Letters to a Young Poet

Nonfiction | Collection of Letters | Adult | Published in 1929

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Essay Analysis

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Sickness

In his eighth letter, Rilke discusses sickness as a symbol of sadness, arguing that one must treat sadness the same way as one treats a physical ailment: “[S]ickness is the means by which an organism frees itself of foreign matter,” as the symptoms of physical illness are typically merely the sign that the body is seeking to heal itself and fight off infection (53). As such, though sickness might be a painful experience, it is ultimately to be embraced, as it returns the body to health and wholeness.

Both sadness and physical illness are therefore necessary suffering. Just as illness often results from a foreign microorganism entering our body, so too are times of sadness “the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown” (48). This “something new” can be understood as a new experience or new emotion which is unfamiliar to our mind, and as a result, is often terrifying at first. Rilke argues that most individuals respond to sadness by paralysis, repressing the difficult feelings rather than acknowledge them. Yet, just as the body must endure sickness, so too must one endure and be “attentive” to one’s sadnesses, which are ultimately moments “at which our future sets foot in us” (49). Rilke thus advises Kappus to “help [oneself] to be sick, to have its whole sickness and break out with it, for that is its progress” (53). It is only through patiently enduring and embracing one’s sadness that one fully matures.

Gestation

A recurring motif throughout Rilke’s letters is the notion of gestation. Though literally the process by which a fetus develops inside a mother’s womb, gestation is Rilke’s metaphor for one’s general development as an individual and an artist. Rilke first employs the idea of gestation in his third letter, when discussing the need for a poet to focus on his own interior experiences and judgments:

Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious […] and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist’s life (24).

Though artists are predominantly associated with artistic creation, Rilke presents an image of an artist in which waiting and developing is as important to an artist’s work as the actual creative act. For Rilke, the artist must be like a gestating organism, slowly honing their aesthetic sensibility before finally achieving clarity and producing work. This image of gestation, however, also applies to society as a whole. Rilke sees each individual as contributing in their own way to society’s larger historical development. This notion of gestation ultimately applies to the universe and religion. The sixth letter describes God as a coming being for whom the entirety of the universe is “the history of a great gestation” (38). Everything seems to exist to further the slow gestation of the universe, culminating in the birth of God.

Childhood

Childhood is a frequent topic throughout the letters, presented as an invaluable source of creative inspiration; our childhood is what makes us wholly unique. The first letter discusses childhood at length when advising Kappus on how to discover his poetic voice. Rather than seek out critical discourse on poetry, Kappus must look inward, focusing on the particularities of his experience and everyday life. Childhood is one of the greatest sources for creating poetry, a “precious, kingly possession, [a] treasure-house of memories” (17). By returning to his childhood experiences, Kappus’s “personality will grow more firm,” and he will discover his authentic and unique self (17). Later letters expand upon the importance of childhood. Rilke sees solitude and childhood as closely linked experiences; individuals are typically often “solitary as a child, when the grownups went around involved with things that seemed important and big because they themselves looked so busy and because one comprehended nothing of their doings” (35). By returning to this childhood state, one regains one’s “wise incomprehension,” seeing the world as if it were unfamiliar or alien (38).