Nevertheless, even then, this self-searching that I as of you will not have been for nothing. …But after this descent into yourself and into your solitude, perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet (if, as I have said, one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn’t write at all). And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “ I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity…. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. Find out the reason that commands you to write see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. Is my stuff any good? Am I good enough to really make it as writer? There’s so much to take away from the ten letters, but here’s a short-list of questions a young writer might ask, with Rilke’s responses.

Each is a map of where he’s been and where he needs to go. They begin with a description of Rilke’s current setting (various cities across Europe) and continue into the subject of how to live and how to create.

Rilke saw himself in Kappus, and so they’re written from Rilke to Rilke-both to his past and his present. The letters aren’t really letters, they’re diaries. And so o began a ten-letter correspondence lasting from 1902–1908.

Rilke got lots of letters from aspiring artists, but Kappus’s touched him: Rilke had spent the worst five years of his young life forced by his parents into the same military school. Kappus sent Rilke some poems and asked him for advice about becoming a writer. Rilke was twenty-seven-still a young artist with his best work ahead of him-when he got a letter from a nineteen-year-old military school student named Franz Kappus. Because I’m totally unqualified and ill-equipped to deliver them such words, I’m reading The Master: Rainer Maria Rilke and his Letters To A Young Poet. I’ve received a few e-mails from young(er) writers in the past couple of months, many of them trying very hard to figure things out and looking for words of advice and encouragement.

Rainer rilke letters to a young poet