Immobilized fate: a French poem by Rilke and reflection as principleA French poem by Rilke, published in 1926 with the Vergers cycle of poems, is translated here in two similar but not identical versions. The poem and its double translation give rise to two questions: (1) why has the reception of Rilke’s French poems been more restricted or circumscribed than that of his German poems? (2) why two different translations of the same poem? Taken as a principle of reflection, the poem with its simultaneous double translation should open the way to understanding the two questions, their possible kinship and, more generally, the convergence between criticism and creation. The critical concept of reflection as a return to oneself and an opening to the other and the concept (metaphor) of a space of indeterminacy are the most visible landmarks of the path traced at each turn by reflection itself.
Keywords:
Rilke; French Poems; Translation; Reflection; Criticism