Franz Xaver Kappus wrote
"It was in the late autumn of 1902—I was sitting under some century-old chestnut trees in the park of the Military Academy in Wiener-Neustadt reading a book. I was so engrossed in my reading that I hardly noticed that the only one of our masters who was not an officer, the learned kindly chaplain of the Academy, Horaček, had joined me. He took the volume out of my hand, considered the binding, and shook his head. “Rainer Maria Rilke’s Poems”? he asked thoughtfully. Then he turned over the leaves here and there, scanned a few verses, looked thoughtfully into the distance, and finally nodded. “So young René Rilke has become a poet.”
Franz was the young poet who wrote to Rilke in 1903, sending some of his writing and requesting an assessment of their artistic worth. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), replied to the young poet in this series of letters which became published in book form. This written correspondence occured during an important stage in Rilke's artistic life, and through the letters one picks up on themes that became later known as some of Rilke's best works.
Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898, he was age 23. People often wrote to him as well as other known artists. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote the series of responses to Franz Kappus discussing poetry and sharing wisdom on living as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Continue reading
