Rainer Maria Rilke was a Bohemian-Austrian poet whose intense, mystical style dealt man’s existence and ways to deal with solitude and anxiety. He stressed that with "free will" the individual had to assume the responsibility for their own acts, even if they lacked a clear knowledge of what was right and wrong.
Franz Xaver Kappus was 19-year-old in the Austrian army when he started corresponding with Rilke, who in return, over the next 6 years, sent him 10 letters. The two never met, but Kappus sought out advice on the poems he had written and in his interest in a literary career.
Author and critic Stephen Mitchell’s in 1989 translated some of Rilke’s selected works and said that “Rilke is unquestionably the most significant and compelling poet of the romantic transformation of spiritual quest that the twentieth century has known.”
Rilke’s letters offer some real insight into creative thinking and writing as well as a surprising level of cordiality. He said: "There is nothing less apt to touch a work of art than critical words: all we end up with there is more or less felicitous misunderstandings.” He added that "Nobody can advise you and help you. There is only one way. Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write . . . ask yourself in your night's quietest hour: must I write? Read the lines as if they were unknown to you, and you will feel in your inmost self how very much they are yours."
The letters also offer thoughts on just living with phrases like these: "To love is also good, for love is hard. Love between one person and another: that is perhaps the hardest thing it is laid on us to do, the utmost, the ultimate trial and test, the work for which all other work is just preparation."
The book “Letters to a Young Poet” is the collection of letters that Kappus compiled and published in 1929—three years after Rilke's death from leukemia. It offers a different way to look at poetry and writing and some philosophy on life.
