Letters to a Young Poet
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4.1 • 50 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A perfect gift for a writer, artist, or thinker
These have been called the most famous and beloved letters of the 20th century. Rainer Maria Rilke himself said that much of his creative expression went into his correspondence, and here he touches upon subjects that will interest writers, artists, and thinkers. Letters to a Young Poet is a classic that should be read by everyone who dreams of expressing themselves creatively. This luminous translation offers inspiration to all people who seek to know and express their inner truth.
This edition features a new foreword by Kent Nerburn, author of Small Graces and Letters to My Son.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet (1929) is given an expanded treatment including, for the first time, the letters from Rilke's correspondent, with intermittently intriguing but underwhelming results. In 2019, Rilke scholar Erich Unglaub discovered the letters that Franz Xaver Kappus, then an Austrian military cadet and aspiring poet, sent to Rilke between 1902 and 1908. Some of them provide enriching context for Letters' famous passages. For example, following Rilke's third letter, on the value of solitude and the importance of attaining it, Kappus asks if "we are supposed to endure our solitude in love too" and "share with the other person only the one common element of each having this solitude." Too often, however, Kappus's replies are simply fawning, as when he praises Rilke's words as possessing the "simple grandeur of the Gospels and the richness of fairy-tale kings." Searls's translation lacks the poetic tone of earlier editions, and the book's structure is disappointing, placing all of Kappus's letters together after Rilke's, rather than arranging them chronologically. Rilke fanatics will find some value in seeing Kappus's side of the conversation, but the power of the book still lies in Rilke's letters.
