I conclude my elegiac readings with Die Vierte Elegie, from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies, translated by Stephen Mitchell.

I quote the footnote by Stephen Mitchell, which quotes Rilke (“Notebook entry, early November 1910; quoted in F.W. Wodtke, ‘Rilke und Klopstock,’ Kiel diss., 1948, p. 28).

I pick up again with The Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell.

The First Elegy, translated by Stephen Mitchell.

I wrote about the publishing history of this lyric poetry sequence in the first part of this material, in a post entitled You Butter Your Own Bread You…