Letters to a Young Poet

Uncommon card · No. 197601

Letters to a Young Poet (original title, in German: Briefe an einen jungen Dichter) is a collection of ten letters written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) to Franz Xaver Kappus (1883–1966), a 19-year-old officer cadet at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, between 1903 and 1908. Rilke, the son of an Austrian army officer, had studied at the academy's lower school at Sankt Pölten in the 1890s. Kappus corresponded with the popular poet and author from 1902 to 1908 seeking his advice as to the quality of his poetry, and in deciding between a literary career or a career as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Kappus compiled and published the letters in 1929—three years after Rilke's death from leukemia. In the first letter, Rilke respectfully declines to review or criticize Kappus' poetry, advising the younger Kappus that "Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself." Rilke, over the course of the ten letters...

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