Reviews

Perhaps the most beautiful group of poetic translations [the twentieth] century has produced.
— The Chicago Tribune

Rilke almost always converts the energies of thought into telling images. In accomplishing this most impressive “imaging” in English, Stephen Mitchell proves his mastery of the art of translation.... This is, without any doubt, the best English rendering of Rilke. It is as faithful to the original as the translation of poetry can hope to be, faithful not only to its linguistic meaning but to its poetic expressiveness.
— Erich Heller, Poetry

Stephen Mitchell’s translations bring the qualities that I most cherish in the originals into English with new intimacy and authority. Rilke’s voice, with its extraordinary combination of formality, power, speed and lightness, can be heard in Mr. Mitchell’s versions more clearly than in any others. His work is masterly.
— W. S. Merwin

Mitchell’s translation of the Duino Elegies — Rilke’s masterpiece — is the best that has been made.... Intensely readable, yet he has not simplified the ideas.
— Stephen Spender, The New York Review of Books

Stephen Mitchell treats English with courtesy, is forceful without forcing any issue and gains his ends by propriety of persuasion.... It is easy to feel that if Rilke had written in English, he would have written in this English.
– Denis Donoghue, The New York Times Book Review