The Czech translations of Rilke's "Sonette an Orpheus"

Since the personalities of the translators and their methods are so different, it is difficult to compare the six translations of poems by Rilke. Nevertheless common characteristics can be found. First of all, everyone keeps the original form of the sonnet. This statement seems less trivial when we think of the French translation praxis, where transformation of poetry to prose is a standard. We might also think of Jakub Deml, who (due to lack of time) poeticized a small choice from the Book of Images in prose. The fact that Czech translators usually stick to the original poetic form attests both the high level of the tradition of translation in this country and the creative ambition of Czech mediators. On the other hand we can observe a certain indifference towards the Rilke-scholarship among the six translators. It could be proved that Renč knew the monograph on Rilke by Holthusen, it however didn't have any impact on his translation. This kind of deficiency is even more obvious in Pokorný, who suggest the interpretative approach, yet doesn't know the myth of Orpheus in detail. Vítek is aware of the "intellectual anatomy" of the collection of poems, but he doesn't make any use of this knowledge. Another token of the ignorance of the original texts that the translators have in common is the transformation..