Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke was an Austrian poet who achieved international fame in his lifetime. Born in 1875, Rilke first attended a military academy as a teenager, before leaving the school on account of illness. He then began studies of literature and philosophy, before pursuing a career as a poet. By the age of 27, when Rilke began his correspondence with Franz Xaver Kappus, he had already achieved critical acclaim for his poetry. When Rilke wrote his first letter to Kappus in February 1903, he was living in Paris, where he had moved to conduct a study of the sculptor Auguste Rodin. During the years that he was writing with Kappus, Rilke moved several times, and lived in such locations as Rome and Sweden—an itinerancy that would characterize the whole of his life.

In his letters to Kappus, Rilke takes on the figure of the established, experienced poet, offering advice to the younger and uncertain Kappus. Though Rilke’s letters are directed towards Kappus, they evince much of Rilke’s general views on poetry and life in general. In the first few letters, Rilke’s commentary mainly focuses on questions of poetry and aesthetics. He expresses the view that works of art, and life experiences in general, cannot be easily translated into words. As such, Rilke feels he cannot offer Kappus any direct judgment as to the worth of Kappus’s poetry. Instead, Rilke provides Kappus with generalized directions on how one can develop a unique poetic voice, telling Kappus to look inward and base his poetry in the particularities of his own experience: “[S]eek those [themes] which your own everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, passing thoughts and the belief in some sort of beauty […]” (16). Poetry can thus achieve a universal resonance only when the poet has fully cultivated his individual style and vision.

As the letters continue, Rilke and Kappus’s relationship grows more intimate, discussing love, solitude, and religion. At the core of Rilke’s outlook on all of these is the theme of personal growth, echoing his earlier sentiments about developing a poetic voice; one cannot discover how to live one’s life from any outside source. Instead, one must “find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe […] [and] let life happen to you” (55). It is only through this slow, patient embrace of life—in all its difficulties and joys—that one is fully formed.