… I thought I’d try translating Rainer Maria Rilke‘s great poem, “Archaïscher Torso Apollos.” Hey—even our pizza delivery guy has tried his hand at this one! For background, I think the single most interesting, if sometimes oddball, commentaries on translating this poem is this one by Art Beck. He looks are a number of translators’ efforts, including those by J. B. Leishman, M. D. Herter Norton, C. F. MacIntyre, Stephen Mitchell, David Young, Edward Snow, and William Gass—the last for whom Beck reserves his harshest critique.Read More