Comparing Beauty In Poetry And Letters To A Young Poet

In the excerpts of Black Swan Green and Letters to a Young Poet, a central idea that both have in common is the idea of beauty, how to find it, how to incorporate into the young poets’ poetry, and where to find it. In Letters to a Young Poet “Letter One” by Rainer Maria Rilke the idea of beauty ties in with the idea of individual identity verses group identity and that beauty can come from anywhere. While in Black Swan Green “Hangman” and “Solarium” by David Mitchell the idea of beauty is discussed by the two main characters who are deciding how beauty is incorporated into anything thought of as beautiful whether it be words, objects, or people. Although, both excerpts have a central idea of beauty there are other central ideas as well, in …show more content…
Rilke tells the poet, “With this note as a preface, may I just tell you that your verses have no style of their own…You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself.” (Rilke, 5-6). Rilke introduces the idea of individual identity verses group identity by telling the young poet that he should not look around himself for help, but within himself. Rilke is telling him that if he looks for outside help, group help, then the poem is no longer his, but a collection of different people’s work. “To keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your while development; you couldn’t disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to question that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.” (Rilke,

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Comparing Beauty In Poetry And Letters To A Young Poet

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