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Letter 5
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Letters to a Young Poet, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Solitude and Difficulty
Art, Life, and Uncertainty
Patience and Self-Assurance
Mentorship and Guidance
Summary
Analysis
Kappus will not, Rilke assures him, have to do without a letter on Christmas, when he’s surely feeling the weight of his own solitude more than normal. He urges the young poet to revel in his own lonesomeness, since it’s important to know how to be alone. Rilke compares this kind of solitude to being a child, when adults were always wrapped up in their own affairs and hardly paid attention to their children. In fact, viewing the world like a child isn’t such a bad thing—if, for instance, people suddenly realize that their professions are completely disconnected from the rest of their lives, it might be helpful for them to think about their jobs with the same kind of innocence and curiosity as a child. It is helpful, sometimes, to experience “incomprehension.”
Rilke’s thoughts about solitude dovetail into a discussion of childhood. By talking about the kind of pleasant, rewarding “incomprehension” that children often experience, Rilke essentially encourages Kappus to recapture a certain childlike wonder about life. This wonder is especially useful and illuminating for people living in solitude, since it will help them embrace the idea of spending time alone. Instead of wallowing in loneliness, Kappus can try to take interest in himself and the surrounding world in the same way that a curious child might.
Themes
Rilke wants Kappus to respect his own inner world. He had a feeling that Kappus’s profession would turn out to be discouraging and unrewarding, but he can’t offer him any words of comfort—other than to suggest that all professions likely feel meaningless and deflating, as people slowly realize that their jobs are tiresome and disconnected from their private lives. Even if Kappus hadn’t become an officer, he would have felt the same way about his job.
It makes sense to assume that Kappus complained in his last letter about his job, which has turned out to be unrewarding. But Rilke isn’t surprised and, instead of telling Kappus to quit his job, he implies that the modern working world simply doesn’t align with a more sensitive, artistic existence. Most people, Rilke intimates, are unhappy in their professions, so the trick isn’t to find a better job—rather, the trick is to learn how to still live an artistic life in spite of everything else.
Themes
If Kappus feels no connection with the people around him, that’s all right. Rilke urges him to seek out a connection with the natural world. Moreover, he suggests that Kappus can always think back to childhood and, in doing so, find happiness and peace.
Simply put, Rilke recognizes that Kappus feels unhappy in his profession, but he also thinks there’s an easy way to deal with this lack of fulfillment. All Kappus needs to do, Rilke suggests, is engage with the world around him in a way that enriches his life—he doesn’t need a rewarding job, in other words, because he can find fulfillment elsewhere by having an open and poetic mind.
Themes
Rilke turns his attention to Kappus’s relationship with God, challenging the idea (which Kappus himself possibly proposed in his own letter) that he has lost touch with God since becoming an adult. Rilke suggests that Kappus never truly had a firm hold on God in the first place—how could a child really have such a full, meaningful relationship with God? Rather than having lost God, then, Rilke proposes that Kappus should see his relationship with God as something that is just beginning—as something that will always be in the process of beginning, as if it’s a constantly unfolding relationship. Whatever Kappus experiences in life is part of his developing relationship with God: the small moments of happiness, the periods of mundanity—everything.
Rilke’s approach to religion is somewhat complicated, but his main point is that a relationship with something as vast and significant as God could never be fixed or straightforward. Rather, it must always be evolving, just like life itself is always moving forward and changing. The way people relate to the world, then, is a lot like how they relate to the idea of a higher spiritual power, since both relationships are constantly unfolding. In turn, this view of religion will help Kappus remain attentive to the shifts and developments in his own life, since anything that happens in his life is also part of his relationship with God, and vice versa.
Themes
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Kappus should spend his Christmas with these serious spiritual thoughts in mind. He should also recognize that the moments of “transition” in his life are the moments in which he is perhaps closest to God, since he’s striving so hard toward a meaningful spiritual relationship. Therefore, he must be patient, happy, and self-assured.
Like most things Rilke talks about, his discussion of God comes back to the importance of patience. Kappus shouldn’t rush to some kind of spiritual epiphany. Instead, he should recognize that his religious faith is in a moment of “transition,” which gives him an opportunity to grow. In order to grow, though, he must bide his time and let his thoughts and feelings take shape.
Themes
