‘Letters to a Young Poet’: Advice on Living an Authentic, Examined Life
A review of ‘Letters to a Young Poet’, by Rainer Maria Rilke; Penguin Classics, 2011.
‘This most of all: ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write?’
This thought, found in Rainer Maria Rilke’s letters to Franz Xaver Kappus, can be found also in the work of Christopher Hitchens, Virginia Woolf, Anton Chekhov, George Orwell, Henry Miller, Stephen King and others. One must ask oneself if one must write, goes the claim, and one must reply truthfully. To write seriously is to suffer. Though the rewards, as Auden shows us, can be great:
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives,
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honors at their feet.Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
One who wishes to give his life to writing (or to art of any kind) must need to, for if one does not need to then one will find it hard to bear the failures, which are certain, and the attacks, which are also certain. And for those who choose such a path — or perhaps, rather, for those whom the path chooses, one would do well to avoid the writing advice given by dabblers and amateurs which is often found, sadly, on Medium. Instead, one might heed the counsel given by Rilke to Kappus in Letters to a Young Poet.
One who wishes to give his life to writing (or to art of any kind) must need to.
There are ten letters in this collection. Rilke wrote them between 1903 and 1908. They deal with what it means to live for one’s art, for oneself, and for meaning. Rilke concerns himself with the need for solitude, inner growth, and the nature of creative work. His advice applies not just for writers, but for anyone who yearns to live a thoughtful, authentic life.
Still, such advice, indeed all advice, must be treated with scepticism. For the answers we seek can only be found within. ‘Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody,’ writes Rilke. ‘There is only one single way. Go into yourself.’ He tells Kappus to forgo likening himself to others, and instead trust his own inner voice. For Rilke, the inward turn is the key to art and life. Outside of ourselves are pressures and distractions. Within is the seed of our most radical selfhood.
Such advice, indeed all advice, must be treated with scepticism.
Hence why solitude counts: only in silence can direct reflection takes place. ‘Love your solitude and bear the pain it causes you with melody wrought with lament,’ Rilke says. He does not call for passivity. Rather, he calls us to create the conditions conducive to growth. In silence and stillness, that is, in contemplation, we face our fears, needs, wants. We emerge more selfless, yet more grounded in selfhood. This is what it means to have a ‘healthy ego’. And it demands patience, patience with uncertainty and, its other side, trust in the unfolding of time: ‘Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.’ We can answer small questions by conscious effort; but we cannot force the big ones. Their answers come as a by-product of living.
But what does it mean to live? Is creative work, say, just another chosen way of living? For Rilke, no: creativity is something else, a calling, a need — for the creator and for her world. It is neither job nor hobby but sacred and even basic to the creator’s existence. If it is not essential, then it must be given up. And it will be given up, for its demands, like those of love, are too great for one who treats it carelessly. Authentic love, Rilke writes, tests yet rewards the lover. It enriches, but only if each party protects his independence. ‘It is a high inducement for the individual to ripen,’ Rilke writes, ‘a great claim upon us, something that chooses us out and calls us to vast things.’
Rilke’s letters are brief. But they are full of thought and feeling. He urges us to seek to know ourselves and find meaning within, and to treat ourselves, love and art with respect, patience and care. Letters to a Young Poet is a deeply spiritual book, written by one who longed for God but for whom God was dead, about the lifelong process of becoming — as an artist, yes; but also as a person. His counsel transcends time, transcends place. It is wise. Anyone who seeks to live an authentic, examined life should heed it.
