Barbara F. Hyams: Reading Rilke with Denise Levertov

Winter Quarter 1982, Stanford University: Denise Levertov (1923-1997), a world-famous visiting professor of English, and Barbara Hyams (1951-), a newly minted Ph.D. in German Studies, meet for coffee. They bond over reading Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1875-1926) poetry in the original German and become close friends for the remainder of Levertov’s life. To Levertov Rilke is a literary mentor and a spiritual inspiration; to Hyams he is one of many German-speaking modernists grappling with Nietzsche’s proclamation that “God is dead.”

Hyams’ essay, “Reading Rilke with Denise Levertov,” part personal reminiscence and part comparative literary history of Rilke reception in Germany and the U.S., was published 2014 in the New England Review (Vol. 34, No. 3-4).