Wedding reading
On love, from Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke
“On love, from Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke is a prose reading read at a wedding ceremony. It takes about a minute and a half read aloud, usually by a guest reader. We do not reprint the words here — the note below says why, and what to bring instead.
Why the words are not printed here
The German is public domain; the English you have almost certainly read is not — modern translations are their own copyrighted work. Print the translation the couple chose and have the reader bring it.
Pieces still in copyright are listed by title and author only — we name them and tell you where to get them, but we do not reproduce the words. Public-domain text is printed in your script in full.
Where it comes from
Rilke wrote ten letters to the young Franz Xaver Kappus between 1903 and 1908, and Kappus published them through Insel Verlag in 1929, three years after Rilke’s death.
What it says
Rilke treats love as the hardest work a person ever takes on, and something the young are only beginners at. He warns against two people throwing themselves at each other and dissolving into one, because nothing is left of either. The love he holds up is two separate people who guard each other’s solitude: each one keeps the other whole, stands at the edge of the other’s inner life, and greets it. It is a reading about respect and patience, and about marriage as the place where each person becomes more fully themselves.
The "two solitudes" passage. Which translation matters a great deal here. Read at a wedding ceremony. Themes: two solitudes · protecting each other’s solitude · literary · introverts.
Who it suits
Introverted, bookish and independent couples, writers and artists, and anyone who has worried that marriage means losing themselves. It sits comfortably in a secular or literary ceremony. Couples who want warmth and romance first may find it cool, so it pairs well with a more tender reading.
Where it goes in the ceremony
Usually the second reading, before the officiant’s address, which can pick up the idea of two solitudes. A friend who knows the couple’s need for space reads it with conviction.
Reading it aloud
Allow about a minute and a half at a ceremony pace of about 130 words a minute, from the reader’s first word to their last.
- Choose the translation with the couple and print it. The famous solitudes phrasing differs between translators, and guests who know it will notice a different version.
- Rilke’s sentences are long and careful. Read slowly, and treat each clause as part of an argument being built.
- The image of two people guarding each other’s solitude is the heart of it. Pause before and after that sentence so it stands apart.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “On love, from Letters to a Young Poet” take to read aloud?
“On love, from Letters to a Young Poet” takes about a minute and a half read aloud at a ceremony pace, which is slower than conversation — roughly 130 words a minute. That is the figure the run-sheet uses when it works out the timing for the whole service.
Who usually reads “On love, from Letters to a Young Poet”?
Usually a guest reader rather than the officiant. “On love, from Letters to a Young Poet” runs about a minute and a half, which is a manageable amount to hand to a friend or family member. Give them a printed copy of their own, in a size they can read without their glasses, and tell them where to stand and how you will introduce them.
Can “On love, from Letters to a Young Poet” be printed in a ceremony script?
Not by us. The German is public domain; the English you have almost certainly read is not — modern translations are their own copyrighted work. Print the translation the couple chose and have the reader bring it.
A reading is two minutes of the hour.
The rest is the welcome, the vows, the ring exchange, the pronouncement — and the timing that holds them together. Answer some questions about the couple and get the whole ceremony, written out, with this reading in its place.
Other readings that suit the same service
- On Marriage, from The Propheta minute and a halfGibran’s spaces in your togetherness, the closest companion piece
- On love, from All About Love: New Visionsa minute and a halfLove as work and choice rather than feeling
- Wild Geese45 secondsAnother reading about being allowed to be yourself
- On Becoming Real, from The Velveteen Rabbit55 secondsMargery Williams
- from Obergefell v. Hodgesa minute and a halfJustice Anthony Kennedy
- from the Symposium — the speech of Aristophanestwo minutesPlato, tr. Benjamin Jowett