Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke Page A

lodgings. One of his neighbours is Paul Klee. Continues work on Michelangelo. Sends copies of his ‘Elegies’ (roughly half of what will become the
Duino Elegies
) to Lou Andreas-Salomé and to his publisher for safe keeping. Follows the events of the November Revolution in Munich closely, taking part in demonstrations and associating with some of the revolutionaries, such as Ernst Toller.
    1919 As well as Michelangelo, translates poems by Verhaeren and Mallarmé. Is shaken by the assassination of the socialist Kurt Eisner, the first minister-president of the Free State of Bavaria. As part of the counter-revolution Rilke’s flat is twice searched.
May
Lou Andreas-Salomé in Munich, their last meeting.
11 June
Leaves Germany for Switzerland with a ten-day permit, never to return. Begins a reading tour in late October. From December is in Locarno.
    1920 Having been issued with a Czech passport, travels to Venice in June/July and to Paris in October. Otherwise restlessly in Switzerland, from November in Berg am Irchel. Begins relationship with Baladine Klossowska.
    1921 Translating Paul Valéry. After much searching for an ‘elegy-place’, moves into the Château de Muzot in the Valais at the end of July.
    1922
February
Completes the
Duino Elegies
; also
The Sonnets to Orpheus
and
The Letter from the Young Worker
. Continues to translate Valéry. Reading Proust.
    1923 Early symptoms of illness. Publication of
Die Sonette an Orpheus
(March) and
Duineser Elegien
(October). Critical of political developments inGermany. Makes small trips within Switzerland. At the end of the year enters the sanatorium in Valmont.
    1924
20 January
Returns to Muzot. Begins writing many poems in French. Among flow of other visitors receives Valéry, whose works he continues to translate. In Ragaz in the summer. Autumn in Bern and then the sanatorium in Valmont.
    1925
January−August
In Paris. Recovers two boxes of letters and papers not auctioned in 1915. Works with Maurice Betz on translation of
Malte
into French.
September
Two weeks in Ragaz, then back in Muzot. Makes his will.
November
Translation of Valéry’s poems appears. Regrets not being able to read Lawrence and Joyce in the original. In Valmont again before Christmas.
    1926 In the sanatorium until the end of May.
Vergers suivi des Quatrains Valaisans
appears in Paris – this collection of Rilke’s poems in French is followed by
Les Roses
and
Les Fenêtres
in 1927. Three-way correspondence with Marina Tsvetaeva and Boris Pasternak.
June
Sends a selection of unpublished German poems to the Insel Press. Summer in Ragaz, then Lausanne. Back in the Valais, translates Valéry’s dialogues
Eupalinos
and
L’Âme et la danse
.
30 November
Taken to Valmont in great pain. Finally diagnosed with leukaemia.
29 December
Dies.
    1929
Briefe an einen jungen Dichter
(
Letters to a Young Poet
) published, as a first sample of Rilke’s correspondence.
    1933
Der Brief des jungen Arbeiters
(
The Letter from the Young Worker
) published in
Über Gott: Zwei Briefe
(
On God: Two Letters
).
    Charlie Louth 2011

Afterword
    Neither of the works translated here were published in Rilke’s lifetime. Nor are they works in any very strict sense: the
Letters to a Young Poet
are ten letters written over an interval of nearly six years, not intended to be collected nor conceived as a whole; and
The Letter from the Young Worker
was jotted down quickly in pencil and never written out fair or apparently considered for publication. Yet the
Letters to a Young Poet
, since their appearance in 1929, have become Rilke’s most widely read book, and the
Letter from the Young Worker
, though not so familiar, has long established itself as a key piece of his prose, setting out his thoughts with unflinching forcefulness. They come from opposite ends of Rilke’s writing life. When he wrote his first letter to Franz Xaver Kappus, the ‘young poet’, in February 1903, Rilke had several collections behind him buthad