Letters to a Young Poet

Name: Letters to a Young Poet
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
ISBN: 9780698151765

Author: Rainer Maria Rilke, Charlie Louth

Series: Penguin Audio Classics

Narrator: Dan Stevens, Max Deacon

Unabridged: 1 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 03/25/2014

Categories: Nonfiction, Literary Collections, Literary Criticism

Synopsis

Rilke's powerfully touching letters to an aspiring young poet, now available in a beautiful hardcover Penguin editionAt the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering, and the nature of advice itself. These profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for generations of writers and artists of all kinds, including Lady Gaga and Patti Smith. With honesty, elegance, and a deep understanding of the loneliness that often comes with being an artist, Rilke's letters are an endless source of inspiration and comfort. Lewis Hyde's new introduction explores the context in which these letters were written and how the author embraced his isolation as a creative force.This edition also includes Rilke's later work The Letter from the Young Worker.

About The Author

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) studied literature, art history, and philosophy in both Munich and Prague and is often considered one of the German language's greatest twentieth-century poets. His two most famous verse sequences are the Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies; his two most famous prose works are Letters to a Young Poet and the semiautobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.Charlie Louth is a fellow at Queen's College, Oxford, where he lectures in German. He is the author of Hölderlin and the Dynamics of Translation.Lewis Hyde is the author of the hundred-million-copy bestseller The Gift. A MacArthur fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Gambier, Ohio.

Reviews

Goodreads review by s.penkevich on July 17, 2024

‘Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows.’ Rainer Maria Rilke puts forth the question ‘must I write?’ in these letters from the great poet to the unknown Mr. Kappus. ‘Dig into yourself for a deep answer,’ he tells the young poet, ‘and if this answer rights out in ass......more

Goodreads review by li.reading on December 29, 2022

This man just casually writing the most profound things I have ever read in a letter to his pal, meanwhile I spend 10 minutes figuring out how to sign off an email......more

Goodreads review by Jim on August 26, 2017

Rilke (1875-1926) was a famous German poet, born in Prague. He traveled widely throughout Europe, married and had a daughter. A dozen years out of school, after Rilke had achieved some fame as a poet, a young man wrote to him asking for advice about life and poetry. Rilke wrote ten letters to him ov......more

Goodreads review by Riku on August 25, 2012

The last book for the year. The soothing, gentle, unimposing yet wise voice of Rilke - what better way to fold up one more chapter in life and open another, with hope for more suffering and joys in apt measure. This little book has been my companion for four years now, always half-finished, and it f......more

Quotes

"The common reader will be delighted by Stephen Mitchell’s new translation of that slim and beloved volume by Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet . . . the best yet."
--Los Angeles Times