Letters to a Young Poet

Letters to a Young Poet collects 10 different letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke over the course of four years, from 1903 to 1908. Though addressed and directly responding to the younger aspiring poet Franz Xaver Kappus, the letters express Rilke’s sentiments on a wide range of subjects, from poetry to love and religion. Thus, while on the surface offering advice to Kappus, the letters offer invaluable insight into Rilke’s general worldview as a poet.

 Kappus’s initial letter sought advice from Rilke on how to be a poet, and also asked Rilke for his opinion on Kappus’s poetry. As a result, the first few letters are largely confined to discussing ideas on aesthetics and poetry. Though Rilke offers Kappus a few remarks on his poetry, mostly informing him that he still must develop his “individual style,” Rilke largely eschews making any direct declarations of the worth of the poetry (15). In these initial letters, His contention is that works of art are beyond mere judgments of good or bad, and he advises Kappus to avoid reading any academic journals or literary reviews if he wants to develop as a poet: “[R]ead as little as possible of aesthetic criticism—such things are either partisan views, petrified and grown senseless in their lifeless induration, or they are clever quibblings in which today one view wins and tomorrow the opposite” (23).