Letters to a Young Poet
by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Read in January, 2005
recommends it for:
Myers Brigg INF's
Favorite quotes from first reading:
"I know of no other advice than this: Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth."
"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and books written in foreign languages. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live with them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At pr...more
"I know of no other advice than this: Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth."
"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and books written in foreign languages. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live with them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At pr...more
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Read in February, 2008
rainer maria rilke is a name i've been admiring for years without ever attempting to even pronounce it. "rainer maria rilke", i don't know why but all these letters placed together look perfect to me. a small poem in itself. as when neil wrote "two sun nine".
briefly about the letters:
something i wish i had read when i was fifteen or so, not that his advices are not pertinent anymore, but that it would have been quite beneficial at the time to hear them, reassuring, moti...more
briefly about the letters:
something i wish i had read when i was fifteen or so, not that his advices are not pertinent anymore, but that it would have been quite beneficial at the time to hear them, reassuring, moti...more
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Read in February, 1991
recommends it for:
Souls
Stick with the M.D. Herder Norton translation:
Sex is difficult; yes. But they are difficult things with which we have been charged; almost everything serious is difficult, and everything is serious. If you only recognize this and manage, out of your self, out of your own nature and ways, out of your own experience and childhood and strength to achieve a relation to sex wholly your own (not influenced by convention and custom), then you need no longer be afraid of losing yourself and becom...more
Sex is difficult; yes. But they are difficult things with which we have been charged; almost everything serious is difficult, and everything is serious. If you only recognize this and manage, out of your self, out of your own nature and ways, out of your own experience and childhood and strength to achieve a relation to sex wholly your own (not influenced by convention and custom), then you need no longer be afraid of losing yourself and becom...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in January, 1994
recommends it for:
everyone who seeks self-understanding and self-awareness
I was first acquainted with this book through an excerpt I heard in the tape of Beauty and the Beast, Love and Hope. It goes: "How should we be able to forget those ancient myths, those myths about dragons that at thelast moment turn into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses,who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrble is, in its deepest being, something helpless that wants help from us. So you must not be frightened when ...more
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Read in July, 2004
I love this book.
"Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable. But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Thing...more
"Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable. But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Thing...more
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Read in January, 2003
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (Norton, 1962)
I should preface my judgment on this by saying that I've been misled for the past twenty years regarding this book, which I somehow never got around to reading until I was older than both of the principals therein (the young poet hasn't yet reached his twenties at the beginning of the correspondence; Rilke is twenty-eight). Norton's categorization of it as literature (instead of philosophy), and various rave reviews of it that concentra...more
I should preface my judgment on this by saying that I've been misled for the past twenty years regarding this book, which I somehow never got around to reading until I was older than both of the principals therein (the young poet hasn't yet reached his twenties at the beginning of the correspondence; Rilke is twenty-eight). Norton's categorization of it as literature (instead of philosophy), and various rave reviews of it that concentra...more
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Aku janji kirim buku ini ke kamu yah lim,
belum sempet tak kopiin, sori ye..
tak kutipin beberapa yang menarik:
"No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write, find out wether it spreading out its root in the deepest places of your heart...Delve into yourself for a deep answer."
Then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience, and love and lose...describe you...more
belum sempet tak kopiin, sori ye..
tak kutipin beberapa yang menarik:
"No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write, find out wether it spreading out its root in the deepest places of your heart...Delve into yourself for a deep answer."
Then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience, and love and lose...describe you...more
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Letters to A Young Poet is a correspondence between Rainer Maria Rilke (German lyrical poet) and Franz Xaver Kappus (A young struggling student). I was given this book by a good friend while I was teaching English in Belmead, TX (a small urban community north of Waco). This book came to me in a time when I was struggling with life and needed some encouragement to show me that what I was doing was needed and necessary. This book gave me that and more.
The dialogue between these two men is...more
The dialogue between these two men is...more
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Read in November, 2007
Rilke's letters to Kappus are addressed to a young man who obviously reminds Rilke of his younger life and self.
Within these letters are intimate statements on the artist's solitude, love, ambitions, and sorrow.
Rilke writes, "As to my own books, I wish I could send you any of them...but I am very poor, and my books, as soon as they are published, no longer belong to me. I can't even afford them myself".
If Rilke was left without the ability to share his work as he wished with...more
Within these letters are intimate statements on the artist's solitude, love, ambitions, and sorrow.
Rilke writes, "As to my own books, I wish I could send you any of them...but I am very poor, and my books, as soon as they are published, no longer belong to me. I can't even afford them myself".
