Through the selection of a several translations (in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Modern Greek and Russian) of the incipit of the First Duino Elegy (1912) by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), this book aims at proposing another way of reading the famous German poet. It also questions the choices made by various European translators (poets, scholars, professional translators or devoted "amateurs") between 1930 and 2000, while reflecting, in the process of translation, the specific Weltanschauung of these different languages and cultures.
