Sign in with Facebook
Fionnuala's Reviews > Letters to a Young Poet
Letters to a Young Poet
by
Dear Mr Rilke,
How can I thank you enough for these marvelously heartfelt letters, full of inspiration, beauty and wisdom. They are a glorious gift, a gospel of wonderful words which I will follow all the days of my life.
Dear Reader,
If there is one thing I would say to you, it is to caution you against immoderation, against lavish and excessive language. When you write, try to say what you really feel and using the simplest language you know. Listen to the silence deep in your heart and begin there. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.
Dear Mr Rilke,
I am trying to keep your advice in mind but my heart is a busy, noisy, chattering place and it tells me to use five words instead of one, and long sentences rather than short ones.
Dear Reader,
Don't let yourself be controlled by irony, especially during uncreative moments. When you are fully creative, try to use it, as one more way to take hold of life. Search into the depths of things. Imagine yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds; for the writer or poet, solitude and silence are essential. And books. Read, read, read and then you will be able to write.
Dear Mr Rilke,
I do read, a wide selection of authors and titles, but sometimes I doubt my own judgement of what I read, especially when it differs from others or from the literary critics.
Dear Reader,
Read as little as possible of literary criticism; such things are either artisan opinions or else clever word-games. Works of art are of an infinite solitude; and no means of approach is so useless as criticism.
Dear Mr Rilke,
My dilemma when I read is an inability to abandon the work to its own solitude at the end, I always want to enter into dialogue with the writer.
Dear Reader,
Dialogue is good. Anything which gives rise to creativity is useful, words on a page or the blank page itself.
Dear Mr Rilke,
Speaking of blank pages, I felt an absence in your book. I wondered about the letters from Mr Kappus to which yours were a response?
Dear Reader,
It is the reader’s response which is important, not that of Mr Kappus, and since it was he who edited this book, we must presume he preferred to remain silent.
Dear Mr Rilke,
Had I the editing of this book, each letter would have been accompanied by a blank page, and exactly for that reason, for the reader’s response. That is how I would like all books to be, printed on one side of the page only so that the reader can fill in the other and have a real dialogue with the writer.
Dear Reader,
This is the best idea you have given me so far, and as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, always.
by
Fionnuala's review
bookshelves: translated-from-german, review-may-contain-comic-content, non-fiction
May 01, 2013
bookshelves: translated-from-german, review-may-contain-comic-content, non-fiction
Dear Mr Rilke,
How can I thank you enough for these marvelously heartfelt letters, full of inspiration, beauty and wisdom. They are a glorious gift, a gospel of wonderful words which I will follow all the days of my life.
Dear Reader,
If there is one thing I would say to you, it is to caution you against immoderation, against lavish and excessive language. When you write, try to say what you really feel and using the simplest language you know. Listen to the silence deep in your heart and begin there. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.
Dear Mr Rilke,
I am trying to keep your advice in mind but my heart is a busy, noisy, chattering place and it tells me to use five words instead of one, and long sentences rather than short ones.
Dear Reader,
Don't let yourself be controlled by irony, especially during uncreative moments. When you are fully creative, try to use it, as one more way to take hold of life. Search into the depths of things. Imagine yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds; for the writer or poet, solitude and silence are essential. And books. Read, read, read and then you will be able to write.
Dear Mr Rilke,
I do read, a wide selection of authors and titles, but sometimes I doubt my own judgement of what I read, especially when it differs from others or from the literary critics.
Dear Reader,
Read as little as possible of literary criticism; such things are either artisan opinions or else clever word-games. Works of art are of an infinite solitude; and no means of approach is so useless as criticism.
Dear Mr Rilke,
My dilemma when I read is an inability to abandon the work to its own solitude at the end, I always want to enter into dialogue with the writer.
Dear Reader,
Dialogue is good. Anything which gives rise to creativity is useful, words on a page or the blank page itself.
Dear Mr Rilke,
Speaking of blank pages, I felt an absence in your book. I wondered about the letters from Mr Kappus to which yours were a response?
Dear Reader,
It is the reader’s response which is important, not that of Mr Kappus, and since it was he who edited this book, we must presume he preferred to remain silent.
Dear Mr Rilke,
Had I the editing of this book, each letter would have been accompanied by a blank page, and exactly for that reason, for the reader’s response. That is how I would like all books to be, printed on one side of the page only so that the reader can fill in the other and have a real dialogue with the writer.
Dear Reader,
This is the best idea you have given me so far, and as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, always.
