The Angels (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
- First Published: 1906
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Twentieth century, Music or musicians, God, Spiritual life or spirituality, Christianity, Romanticism, Angels
The Poem
“The Angels” is a three-stanza poem of thirteen lines. In the original German version, the rhyme scheme, abab, cdcd, efeef, nearly resembles that of an irregular sonnet. The English translation does not seek to reproduce that rhyme scheme (with the exception of the “seam” and “dream” rhyme at the end of lines 2 and 4), but it does accurately reproduce Rainer Maria Rilke’s use of alliteration in the second line of each stanza, a use of alliteration that underlines poetically strategic images of the nature and function of angels as Rilke conceives...
[The entire page is 1483 words long]
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