R. M. Rilke: Letter
to a young poet
From:
R. M. Rilke, Letters to a young poet,
tr. by Stephen Mitchell
Page 5
I don't want you to be without a greeting
from me when Christmas comes and when you, in the midst of the holiday, are
bearing your solitude more heavily than usual. But when you notice that it is
vast, you should be happy; for what (you should ask yourself) would a solitude
be that was not vast; there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy,
difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange
it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest
outward agreement with the first person who comes along, the most unworthy. . .
. But perhaps these are the very hours during which solitude grows; for its
growing is painful as the growing of boys and sad as the beginning of spring.
But that must not confuse you. What is necessary, after all, is only this:
solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours
- that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you
were a child, when the grown-ups walked around involved with matters that seemed
large and important because they looked so busy and because you didn't
understand a thing about what they were doing. (...) if there is nothing you can share with
other people, try to be close to Things; they will not abandon you; and the
nights are still there, and the winds that move through the trees and across
many lands; everything in the world of Things and animals is still filled with
happening, which you can take part in; and children are still the way you were
as a child, sad and happy in just the same way - and if you think of your
childhood, you once again live among them, and the grown-ups are nothing, and
their dignity has no value.
Rilke wrote his first letter to a young poet (the original
title is "Briefe an einen jungen Dichter") in the February
of 1903 and the last one in the December of 1908. He had already
written the "Book of Images". Read
more... Cf. Plato, Books
can be your worst enemies *
Jaspers, Truth is in
communication *
Kierkegaard, My work as an author
*
Emerson, Reading and writing as
self-knowledge *
Francis Bacon, Reading & writing as
moral activities *
Tom Schulman, Dead Poets
Society
*
Gibson - MacRury, The man without a face
*
J. M. Lefévre, The White Thinking
*
Dostoevsky, The dream of ridiculous
man
