Who are Rilke and the mysterious “Young Poet”?
Rainer Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926) is considered one of the German language‘s greatest 20th-century poets. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets. The letters constituting Letters to A Young Poet were originally written to Franz Kappus, a 19-year-old student at the Military Academy of Vienna, of which Rilke was an alumnus. Discouraged by the prospect of military life, Kappus began to send his poetry to the 27-year-old Rilke, seeking both literary criticism and career advice. Their correspondence lasted from 1902 to 1908. In 1929, three years after Rilke’s death, Kappus assembled and published the ten letters. (source: Wikipedia) Why this book? Rilke’s Letters to A Young Poet is one of the first influences on my writing. I remember reading the book years back, when I had
