– Will Stone, Antwerp, May 2012
Biographical Notes
Maurice Betz (1898–1946), was principal translator of Rilke’s oeuvre into French, in the crucial two decades between the end of his life and the period in which he became a poet of international fame. Betz was fortunate in that he began translating The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge while Rilke was still living and was therefore able to meet his poet during the final period in Paris in 1925 and the two men duly became friends. This translation of Rilke’s most important prose work was instrumental in securing his reputation in France and due to its success, and the way it underpinned the enigma of Rilke’s relations with that country, Betz was able to go on and produce a number of other durable translations of Rilke’s poetry and letters.
In 1927, scarcely a year after Rilke’s death, Betz had published French translations of the early poetry of Histoires du Bon Dieu and the later, more exacting, Les Sonnets à Orphée. The first edition of fifteen sonnets also included the valuable prose piece written by Betz following Rilke’s death, Petite Stèle pour Rainer Maria Rilke (A little memorial stone for Rainer Maria Rilke), which to some degree serves as a prefiguration to Rilke à Paris.
Until his death in 1946, Betz’s dedication to Rilke never faltered, and he maintained his sense of responsibility to the poet and commitment to his legacy in France. In memory of her husband, Betz’s widow set up the literary award Le Prix Maurice-Betz. Although Maurice Betz is best known in France today as the translator of key texts by Rilke, he also provided French translations of a number of other major literary texts, namely Thomas Mann’s La Montagne Magique (1931) and Nietzsche’s Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra (1936).
Will Stone, born 1966, is a poet, essayist and literary translator. His first poetry collection Glaciation (Salt, 2007), won the international Glen Dimplex Award for poetry in 2008.
Shearsman Books has re-published his subsequent critically appraised collections. Will’s poetry translations include To the Silenced – Selected Poems of Georg Trakl (Arc, 2005) Emile Verhaeren Poems (Arc, 2013), Georges Rodenbach Poems (Arc, 2017) and Friedrich Hölderlin’s Life Poetry and Madness by Wilhelm Waiblinger (2018). Pushkin Press published his translations of Montaigne by Stefan Zweig in 2015, Messages from a Lost World – Europe on the Brink by Stefan Zweig in 2016 and The Art of the City – Rome, Florence, Venice by Georg Simmel in 2018. Encounters and Destinies – A Farewell to Europe by Stefan Zweig and Surrender to Night – Collected Poems of Georg Trakl will be published in 2019.
Will has contributed poems, translations, essays and reviews to a range of publications including The London Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, Apollo Magazine, the RA Magazine, The White Review, Poetry Review and Agenda.
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Copyright
Pushkin Press
71–75 Shelton Street
London WC2H 9JQ
English translation © Will Stone 2012
This translation was first published by Hesperus in 2012
First published by Pushkin Press in 2019
Every effort has been made to contact the owner of Maurice Betz’s copyright. If you are the copyright holder please contact Pushkin Press.
ISBN 13: 978–1–78227–491–9
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
Photographs © Will Stone 2012
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Rilke in Paris Page 10