| Author Quoted | Rainer Maria Rilke |
| Title Quoted | Sonnets to Orpheus / translated by J.B.L. Leishman |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1966/01/16 |
| Imprint | |
| Quotation | Finished Nishida's Intelligible World. As to the Sonnets to Orpheus - German text that came yesterday from the U.K. I think the best way to read it is this: each day take one sonnet in the German, without English, and try to translate it straight on through as on an examination, not fearing to write nonsense, however. In this way, to stop holding back from the German, simply plunging into it. I really know more German than I think, maybe, and am enough attuned to Rilke to be right in first guesses now. My own guesses will be better for me than the translation (J.B.L. [Leishman]) which sometimes distorts in order to rhyme. Then I can find out my mistakes from the translation. |
| Quotation Source | Learning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 7-8 |
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| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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