Letters to a Young Poet

“Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have us believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures.” 

In Kappus’s initial letter to Rilke, he sends samples of his poetry and asks Rilke to offer his feedback on them. Rilke declines, explaining that he does not believe poetry allows for neat discussion in critical discourse. For Rilke, any work of art, as well as the entirety of life, contains elements that are irreducible to language, and to attempt such reduction is to detract from artistic power. 

“This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer.” 

While Kappus is looking for an outside authority to judge his poetry, Rilke tells Kappus that such a search for others’ affirmation is ultimately futile. An individual should look inwards as the basis for their poetry, and only become a writer if they feel a deep, intense need to write. In Rilke’s view, poetry must ultimately come from within and be primarily to satisfy oneself. 

“Seek the depth of things: thither irony never descends—and when you come thus close to the edge of greatness, test out at the same time whether this ironic attitude springs from a necessity of your nature.” 

In his second letter, Rilke specifically addresses the literary device of irony, advising Kappus as to whether he should employ irony in his poetry. Irony, he writes, can be a useful poetic tool, but only when used sparingly and out of necessity. A poet should only use irony when it is an authentic part of their worldview, and with awareness of how they can use it as an “instrument” in service of their poetry’s themes (20). 

“Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist’s life […].”

No less than creating the actual work, artistry entails the patient cultivation of sensibility and vision. Rilke maintains that one cannot rush artistic development; powerful creativity requires the artist to fully experience everything that occurs to them. It is only through continued contemplation that one forges the necessary skills for poetry.

“[H]ere I feel that no human being anywhere can answer for you those questions and feelings that deep within them have a life of their own; for even the best err in words when they are meant to mean most delicate and almost inexpressible things.” 

Though the reader cannot read Kappus’s letters to Rilke, one can infer from Rilke’s responses that Kappus was asking for advice on deep issues—such as how he should live or what his career could be. Rilke declines a direct answer, instead telling Kappus that it is only through the process of living his life that he can discover answers to such questions. Here and elsewhere throughout his letters, Rilke expresses his conviction that one can only figure out the best way for themselves to live through deep introspection. 

“[F]or intellectual creation too springs from the physical, is of one nature with it and only like a gentler, more ecstatic and more everlasting repetition of physical delight.” 

In his fourth letter, Rilke discusses the role that sex should have in one’s life. Throughout his letters, Rilke expresses his belief that all elements of one’s life are equally integral to artistic development. Sex is no different, and Rilke sees the experience of physical intimacy as a vital source of inspiration. 

“The necessary thing is after all but this: solitude, great inner solitude. Going-into-oneself and for hours meeting no one—this one must be able to attain. To be solitary, the way one was solitary as a child […].” 

Rilke’s letters speak often of solitude, describing it as a necessary pain to endure. Though loneliness can bring deep suffering, such suffering can bring full self-discovery. These adult experiences of solitude are a path back to our childhood selves, when the world seemed unfamiliar and strange to us. 

“Why do you not think of [God] as the coming one, imminent from all eternity, the future one, the final fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? What keeps you from projecting his birth into times that are in process of becoming, and living your life like a painful and beautiful day in the history of a great gestation?” 

In response to Kappus’s religious doubts, Rilke advises he rethink what is meant by God. Here, Rilke suggests that God is a being who has yet to truly exist, and sees the entirety of human civilization as a long, slow arc toward divine perfection. 

“No realm of human experience is so well provided with conventions as [love]: life-preservers of most varied invention, boats and swimming-bladders are here; the social conception has managed to supply shelters of every sort, for, as it was disposed to take love-life as a pleasure, it had also to give it an easy form, cheap, safe and sure, as public pleasures are.” 

In response to Kappus’s anxieties over not having found love, Rilke tells him that most individuals throw themselves into relationships before they have the maturity to truly love another being. As a result, most people fall into what Rilke calls “convention”—the various formations of romantic relationships that society provides (such as marriage). Such individuals, he writes, cannot experience their own authentic and unique way of loving another, as they lack the necessary self-knowledge. 

“But if we nevertheless hold out and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in all the light and frivolous play, behind which people have hidden from the most earnest earnestness of their existence—then a little progress and an alleviation will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long after us: that would be much.” 

Rilke describes love as among the most important experiences in life, and a defining human characteristic. However, Rilke does not see love as pure pleasure, but rather as an arduous burden. We must fully embrace the difficulty of love, and only then will we find all the gifts that love can give us. 

“And this further: do not believe that that great love once enjoined upon you, the boy, was lost; can you say whether great and good desires did not ripen in you at the time, and resolutions by which you are still living today? I believe that that love remains so strong and powerful in your memory because it was your first deep being-alone and the first inward work you did on your life.” 

Rilke here offers consolation to Kappus, who presumably once loved an individual no longer in his life. Rilke writes that this love is still somewhere inside Kappus, helping him become the person he is today. Though this love was for another person, Rilke sees it as also being one of the first experiences through which Kappus was forced to look inward, consider his own desires, and be alone with himself. 

“For [sadnesses] are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.” 

Though Kappus struggles with intense sadness, Rilke tells him such sadness signals something new has entered into our lives and begun to transform us. Most individuals are scared by this new thing, and choose to avoid acknowledging it, consequently repressing their sadness. In contrast, the individual must face such sadness fully, embracing it and allowing themselves to be completely changed by it. 

“And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case.”

Throughout the correspondence, Kappus apparently asks numerous questions regarding life decisions. Rilke avoids any direct advice, and instead suggests here that the only path to knowledge is life’s progression. Rilke also hints at belief in destiny, as he says life is always right in the end—suggesting that one ends up where one is meant to be.