am "trading insults" with you, presumably because I sense an obvious "ownership" problem with this article.
 * Please award yourself an honorary Ph.D. in German from the Wacky World of Wikipedia, and I'll just move on.
 * I am glad you are obsessed with Rilke (about whom Han Holthusen, as you doubtless know, once called "a baneful (baleful?) influence on muddled minds").
 * It's a wonderful reading list you've got there, I suppose, but perhaps you could "lighten up."

108.204.142.171 (talk) 16:12, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Current editor is a jerk

 * Like thousands of people, author read a mess about poem. He confused simple understanding with unique insight and "ownership" of Wikipedia article.
 * I agree that this article is "good." Doubt that his comments are reasonable. Seem like pointless ego is involved..So improvement would be deeply problematic.

Typical "wikipedia" difficulty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.204.142.171 (talk) 02:03, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Bring a reliable source and a decent idea about what you'd like to add to the article, and we'll talk and see how to improve the article with the addition. Calling me a jerk (which is a kindness, actually, I've been called worse and smiled) while repeating your claims above without bringing a reliable source is a useless waste of time.--ColonelHenry (talk) 02:12, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Featured article review
See Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  17:35, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * ,,  I'd like to change the citation format of this article to SFN and sort the footnotes from the references. Could you, and any other editors looking at this page, let me know if it is okay. If there are any issues, I'll gladly leave the article in its current citation style. Wtfiv (talk) 16:48, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The citation style used now is the most dreadful of all possible options; I resoundingly endorse switching to SFN, and was considering raising that myself on the FAR. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  16:50, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd appreciate you doing it and will help with the changes. I never use the clutter of references mixed with the prose if I can avoid it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:53, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * OK. Grimes2 (talk) 17:11, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Citing the Elegies
I just changed the quotes of the Elegies to match Leishman and Spender. My goal was to consistent and based on a reliable public source. The Leishman and Spender are not my favorite, but I chose them because:
 * The source was already used in a previous citation (a point made in the introduction).
 * They appear to focus on literal translation over poetic translation, have bilingual facing text, and respect the lines of the original. (Before making the change, there was a Mitchell translation without the German that had reduced Rilke's four lines to two).
 * The source is accessible to readers.

There are other accessible bilingual translations to use including Robert Hunters, Alfred Poulin's, David Oswald's, C. F. MacIntyre's,Edward Snow's, Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann's, and Vita Sackville-West's. I looked at them all and thought L & S the best over all, but if there is a consensus that another is better, I'll make the changes.

There is a second issue was well. Do we want to put all the translations in the source? But my feeling is that is best not to list the various translations. There are many, many more than those listed. For instance, the Stephen Mitchell version is quite popular, but unmentioned. Why are the one's listed listed, and others not? Another reason to not list the citations translations is that the citation style becomes awkward. I saw that Cohn's translation was made into Rilke & Cohn 1989, which seems to be the best solution if we mention all the translations and add them as citations. But it also implies- to my mind- that Rilke and Cohn worked together collaboratively.

I can see that works relevant to the introduction of the poems into the English-langugage community could be relevant: Vita-Sackville's and the Leishman and Splender's come to mind as they mark the introduction into England and America, respectively. But even then it seems a citation mentioning their historical relevant than citing the works themselves. Let me know what you think is best, and I'll work with whatever is the consensus. Wtfiv (talk) 01:32, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Problems with the 'Influences' section?
In addition to the list of artists who have written translations feeling arbitrary, there's a couple of other issues with the legacy. Auden seem to get a lot more coverage with his own poem in the section, so I removed that section with Auden's poems. I'm not sure the section on Gadamer fits her either. There's no doubt that Rilke's work can by read sympathetically through Gadamerian hermeneutics (Dowrick (2011), which was cited as arguing for Rilke's influence on Gadamer, actually illustrates a Gadamerian reading of Rilke.) and Gadamer wrote an essay on him (as well as other artists like Celan and Goethe), the citations do not support that Rilke influenced Gadamer's hermeneutics. And as the sources show, other critics and philosophers have read Rilke through other constructons. Are there any problems with removing that section too? Wtfiv (talk) 05:15, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I've also removed the mention of Rilke influencing Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein donated money to poets, including Rilke and Georg Trackl, but Perloff the cited source, "Wittgenstein's ladder" only mentions in passing that Wittgenstein was acquainted with his poetry a bit better than Trackl's.Wtfiv (talk) 07:12, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree to trim with that in mind. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:54, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Though none of the originally cited sources appeared to make the point about Rilke influencing Gadamer, I found some accessible new ones that did. So I restored the final paragraph, somewhat reworking the prose to align with the new citations. Wtfiv (talk) 23:05, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Translations of the Elegies
As mentioned in "Citing the Elegies" above, there is the problem of which translations- if any to mention, and how they should be mentioned. As a first solution, I created a "English-language translation" subsection in Further reading. I deleted Gary Miranda's, as it is not easily accessible. I added Steven Mitchells, as it seems very popular and had been quoted in an earlier version of this article, and I added the one by Vita and Sackville-West, which isn't great but has historical value as the first English-Language translation.

But this list feels arbitrary, as it did in the original version of the article. There are many more translations, and any editor that wants to advertise a particular translation could fairly post here. The quality of the translation is not necessarily determined by the fame of the translator. In the end, it would also make the list incredibly long, as their are dozens of translations. My preference would be to delete this list.

(As an aside, my preference is to remove the entire "Further Reading" section. There are hundreds of books on Rilke, so why are some selected and others not? The list looks arbitrary and will grow over time.  In my opinion, items that are worth "further reading" should also be useful sources in the article.) Thoughts?Wtfiv (talk) 19:58, 2 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't think the translations are excessive - not even ten - but feel that they should appear in chronological order (seen first), not by translator's surname. But trim what you think is too much.
 * Further reading: I suggest we drop everything not explicitly related to the Elegies. I found interesting that Guardini wrote about them even if I don't see what. We might check if some of the material could be used more specifically as ref. I looked at the two German ones: one is about the house in Duino and historical facts around it, the other about a trail there following paths Rilke may have taken. Both might be useful for other aspects of legacy than influence on poets. If not used as ref, those should go, as not for most readers. I returned to my own FAC after the elegiac break, but am willing to help further if wanted. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:32, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I removed further reading, but adding new sources sounds great! I too was fascinated to find the Guardini one during my Gadamer citation search. I wanted to add it a a source, but couldn't get enough access to it to use it, and I stayed focus on just trying to clean up what is there. Please add more sources, if you like. If you want me to format them, I will.
 * I've tentatively moved all the translations to a new article I created called List of Duino Elegies translations. My thinking is that editors interested can add translations in any language, which would create a fascinating resource without clogging the main article. I did it in one edit, so it can easily be reverted if need be. Wtfiv (talk) 03:56, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

sfn error
I get following error: "Adorno 1964, p. 84–85. sfn error: no target: CITEREFAdorno1964 (help) Harv error: this link doesn't point to any citation." I'm not able to fix that error. Strange. Grimes2 (talk) 01:04, 5 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Solved. Was an ugly mistake. Grimes2 (talk) 01:11, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
 * My bad. I didn't check my most recent edit. Thanks for the catch and fix! Wtfiv (talk) 01:42, 5 August 2022 (UTC)