Twenty-Five German Poets: A Bilingual Collection Book

This wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind when I asked my wife for a bilingual anthology of German poetry for Christmas. I had imagined something more modern and dashing, dotted with obscure works of genius. Kaufmann turns out to be an idiosyncratic editor-translator, sometimes swashbuckling and never neutral in his short introductions to each poet. His selection runs from 17th-century Silesius through to about the mid-20th, stopping short of Celan. The translation, which might be expected to be workaday in a parallel text edition, is actually quite characterful and often inspired, not shying away from englishing the rhyme and metre while remaining quite faithful to the feel of the original.[return][return]The diversity of Goethe's work was the first revelation for me, and I loved his rowdy Venetian Epigrams. There is a lot by Schiller and only three by Hölderlin, which I found odd. I liked the Heine very much. The selection of Rilke is broad and deep. I was very impressed b

y the expressionists Trakl and Benn, both of whom I will read more of. I was surprised at the omission of Georg Heym, who I was reading separately at the same time.[return][return]The editor is an immense fan of Nietzsche, referencing him in his introductions whenever appropriate and often when not, and including a baker's dozen of FN's frankly second-rate poems, as well as verses dedicated to him by George and Morgenstern. Other than the Nietzsche fetish, this is a really good introduction to German poetry and overview of its development.