Letters to a Young Poet

Nonfiction | Collection of Letters | Adult | Published in 1929

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Literary Devices

Figurative Language

Figurative language is a literary device that stylistically heightens words’ emotional resonance. Often, figurative language refers to rhetorical devices that a writer uses to add layers of meaning to their words that go beyond the literal. A principle rhetorical device of this kind is metaphor or simile, in which an often-unconventional comparison changes or expands the meaning of words. Throughout Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke frequently uses metaphor and simile—unsurprising, given that Rilke is a poet, and such figurative language most characterizes lyrical poetry.

For Rilke, the use of such figurative language better conveys abstract concepts. Throughout his letters, Rilke advises Kappus on how to develop as a poet and the best way to live—themes that typically do not involve imagery. Metaphor allows Rilke to attach his advice to specific images, allowing him to make clearer points. For instance, Rilke employs metaphor in his fourth letter addressing Kappus’s numerous questions on how he should live. Rather than directly answer these questions, Rilke asserts the answers can only come from within Kappus himself, and that he must allow himself to slowly, independently discover these answers. Kappus must additionally find pleasure in the search for answers: “[You must] try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue” (27). While questions of how one should live often seem terrifying and unanswerable, Rilke’s usage of metaphor conveys them as something mysterious like a locked room, whose contents are difficult to access yet tantalizingly within reach. Through the usage of such imagery, his advice regarding abstract matters becomes more concrete and intelligible, better encouraging his correspondent to embrace life’s diverse mysteries.

Amplification

Throughout Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke frequently engages amplification—the addition of information and language to a sentence to increase its emotional impact. Rilke’s style often involves long, complex sentences, packed with ideas, florid language, and imagery. Such sentences can go on for several lines. For instance, in his third letter to Kappus, Rilke writes:

Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist’s life: in understanding as in creating (24).

Rilke could easily break this sentence into several shorter sentences, yet he chooses prolongation through commas and colons. Likewise, Rilke could stop after “in the dark,” but instead offers several variations on the expression: “in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence” (24). The extension of the sentence through additional information accentuates its meaning: He does not mean a literal darkness, but rather a metaphysical, interior one. Amplification also intensifies his writing through the accretion of a dual meaning, both literal and emotional.

Rhetorical Questions

Questions frequently intersperse the letters. Rilke does not, however, seem to expect actual answers to these questions. Rather, he phrases his own convictions through inquiry—a literary device known as rhetorical questions. By framing his points in this way, a persuasive weight accrues to his ideas. For instance, in his sixth letter, Rilke uses a rhetorical question in his discussion about God and religion:

Why do you not think of [God] as the coming one, imminent from all eternity, the future one, the final fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? What keeps you from projecting his birth into times that are in process of becoming, and living your life like a painful and beautiful day in the history of a great gestation? (38).

Though these sentences are phrased as questions, no answer is expected. Rather, Rilke uses an interrogative mode of expression to better engage his audience; Kappus must now directly consider Rilke’s thoughts—not only as thoughts per se, but as realities that pertain to himself personally. Rhetorical questions add a further emotional intensity to Rilke’s writing, giving it a sense of urgency.