Sign into Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to see if any of your friends have read
Letters to a Young Poet.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
May 1, 2013
–
Started Reading
May 1, 2013
– Shelved
May 1, 2013
–
28.75%
"Rilke says to read, "the Danish poet, Jens Peter Jacobson...his novel Niels Lyhne...will open to you, a book of splendor and depths; the more often one reads it, the more everything seems to be contained within it, from life's most imperceptible fragments to the full, enormous taste of its heaviest fruits."
Now I want to read this one too...where will it end, this series of books which lead me to other books?"
page
23
Now I want to read this one too...where will it end, this series of books which lead me to other books?"
May 1, 2013
–
32.5%
""In this there is no measuring of time, a year doesn't matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree which doesn't force it's sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent.""
page
26
May 1, 2013
–
36.25%
""Finally, as to my own books, I wish I could send you any of them that might give you pleasure. 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 and, as I would so often like to, give them to those who would be kind to them.""
page
29
May 1, 2013
–
47.5%
""Rome makes one feel stifled with sadness for the first few days: through the gloomy and lifeless museum atmosphere that it exhales, through the abundance of its pasts (pasts on which a tiny present subsists), through the terrible overvaluing, sustained by scholars and philologist and imitated by the tourist, of all those disfigured and decaying Things, which are nothing more than accidental remains from another time"
page
38
May 1, 2013
–
67.5%
""Someday, and even now, especially in the countries of Northern Europe, trustworthy sights are already speaking out and shining, someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being." Rilke wrote this nearly 110 years ago."
page
54
May 1, 2013
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-50 of 61 (61 new)
Oh how charmingly modest of Herr Kappus.And a charmingly engaging review too. I lurve your idea with the blank pages. At least for some books.
Thanks for the feedback, Karen.
This is a lovely review. It creates a sense of peace. Stillness. How pleasant.
Kalliope wrote: "This is a lovely review. It creates a sense of peace. Stillness. How pleasant."
Glad you picked up on the stillness, Kalliope in spite of the distractions.
He really does emphasize the importance of stillness, that all a writer needs is a table, some books and writing materials, all in a quiet room, preferably deep in some park, away from everyone else...
You've made justice to that blank page you were asking for. Thanks for making me remember this little gem of a book (I need to re-read it, it's been years...)“A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.�
Your review is a work of art then, even more if Mr. Rilke says it! :))
Thanks, Dolors. You are right, this little book is a gem and I feel richer for owning it.
Fi, you may be interested in this BBC Radio 4 programme which I half caught this morning: Jo Shapcott also wants to talk back to Rilke:
Read as little as possible of literary criticism
It's always curious to me that well-educated writers who go on to achieve success seem to forget that they once went to school!
It's always curious to me that well-educated writers who go on to achieve success seem to forget that they once went to school!
Karen wrote: "Fi, you may be interested in this BBC Radio 4 programme which I half caught this morning: Jo Shapcott also wants to talk back to Rilke:"
That is a coincidence! But Shapcott has a slightly different motivation to me in that she contests Rilke's version of women, mainly as he paints them in some of his poetry, which I haven't read. But it is interesting that he provokes her to a dialogue, as he has me. As I made him say above, and I hope he would support, dialogue is good.
TD wrote: "Read as little as possible of literary criticism"It's always curious to me that well-educated writers who go on to achieve success seem to forget that they once went to school!"
But I think he has a point, TD. He's really saying, read the books themselves and not someone else's interpretation. In the first letter, there was a great quote:
Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existances, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.
In the case of numerous artists and writers, if the critics of their day could have passed some sort of death sentence on them, their work would never have survived to be appreciated by future generations.
Fionnuala wrote: "TD wrote: "Read as little as possible of literary criticism"
It's always curious to me that well-educated writers who go on to achieve success seem to forget that they once went to school!"
But I ..."
I take his (and your) point, as I think most readers would - of course it's important to read and react before diving into criticism, and nor should criticism form some sort of criteria for writing. But there is good and bad criticism just as there are good and bad books, and to me it feels too easy to dismiss critical writing as irrelevant and pointless � or even pernicious. Like any practice, reading (or writing for that matter) is a skill, and to be a skilled reader requires training, and I don’t think simply accruing picaresque reading experiences necessarily gets the job done.
It's always curious to me that well-educated writers who go on to achieve success seem to forget that they once went to school!"
But I ..."
I take his (and your) point, as I think most readers would - of course it's important to read and react before diving into criticism, and nor should criticism form some sort of criteria for writing. But there is good and bad criticism just as there are good and bad books, and to me it feels too easy to dismiss critical writing as irrelevant and pointless � or even pernicious. Like any practice, reading (or writing for that matter) is a skill, and to be a skilled reader requires training, and I don’t think simply accruing picaresque reading experiences necessarily gets the job done.
