Duino Elegies

Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by JB Leishman and Stephen Spender, 102 pages

Undoubtedly Rilke's masterpiece, the ten poems which constitute the Duino Elegies form the field on which the poet, like Jacob, wrestles with the Angel.  Rilke's struggle, conducted in words, is existential - he seeks to uphold the worth of human things in the light of eternity, in spite of the pain and grief with which they are entangled.  In his elegies Rilke celebrates love and youth and expresses sorrow at their loss, but on a higher level he grapples with the meaning of, and ultimately affirms the value of, the reality of death and suffering.  In the process he manages to magnificently fulfill the vocation of the poet, translating the visible into the invisible, the temporal into the imperishable.