An English Translation of J.R. Von Salis' Standard Work on Rilke Switzerland

Authors

L. B.

Keywords

translations, publications, Rilke

Abstract

Among the many publications on the poet Rainer Maria Rilke the book by the Swiss Professor of History Dr. Jean Rodolphe von Salis, until recently President of the Foundation Pro Helvetia, excels by its tactful and sober approach to a delicate subject which all too often has been misused by panegyrists full of loud enthusiasm, but rather bare of substance. When Rilke arrived in Switzerland in 1919, von Salis was nearly eighteen years old and twenty five when Rilke died at Territet in 1926. Von Salis knew Rilke as a guest in his family, but more and more also in his own personal way. His conversations with Rilke at Muzot castle near Sierre in the Vala is, where the poet had found a place in which he felt at home, are rendered by von Salis with so much modesty that the sensitive young man taking part in them is hardly visible . Von Salis' feeling that he is confronted with a. genius is so striking that he puts his own personality entirely in the background. He is so deeply impressed by Rilke that he is influenced by him throughout his life and is able to write, many years later', a book on him which will last because there is no line in it which is not written with his very heart. Behind the subdued tenor of von Salis' narration is a burning compassion which i s all the more Pervading because it is transmitted to the reader in such a disciplined, outwardly calm manner .

Recommended Citation

B., L. (1965) "An English Translation of J.R. Von Salis' Standard Work on Rilke Switzerland," Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 1: Iss. 2, Article 11.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol1/iss2/11