Rilke Letters To A Young Poet Essay

1311 Words3 Pages

As humans and individuals we are alone, completely separate from any other consciousness. We’re trapped in our own heads, and only our words and actions, mere symbols of our soul and the truth of ourselves, can communicate our existence to any other person. For better or for worse, we know that no symbol functions as a truly perfect representation, and because of this, the individual exists in solitude. But despite all this aloneness, in his “Letters to a Young Poet” Rilke would tell us that love has a purpose in our lives and can act as a positive force. These letters were written between Rilke and Franz Kappus over several years, and began when Kappus wrote to him seeking advice on his own poems. As put forth in these letters, Rainer Maria Rilke’s conception of love is radically individualistic, placing its central role as the advancement of the individual. The love he describes requires a deep understanding and development of oneself gained only through the profound acceptance of solitude, ambiguity, and struggle. To understand Rilke’s conception of love we must understand how he believes an …show more content…

Rilke, somewhat surprisingly, places an enormous value on love, even going so far as to describe it as the ultimate goal of life. He finds its benefits in its ability to act as an inducement to the self understanding and improvement he views as necessary: “Love is…a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself for another’s sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things” (54). Though it may seem counterintuitive, love by no means robs us of our necessary solitude. We remain fundamentally separate and unknowable creations—love simply acting as a calling force to continue our understanding and

Open Document