Editing Rainer Maria Rilke (section)

===''Letters to a Young Poet''===
[[File:Letterstoayoungpoet.png|thumb|upright|''Letters to a Young Poet'', cover of the 1934 edition]]
{{See also|Letters to a Young Poet}}
In 1929, writer [[Franz Xaver Kappus]] (1883–1966) published a collection of ten letters that (then between 27-32 year old) Rilke had written to him over the course of 6 years, beginning when Kappus was a 19-year-old officer cadet studying at the [[Theresian Military Academy]] in [[Wiener Neustadt]], where he had a professor who had taught Rilke at the boarding Military Middleschool (Militär-Unterrealschule) in St.-Pölten over 15 years earlier (from 1886-1891); (before Rilke dropped out of the officer's education after a year in Military highschool). Between 1902 and 1908, the young Kappus had written Rilke when he was uncertain about his future as a military officer or as a poet. Initially he sought Rilke's advice as to the quality of his poetry and whether he ought to pursue writing as a career. While he declined to comment much on Kappus's writings, Rilke advised Kappus on how a poet should feel, love and seek truth in trying to understand and experience the world around him and engage the world of art. These letters offer insight into the ideas and themes that appear in Rilke's poetry and his working process and were written during a key period of Rilke's early artistic development after his reputation as a poet began to be established with the publication of parts of ''[[The Book of Hours|Das Stunden-Buch]]'' (''The Book of Hours'') and ''[[The Book of Images|Das Buch der Bilder]]'' (''The Book of Images'').<ref>Freedman, Ralph. "Das Stunden-Buch and Das Buch der Bilder: Harbingers of Rilke's Maturity" in Metzger, Erika A. and Metzger, Michael M. (editors). ''A Companion to the Works of Rainer Maria Rilke''. (Rochester, New York: Camden House Publishing, 2001), 90–92.</ref>