Scan barcode
A review by forgottensecret
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
3.0
'First of all you should know that every letter from you will always be a pleasure, and you only need to be understanding with regard to the replies, which often, maybe , will leave you with empty hands; for at bottom, and particularly in the deepest and most important things, we are unutterably alone, and for one person to be able to advise, let alone help, another, a great deal must come about, a great deal must come right, a whole constellation of things must concur for it to be possible at all.'
Raine Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist whose poetry is considered one of the 'most lyrically intense' in the German language. In 'Letters to a Young Poet', the ten letters referred to were sent to Franz Xaver Kappus, a military academy cadet from 1902-1908. They were published three years after the death of Rilke from leukemia in 1929. As for how this unlikely correspondence began, Kappus boldly wrote to the upcoming poet after finding out that he had previously studied at the academy's lower school, at Sankt Polten, before the turn of the 20th century. Although we see only the responses of Rilke, we can see that Kappus was interested in questions that included: the calibre of his poetry, about where to find inspiration for the art, what constitutes a work of art being good, and some philosophical questions.
Because I read most of my books nowadays on the Kindle, the number of highlights and annotations at the end are usually a good indication of the engagement of a text. This text had very few. There were some gems, and it may be because I was looking for a more focused text, much like Ted Hughes in 'Poetry in the Making', that I was left wanting. There were however some parts which I loved, and perhaps more than those was a deep respect obtained for Rilke for honouring this correspondence, and giving such care and attention to his replies to Kappus. Some of those gems I will include below:
To ask whether one should write or not:
'There is only one way. Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write; check whether it reaches its roots into the deepest region of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would die if it should be denied you to write. This above all: ask yourself in your night’s quietest hour: must I write? Dig down into yourself for a deep answer. And if it should be affirmative, if it is given to you to respond to this serious question with a loud and simple ‘I must’, then construct your life according to this necessity; your life right into its most inconsequential and slightest hour must become a sign and witness of this urge. Then approach nature.'
The only test for whether there should be a work of art is not the follow-up critique of it, but only its arising from necessity:
'Nor will you attempt to interest magazines in these bits of work: for in them you will see your beloved natural possessions, a piece, and a voice, of your life. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. The verdict on it lies in this nature of its origin: there is no other.'
Something that I had realised when writing is to set a timer for an hour, but then to loose oneself from the whole binding of hours and time. Rilke agrees:
'These things cannot be measured by time, a year has no meaning, and ten years are nothing. To be an artist means: not to calculate and count; to grow and ripen like a tree which does not hurry the flow of its sap and stands at ease in the spring gales without fearing that no summer may follow. It will come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are simply there in their vast, quiet tranquillity, as if eternity lay before them. It is a lesson I learn every day amid hardships I am thankful for: patience is all!'
Unanswered questions are to be embraced rather than scorned:
'You are so young, all still lies ahead of you, and I should like to ask you, as best I can, dear Sir, to be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign tongue. Do not now strive to uncover answers: they cannot be given you because you have not been able to live them. And what matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer, one distant day in the future.'
An interesting point on how we are fundamentally solitary. This is an important observation, because it rids one of the need to believe that when we are writing that the forthcoming isolation is somehow undesirable:
'And if we come back to solitude, it grows ever clearer that fundamentally it is not something that one can take or leave. We are solitary. It is possible to deceive yourself and act as if it were not the case. That is all. How much better though, to see and accept that that is what we are, and even to take it as our starting-point.'
Overall, this is probably a book that came at the wrong time. Other reviewers have been completely besotted by this text, so I'm sure that if I return to it, I might reevaluate.
Raine Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist whose poetry is considered one of the 'most lyrically intense' in the German language. In 'Letters to a Young Poet', the ten letters referred to were sent to Franz Xaver Kappus, a military academy cadet from 1902-1908. They were published three years after the death of Rilke from leukemia in 1929. As for how this unlikely correspondence began, Kappus boldly wrote to the upcoming poet after finding out that he had previously studied at the academy's lower school, at Sankt Polten, before the turn of the 20th century. Although we see only the responses of Rilke, we can see that Kappus was interested in questions that included: the calibre of his poetry, about where to find inspiration for the art, what constitutes a work of art being good, and some philosophical questions.
Because I read most of my books nowadays on the Kindle, the number of highlights and annotations at the end are usually a good indication of the engagement of a text. This text had very few. There were some gems, and it may be because I was looking for a more focused text, much like Ted Hughes in 'Poetry in the Making', that I was left wanting. There were however some parts which I loved, and perhaps more than those was a deep respect obtained for Rilke for honouring this correspondence, and giving such care and attention to his replies to Kappus. Some of those gems I will include below:
To ask whether one should write or not:
'There is only one way. Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write; check whether it reaches its roots into the deepest region of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would die if it should be denied you to write. This above all: ask yourself in your night’s quietest hour: must I write? Dig down into yourself for a deep answer. And if it should be affirmative, if it is given to you to respond to this serious question with a loud and simple ‘I must’, then construct your life according to this necessity; your life right into its most inconsequential and slightest hour must become a sign and witness of this urge. Then approach nature.'
The only test for whether there should be a work of art is not the follow-up critique of it, but only its arising from necessity:
'Nor will you attempt to interest magazines in these bits of work: for in them you will see your beloved natural possessions, a piece, and a voice, of your life. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. The verdict on it lies in this nature of its origin: there is no other.'
Something that I had realised when writing is to set a timer for an hour, but then to loose oneself from the whole binding of hours and time. Rilke agrees:
'These things cannot be measured by time, a year has no meaning, and ten years are nothing. To be an artist means: not to calculate and count; to grow and ripen like a tree which does not hurry the flow of its sap and stands at ease in the spring gales without fearing that no summer may follow. It will come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are simply there in their vast, quiet tranquillity, as if eternity lay before them. It is a lesson I learn every day amid hardships I am thankful for: patience is all!'
Unanswered questions are to be embraced rather than scorned:
'You are so young, all still lies ahead of you, and I should like to ask you, as best I can, dear Sir, to be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign tongue. Do not now strive to uncover answers: they cannot be given you because you have not been able to live them. And what matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer, one distant day in the future.'
An interesting point on how we are fundamentally solitary. This is an important observation, because it rids one of the need to believe that when we are writing that the forthcoming isolation is somehow undesirable:
'And if we come back to solitude, it grows ever clearer that fundamentally it is not something that one can take or leave. We are solitary. It is possible to deceive yourself and act as if it were not the case. That is all. How much better though, to see and accept that that is what we are, and even to take it as our starting-point.'
Overall, this is probably a book that came at the wrong time. Other reviewers have been completely besotted by this text, so I'm sure that if I return to it, I might reevaluate.