Book 1, Rainer Marie Rilke : Chapter 1, Hours & Pictures Summary

This book is a selection of the author's poems. These have been arranged under the titles within which they were originally published. One main feature of the edition used to create the summary is the reality of translation. The poems have been provided in both their original German and also, on a facing page, in their English translation. The change makes a dramatic difference. The verse form in the original language is often exemplary; whereas, the English versions typically lack the rhyming quality of the original.

The introduction is very helpful to those who are not already familiar with the Bohemian Rilke. His part of Bohemia was a German-speaking Czech area. This is land that later became Czechoslovakia. More recently still, Czechoslovakia has been dismantled into the Czech and Slovak Republics...