Letters to a Young Poet [Paperback]

Rainer Maria Rilke (Author), M.D. Herter Norton (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1993

Drawn by some sympathetic note in one of his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes.

From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young would-be poet, on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world.

Accompanying the letters is a chronicle of Rilke's life showing what he was experiencing in his own relationship to life and work when he wrote these letters.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It would take a deeply cynical heart not to fall in love with Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. At the end of this millennium, his slender book holds everything a student of the century could want: the unedited thoughts of (arguably) the most important European poet of the modern age. Rilke wrote these 10 sweepingly emotional letters in 1903, addressing a former student of one of his own teachers. The recipient was wise enough to omit his own inquiries from the finished product, which means that we get a marvelously undiluted dose of Rilkean aesthetics and exhortation.

The poet prefaced each letter with an evocative notation of the city in which he wrote, including Paris, Rome, and the outskirts of Pisa. Yet he spends most of the time encouraging the student in his own work, delivering a sublime, one-on-one equivalent of the modern writing workshop:

Go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside.

Every page is stamped with Rilke's characteristic grace, and the book is free of the breathless effect that occasionally mars his poetry. His ideas on gender and the role of the artist are also surprisingly prescient. And even his retrograde comment on the "beauty of the virgin" (which the poet derives from the fact that she "has not yet achieved anything") is counterbalanced by his perception that "the sexes are more related than we think." Those looking for an alluring image of the solitary artist--and for an astonishing quotient of wisdom--will find both in Letters to a Young Poet. --Jennifer Buckendorff

Review

"...I cannot think of a better book to put into the hands of any young would-be poet, as an inspirational guide to poetry and to surviving as a poet in a hostile world." Harry Fainlight, The Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 123 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Revised edition (August 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393310396
• ISBN-13: 978-0393310399
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,410 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > European
  • #7 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Letters & Correspondence

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most important books I've ever read, July 12, 2004

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Letters to a Young Poet (Paperback)

I have read, re-read and generally mutilated my copy of Rainier Maria Rilke's "Letters To A Young Poet". Rarely does a day go by without me thinking of Rilke's Nietzschean, no-holds-barred philosophy of the real poet. For him, a poet is no simply one who writes verses or rhymes words: it is a different kind of human being who embraces not only beauty and happinesss but suffering and misfortune. His thoughts on solitude are absolutely indispensable. Any artist or aspiring artist who has ever been in a fruitless relationship ("loss of the self" is a theme he explores almost obsessively) will realize that Rilke is writing through experience on the necessity of a good amount of solitude, both spiritual and physical, to create art. He is achingly honest to the poet with whom he is conversing, and passionately sincere. He knows that not every poet is a poet, and that some will find the Promethean task far too exhausting to actually go through with it: the real artist is the one who has no choice in the matter. His inner demons or angels will not ALLOW him to stop writing. Bukowski's thoughts on the matter are similar, as are most major writers and artist. This is a demanding, unforgiving collection of letters. Rilke has no patience for weakness or dilly dallying. But it is more inspiring than any self-help book on the shelf. This should be nationally distributed, not only for artists but for human beings as a whole.

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Devotional, February 12, 2001

By 

E. M. Dale (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Letters to a Young Poet (Paperback)

A fine transition from German to English (A-, A+ being Mitchell's translation of the poems), nevertheless no one should be afraid of buying this particular translation. It is sensitive to what Rilke wanted to say and says it in about as good English as you could get from such magnificent language.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love as a burden and an apprenticeship..., February 11, 2006

By 

kjgrow (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Letters to a Young Poet (Paperback)

Rilke's words are so counterintuitive in this day and age. When he speaks of love it is not with urgency and grand passion - rather, it is with a sense of duty and open acceptance of hardship. When he speaks of solitude, he acknowledges its difficulty but stresses its absolute necessity. When he speaks of self-realization, he refers not to arrival at answers but love of the questions themselves. And when he speaks of writing, he approaches it with reverence and a sense of enormity, saying that it is a vocation which must be patiently and cautiously cultivated.

All of these things he discusses with incredible wisdom and lucidity. For anyone feeling the multiplicity of strains the outside world can impose, Rilke centers, assures, and illuminates.