Fionnuala wrote: "That is a coincidence! But Shapcott has a slightly different motivation to me in that she contests Rilke's version of women.."As I say, I only caught half of it, but it did strike me that there was also this idea of setting up a dialogue.
A gem of a review, Fionnuala. "Works of art are of an infinite solitude." It echoes what Proust writes when he says that one can only be oneself in solitude, or something to that effect. I loved your review. I am definitely putting this book on my shelf.
"Dear Mr Rilke,My dilemma when I read is an inability to abandon the work to its own solitude at the end, I always want to enter into dialogue with the writer.
Dear Reader,
Dialogue is good. Anything which gives rise to creativity is useful, words on a page or the blank page itself. "
Dear Fionnuala,
Thank you again for yet another review in which you have so cleverly described the essence of the book. I look forward to my introduction to Mr Rilke.
@Jocelyne, oh yes,I think Proust and Rilke would have got on well.
Cheryl wrote: "Dear Fionnuala,Thank you again for yet another review in which you have so cleverly described the essence of the book. I look forward to my introduction to Mr Rilke.."
Dear Cheryl,
So glad to be able to introduce you to my dear friend, Mr Rilke. I think you two will have a lot in common.
Yours sincerely,
F
TD wrote: "...Like any practice, reading (or writing for that matter) is a skill, and to be a skilled reader requires training, and I don’t think simply accruing picaresque reading experiences necessarily gets the job done."I don't know about this, TD. I think there are some people here on goodreads who have no background in literature studies and yet who have become very insightful readers. I think it's very possible.
Fionnuala wrote: "TD wrote: "...Like any practice, reading (or writing for that matter) is a skill, and to be a skilled reader requires training, and I don’t think simply accruing picaresque reading experiences nece..."
But this means there's nothing worth reading in criticism? Which is, incidently, what we're all writing and reading on this website.
But this means there's nothing worth reading in criticism? Which is, incidently, what we're all writing and reading on this website.
TD wrote: "But this means there's nothing worth reading in criticism? Which is, incidently, what we're all writing and reading on this website."I'm not saying that there's nothing worth reading in literary criticism, TD, just that it's not essential to have read the critics in order to become an insightful and appreciative reader.
As to what we are reading and writing here on goodreads, my preference among the reviews I follow, are for those which highlight the personal engagement with the book in question, those which recount how the book impinged on the reviewer's life, rather than any lengthy critical analysis.
I'm sure that this is not a typical response however, but it my honest one.
I like to arrive at my own conclusions about what an author is doing but I love to see how an author triggers wide ranging responses from others, and the more creative, and the less academic those responses are, the better I like them.
Fionnuala wrote: "TD wrote: "But this means there's nothing worth reading in criticism? Which is, incidently, what we're all writing and reading on this website."
I'm not saying that there's nothing worth reading i..."
Ok. Personally, I'll neve be convinced that critical/academic and personal responses are in anyway divergent quantities, nor that "the critics" (whoever exactly they might be) are of some other order which can't be of help to readers and writers - essentially I see criticism as the on-going discussion surrounding a work. By the way, I would probably suggest not reading the Kermode book I recommended you - you'll hate it!
I'm not saying that there's nothing worth reading i..."
Ok. Personally, I'll neve be convinced that critical/academic and personal responses are in anyway divergent quantities, nor that "the critics" (whoever exactly they might be) are of some other order which can't be of help to readers and writers - essentially I see criticism as the on-going discussion surrounding a work. By the way, I would probably suggest not reading the Kermode book I recommended you - you'll hate it!
Ok, TD, pax!But I may read Kermode sometime, 'cos I love the title of his book, and I do like James Wood too, he's great for pointing the reader towards undiscovered territory, although I hardly need him for that anymore since I 'moved in' to this site, where new and evermore exciting titles fall onto my breakfast table every morning via gr reviews - found a recently translated Argentinian author who sounds very interesting just this morning - you might know him - Andrés Neuman?
Well, yes, for all my ranting I'll be giving Rilke's letters a bash in the not too distant future - sounds like great lit crit;)
I've not heard of Andrés Neuman...
I've not heard of Andrés Neuman...
A great and unique woman speaks.
Afterwards I thought that perhaps where a great and unique man speaks, small people should keep silent, that I should have left this review as a blank page, but I just can't resist a good dialogue.
These little comment boxes are designed to ensure that, once the reviewer has finished their review, it does not wallow in infinite solitude.
This rapid-fire texting between Rilke and the Reader is so good! I always imagined him getting rather tired of Mr Kappus, who comes across as such a serious and self-involved bore. But your version of him is ardent, enthusiastic, eager to learn in a way I don't think the original was! Thank you for this re-creation!