If Rilke was left without the ability to share his work as he wished with...more
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Read in June, 2007
A different read than most that I've experienced, Letters to a Young Poet is a sensitive, courageous expression of some of Rilke's romantic thoughts on life. I definitely appreciated the stress he places on solitude as a means by which to discover oneself and engage in meaningful creation; the beauty and importance of his claim here, sadly enough, remind me of H. Marcuse's observation in One-Dimensional Man, which seems right, ...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone
Irony: Don't let yourself be controlled by it, especially during uncreative moments. When you are fully creative, try to use it, as one more way to take hold of life. Used purely, it too is pure, and one needn't be ashamed of it; but if you feel yourself becoming too familiar with it, if you are afraid of this growing familiarity, then turn to great and serious objects, in front of which it becomes small and helpless. Search into the depths of Things: there, irony never descends - and when you a...more
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Read in January, 1987
This book was loaned to me by a high school teacher who had read some of my poetry and it made such a huge impression on me when I first read it. It's almost as if Rilke was speaking directly to me, albeit in a whispered voice, confirming some other voices I'd already heard inside myself. I can't think of any other single book that might have such an indelible impression on a younger poet who is involved in a process of self-questioning. The preciousity of it is its only drawback, because I don'...more
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Read in January, 1999
recommends it for:
anyone willing to suspend their cynicism for a moment
I found this book in a dusty used book store in Billings, Montana while shopping with my father. I can't remember anymore if he told me about it once I picked it up, but in retrospect it was one of those magical book experiences. I remember scanning the back of my tattered edition and thinking it looked interesting, without any idea who Rilke was, and somehow having never heard the book referenced before. I read it, and was totally enchanted. I only discovered later that most of the world ha...more
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recommends it for:
Anyone, especially saps like me
I can't express how much this book speaks to me--I've read and reread it at various points since receiving it as a gift during college. It will speak to you no matter what your situation, but I've felt overwhelmed by the passages dealing with loneliness, insecurity, grief, aspiration, etc. It's a bunch of letters written from one artist to another, but the ideas they touch on apply to everyone.
I think my favorite passage is the following:
"And if there is one more thing that I must...more
I think my favorite passage is the following:
"And if there is one more thing that I must...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
the artist in everyone
Art through necessity. In Rilke's correspondences with his intent student, he describes art's goodness as synonymous not with the product, but with the origin. The impulse to make art, without which one is not the same, is the telltale sign of a true artist. He or she must live his craft. For anyone who has ever dabbled in the arts, they know art is one part desire and another part skill. I hope that anyone who picks up this insightful little volume will walk away feeling a little more empo...more
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Read in March, 2008
What I liked the most about this book is that in nearly every letter to the young poet, Rilke promotes the poet to search himself and thrive in his own solitude. Rilke's letters of honesty to the young poet resound with me because he advises the poet but does not demand that his young protege do anything other than embrace all that solitude brings to him, to understand the difficulty of solitude, and to realize that the difficult is more fulfilling than any other endevour the young poet could ...more
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Read in January, 1991
This is a book I read over and over again during a particularly difficult time in my life.
(I had had a freak accident where both my legs were broken, and that in turn seem to be the catalyst for the disintegration of the life and sense of self I had constructed up to that point in life. Because of this accident I found myself in a situation feeling like I had to construct a new life and conception of myself.)
During that time (and it probably lasted for two years at its most intense) I ...more
(I had had a freak accident where both my legs were broken, and that in turn seem to be the catalyst for the disintegration of the life and sense of self I had constructed up to that point in life. Because of this accident I found myself in a situation feeling like I had to construct a new life and conception of myself.)
During that time (and it probably lasted for two years at its most intense) I ...more
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Read in December, 2007
well, i have had two copies of this sitting on our bookshelf. my lovely partner gave me a new one a couple years ago as a present. i finally decided to read it AFTER reading the anna deveare smith book (see review for that under my other books). i love rilke's passion and his faith in humanity, his reverence for the power woman have, and, of course, i love his solitude. his words are hopeful, but i had to remind myself that we are in a different time, that the romantic notion of the lone wolf ar...more
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theater-poetry
Poetry is a lost art in most circles. We don't appreciate that an entire story can be capsulized in a form different than the norm. No one has spanned many languages better than Rilke. His writing, deep with sensuous emotion and deeply held convictions is difficult for a prose reader to catch at first. He is the german equivalent of Dylan Thomas (my other favorite poet). He sees life and then quantifies it in as few words as possible. Of course, he doesn't overdo it like William Carlos Williams,...more
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Read in August, 2007
I read this recently because I've been in a bit of a creative slump, and I hoped it would help pick me out of it and find some direction. Also, I'd heard good things.
The first two or three letters (of ten) were absolutely wonderful. Words of wisdom spilled forth from most ornate of vessel-sentences, and I felt inspired to go try something again. However, I began to get bogged down in his theories of God as the future and about solitude. I'm sure the solitude parts would have appealed to me d...more
The first two or three letters (of ten) were absolutely wonderful. Words of wisdom spilled forth from most ornate of vessel-sentences, and I felt inspired to go try something again. However, I began to get bogged down in his theories of God as the future and about solitude. I'm sure the solitude parts would have appealed to me d...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 4.36 (2046 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 4.36 (1537 ratings) number of reviews: 246popular shelves
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quote
"...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
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