In this first number in the Scripta manent , focusing on selected passages from the world of literature, I propose a brief excerpt taken from the letters of Rainer Maria Rilke entitled Letters to a Young Poet , in which the author, under the guise of correspondence with an admirer (the "young poet" of the title, in fact), dispenses invaluable advice that if the top are the need to suggest the criteria for writing honest, immediately expand the sphere of human life in general and become real spiritual testaments that touch (and driving!) consciousness of the reader, teaching him to appreciate everything you need to live a conscious life, even before writing a conscious. The next step is taken by the first letter.
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I can not go into the nature of his verse, because any criticism is going too far from me. Nothing can touch so little work of art as a critical comment: if they get more or less happy misunderstandings.
[...] She wonders if his verses are good. The question to me. First he asked others. Sends them to magazines. Compares them with other poems, and is alarmed when certain editors reject his evidence. Now, as authorized me to advise you, ask you to give up all this. She looks outside, and it is precisely why now should not do. No one can give advice or help anyone. There is only one way. Look inside. Is wondering about the reason that the intimate writing, check if it stretches out its roots in the deepest of his heart, confess to himself, would die, if she refused to write? This above all: you ask, the most quiet of the hour His night I write? He reached inside himself looking for a deep answer. And if it is consented to, if you can say with a simple "I must " this serious question, then build your life according to this need. His life, even into its most indifferent and miserable hours must be taught and witness to this emergency. Then you close to nature. Then try, as a first man to say what he sees and experiences and loves and loses. Do not write love poems; avoid those forms first and currents that are too common: They are the most difficult, as you will need a force large and mature to make a contribution where there are plenty of good traditions and partly good. So escape from the most common reasons to those who offered his own newspaper, describing his sorrows and hopes, ephemeral thoughts and belief in any sort of beauty, describing all this with deep, quiet, humble sincerity and use to express themselves , things that are around, the images of his dreams and the objects of his memory. If your day seems the poor, not accuse, accuse himself, saying it is not enough to evoke the poet's treasure, because for those who create poverty does not exist, nor are there places indifferent or poor. And even if it was in a prison, whose walls are not leaked to his senses the sounds of the world, would perhaps not his childhood, the richness, exquisite gift, that treasure trove of memories? Ask your attention there. Try to bring out the submerged sensations of that broad past, his personality will reinforce, his loneliness will become wider and a house at dusk, close to the distant noise of others. And while the emotional withdrawal from this world to immerse themselves in their own ways arise, then you will not be thought of asking someone if they are good verse . Or attempt to interest the magazines in those jobs, because in them she sees her dear natural possession, and a chip and a sound of his life. A work of art is good if it is born by necessity. This is to judge the nature of its origin: there is no more.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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