Babou wrote: "This rapid-fire texting between Rilke and the Reader is so good! I always imagined him getting rather tired of Mr Kappus, who comes across as such a serious and self-involved bore. But your versi..."Thanks for the feedback, Babou. I think Rilke gets a little tired of me as well as of Kappus - he ticks me of for my over elaborate language and for misusing irony so I think you probably read him just right...
Ha, amazing! I love this review!
Thanks, Spenk. This was on my pile for a while but your review moved it straight up to the top.
Well, I'm glad you did! Wasn't it wonderful. Your review really hits upon one of my favorite aspects of the book, how it seems to be so personal and directed at anyone who picks it up regardless that the letters are adressed to Kappus. Great work, glad you loved it!
You've honored Rilke with your review by having a heart to heart conversation with him. Beautifully done Fionnuala. I admire Rilke like no other.
Thank you for commenting, Elaine. I know you are a big fan of Rilke so your opinion means a lot.
Dear Fionnuala,This is a very beautiful review. I had read it before, but I have enjoyed it even more this second time.
Please continue to write reviews and share with us how some books made you feel and what thoughts they prompted in your mind.
Kalliope wrote: "Dear Fionnuala,This is a very beautiful review. I had read it before, but I have enjoyed it even more this second time.
Please continue to write reviews and share with us how some books made yo..."
Thank you for the encouragement, Kalliope. It's true that I haven't been writing many reviews lately - Proust took up so much reading time these last months - and I haven't reviewed the last five of his books because it seems impossible to distill them into review-size. And now, it's as if those five unwritten reviews are a wall I can't climb over.
Fionnuala wrote: "Please continue to write reviews and share with us how s..."
I know the feeling.. that is why my third and last (four missing then) of the reviews had to deal with the experience...
May be you can write an Au Revoir or Au Retrouver review...
Rilke can't be replaced but you sure added to him :) Fionnuala, what a brilliant creative review. Made me tingle as I read it.
I know what you mean about the u written reviews being a wall to climb over. I have given up on any ambitions of reviewing Proust, but the real barrier is formed by the ones I read on holiday and still haven't honoured with the topsoil of my underground wanderings. The longer I leave it.....
Stephen wrote: "Rilke can't be replaced but you sure added to him :) Fionnuala, what a brilliant creative review. Made me tingle as I read it."Yes, Stephen, it was just so amazing that he answered my letters...
Fionnuala wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Rilke can't be replaced but you sure added to him :) Fionnuala, what a brilliant creative review. Made me tingle as I read it."Yes, Stephen, it was just so amazing that he answer..."
:) :)
·°²¹°ù±ð²Ô· wrote: "I know what you mean about the u written reviews being a wall to climb over. I have given up on any ambitions of reviewing Proust, but the real barrier is formed by the ones I read on holiday and s..."Once we start reviewing everything we read, it becomes a compulsion, doesn't it? The ones we've read hang about the waiting room looking sad until we call them in and give them some follow-up treatment.
Ok, this weekend, I'm going to see my Proust patients - maybe I'll just write the same prescription for them all - as Kall suggested earlier..
Such a creative review! Worthy of Rilke.
Ivonne wrote: "Such a creative review! Worthy of Rilke."One of the things I love about about gr is that people happen on old reviews from time to time and take the time to comment thereby giving them new life. Thanks for resurrecting Rilke this morning, Ivonne!
Your review made me smile. I read this book in the 80's. Yes, I too feel that the 'young poet's' letters should also have been part of this book. I used a quote from this book once in a speech on patience . It is as below:"Everything in life is gestation and birthing. We all have to wait, may be hours or even years, with deep humility and patience until each impression, each embryo of our experience brings forth a new clarity. Being an artist means ripening like a tree, which does not force its sap and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come.? It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast.Patience is everything!"
That is a great quote, PGR. Thanks for reminding me of it - it may come in useful in a review I'm writing at the moment about childhood and memory - and if not Rilke's exact words, at least the spirit of them.
Hi FionnulaThought you may like the contet in which I used it in the speech below:
Fionnuala wrote: "Inspiring words, PJR."Fionnuala wrote: "Inspiring words, PJR."
PGR :)
What a lovely take on this work, Fio! Loved it! Were you also beseeched by the desire to quote him generously? I have highlighted almost 60% of my edition :)
Seemita wrote: "What a lovely take on this work, Fio! Loved it! Were you also beseeched by the desire to quote him generously? I have highlighted almost 60% of my edition :)"Oh, yes, his words just call out to be quoted, Seemita - I worked as many of them as I could into the review, stretching a point here and there in the process probably ;-)
And where a great and unique man speaks, small men should keep silent.
Frank Xavier Kappus