Abstract

Stefan George

The article focuses on the book "Poems," by Stefan George and translated by Carol North Valhope and Ernst Morwitz. In his verse George consummates the ideal of the short poem. The climactic moment is no longer exquisite but magic, and the poem, tightened and made terse by George's masterly renovation of archaic words and syntax, becomes that goal of modern poetry, the spell or charm, something small but of illimitable power. The poetry means nothing except itself, yet works on the nerves and senses as if it were concrete experience entirely, not merely something whose meaning one gleans through words. George's practice of poetry abstracted from it everything except its definition or the definition of its prime virtue or greatness. The translations in the present book, which includes the originals too, are extremely bad. Whether they are faithful or not is unimportant in the light of their badness.