Having completed my annotations for Rilke's Duineser Elegien (rilkeduineserelegien.com) in which I provided a somewhat literal translation, while attempting to replicate the German syntax as much as possible, I decided to do a translation and annotation of the 55 Sonette an Orpheus with a somewhat different goal. One rather realistic way of looking at translation is concisely expressed in a French expression about ladies. "Si elle est belle, elle n'est pas fidèle. Si elle est fidèle, elle n'est pas belle." "If she is beautiful, she is not faithful. If she is faithful, she is not beautiful." The Duineser Elegien relied more on rhetoric than on many of the traditional poetic techniques, so that a faithful translation which takes the rhetorical effects in acount, can lay claim to a certain level of aesthetic appeal. The Sonette an Orpheus, however, necessitate a higher degree of poetic correspondence, especially concerning rhyme, meter and rhythm. I found thus a more daunting challenge, in that I would not only have to provide a faithful (fidèle) grammatically, poetically and rhetorically annotated translation for the intermediate or advanced student of German, but also attempt an aesthetically pleasing translation (belle) which aspires to replicate the more traditional poetical elements of each Sonett.

At the beginning of each of the Sonette there will be an image of the Sonett in question from the first edition published in 1923. Following will be a normally short analysis of the rhyme scheme, the various poetical sound effects, etc. Then will follow the "fidèle" annotated translation. In the annotations I will include a shortened definition of the poetical or rhetorical techniques referenced in the footnote. The full definitions can be found in the list of the technical terms in the section entitled "Terms." Thereafter the "belle" translation with a necessarily somewhat futile attempt to convey the poetic, rhetorical and metrical techniques employed by one of the world's most technically proficient and creative poets.

These definitions and my commentary are culled from many sources including the following: Microsoft Bookshelf; Princeton Dictionary of Poetry, Princeton University Press; Der Sprach-Brockhaus, Eberhard Brockhaus, Wiesbaden, 1958; Duden: Hauptschwierigkeiten der deutschen Sprache, Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim, 1965; Roget's International Thesaurus, Seventh Edition, Collins Reference, 2010; American Heritage Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1985; Rilke Werke, Kommentierte Ausgabe in vier Bänden, Band 2, Gedichte 1910 bis 1926, Insel Verlag, 1996; Rainer Maria Rilke: Duineser Elegien, Die Sonette an Orpheus, Nach den Erstdrucken von 1923 kritisch herausgegeben von Wolfram Groddeck, Philip Reclam jun. Stuttgart, 1997; Ùber "Die Sonette an Orpheus" von Rilke: Lektüren. Herausgegeben von Christoph König und Kai Bremer im Auftrag des Peter Szondi-Kollegs, 2016.

To arrive at my translation, the following translations were consulted: Les Élégies de Duino; Les Sonnets A Orphée translated by J.F. Angelloz, Editions Montaigne, 1943; Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus translated by Stephen Mitchell, Vintage Books, 1982; Sonnets to Orpheus translated by Edward Snow, North Point Press, 2004. Les Sonnets à Orpheus/The Sonnets to Orpheus translated by Claude Neuman, Ressouvenances, 2017.

Choosing from the following menu will take you to the Sonette and the Technical Terms and the TOP of this introduction. I have also added an alphabetical list of the Sonette to facilitate the search for a specific Sonett. To return to the introduction click "Introduction" in the "Table of Contents."