Public Reception

I don't know how many people will understand Jyoti's poems. If they were published, I am sure people will howl at her. It will only be a century later that she will be appreciated, as in the case of Blake.

What you predict is extremely probable ―unless she writes hereafter something they can understand. Then they will say these were her mystic amusements by the way. A great poetess, but with a queer side to her.

27 October 1936

Reading Things in Manuscript and in Print

It is curious but true that one can often get a more final judgment of a thing written when one surveys it in print or even typescript than in manuscript. Perhaps in the latter what is active but irrelevant in the personality of the writer comes in and evokes the personal response of the reader and so prevents detachment?

1932

Prefaces and Reviews  

Is it good to have a preface, introduction or bhūmikā to one's book? I would prefer any appreciation to be published separately as a review or criticism.

It is not a question of principle but of feeling and circumstances. One can do either way. To do without anything of the kind (which seems like a recommendation or advertisement) seems the finer way ―letting one's creation stand on its own merits. But the other is the fashion nowadays and I suppose there is something to be said for it.

28 October 1935

Some Metrical Matters

It is very necessary to learn metre and to arrange your thoughts ―not have them pell-mell, as you yourself describe them ―otherwise no amount of poetic substance or imagination will  

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make your poetry effective.

9 July 1935

*

After scanning this poem I showed it to Nolini. He has scanned some lines differently, I am quoting only three lines because I want to know which scansion is right:

As the poem is intended to be in the orthodox iambic metre, your scansions are quite correct. At the present time there are many who write in less even metres and to this kind of writing Nolini's scansion would apply. But it is better for you to learn the regular scansion and metre first so as to have a firm base.

14 April 1936

*

It is absolutely necessary in order to learn the trochaic rhythm to write at first strictly regular trochaic metres with equal lines. There can be irregularities in the verse, but this type of metre least of all can bear a free licence ―variations must be occasional, not altered about with a free hand. Such variations are an additional syllable at the beginning, an occasional dactyl ―but these must be occasional only. . . . A word like glorious can be scanned either as a dactyl or a trochee, the two vowels in the latter case being run into each other as if i were y.

*

I understand that trochees are to be avoided in an iambic anapaestic poem. But I may be wrong. I find in a metre-book  

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that the trochee is a common modulation for the iamb, especially in the first line.

Trochees are perfectly admissible in an iambic line as a modulation ―especially in the first foot (not first line), but also occasionally in the middle. In the last foot a trochee is not admissible. Also these trochees must not be so arranged as to turn an iambic into a trochaic line.

In one of my poems you changed the line "Crystals at her feet"  to "Is a crystal at her feet", saying that , with two trochees, could not come in an iambic anapaestic poem. Does this mean then that in an iamb-anapaest poem every line must have at least one iambic-anapaest foot?

My dear sir, this is an instance of importing one's own inferences instead of confining oneself to the plain meaning of the statement. First of all the rules concerning a mixed iambic anapaestic cannot be the same as those that govern a pure iambic. Secondly what I objected to was the trochaic run of the line. Two trochees followed by a long syllable, not a single iamb or anapaest in the whole! How can there be an iambic line or an iambic anapaestic without a single iamb or anapaest in it? The line as written could only scan either as a trochaic, therefore not iambic line, or thus , that is a trochee followed by an anapaest. Here of course there is an anapaest, but the combination is impossible rhythmically because it involves three short syllables one after another in an unreadable collocation ―one is obliged to put a minor stress on the "at" and that at once makes the trochaic line. In the iambic anapaestic line a trochee followed by an iamb can be allowed in the first foot; elsewhere it has to be admitted with caution so as not to disturb the rhythm.

22 December 1935

*

You have not got the metrical movement or the rhythm right. In English poetry one has to be careful about that ―merely ideas or good writing will not make it poetry. The free verse was better.

1 October 1933

*  

Page-604

This is my first attempt to write a poem from imagination. I tried to give a vivid picture of Spring. I feel that the rhyme and metre is lacking.

It is true there is no rhyme and no metre. If you want rhyme and metre you must put them there ―they don't come of themselves.

5 May 1933

*

Nishikanta wants to know how to get the right rhythm and the right poetic style. I said by reading English poetry.

Yes, reading and listening with the inner ear to the modulation of the lines.

12 December 1935

Comments on Some Experiments in Metre

I think you failed [in an experiment to write in a classical metre] not for any of the reasons you suggest but because you had no unwritten rhythm behind your mind when you started writing and none came through by accident ―or what seems one ―as sometimes happens. There is an inspiration of language and there is an inspiration of rhythm and the two must fuse together for poetic perfection to come. As it is, you set out to manufacture your rhythm and piece together its parts ―that must be the cause of this result. Your failure does not predestine you to eventual failure. Most people fail at first when they try this kind of departure from the established norms ―this rejuvenation of the old in the new. I do not remember my own previous attempts in the classical metres, but I feel sure they were failures of the kind I stigmatise. If I succeed now, it will be by the Grace of God, in other words the established Yoga consciousness, for in that consciousness things come through from behind the veil with ease, ―so long as a veil exists at all. Of course with genius too in its moments of inspiration ―surer than the layman imagines; but genius also is a kind of accidental Yoga, a contact, an opening into an occult Power.

25 November 1933

Page-605

This liability to be read as an iambic pentameter is the pitfall of this metre [quantitative trimeter] ―everything else is easy, this is the critical point in the movement. All the same, it seems to me that it is only the standing convention which imposes the iambic movement here. The reason why it can do so at all, is that in both the lines you keep up what one accustomed to the ordinary rhythms would take to be three successive trochees and would be irresistibly tempted to go on on the same lines. In order to get the right pace, the reader in dealing with these transplanted classic metres must be prepared to make the most of quantities and stresses (true ones) and then, if the verse is well executed, there should be no difficulty. One can help him sometimes by a crowding of stresses in the first part of the line and a refusal of all but the lightest sounds in the close with of course a strong stress at the end.

22 October 1933

Writing Poetry in French

If you want to write French poetry, the first thing you have to do is to learn the principles and rules of French prosody. Good verse is the first requisite and good rhythm.

10 July 1933

*

The point is that in French you must express yourself straightforwardly and clearly so that your meaning is at once apparent to the reader.

Some Questions of Diction

The diction of my poems is childish, too simple.

Good poetry can be written in a very simple style. Yours are quite good for a beginner.

Please do not forget to say something about why I do not succeed in poetry: also if I should devote my time more to the stories etc.  

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That is a matter for yourself to decide. It is always easier to succeed in one's own tongue than in a foreign language.

25 March 1936

*

These last two stanzas [of a poem submitted by the correspondent] have a very poor diction with commonplace and overworn expressions; it sounds like an imitation of Scott, Moore and other poets who have no style.

I would like to have your comments on the poetic quality of these poems.

There is an improvement, but the recurring fault is a diction that seems to be caught from the second-rate poets and made still more common and conventional in imitation ―it becomes what anybody trying his hand at verse might write. When you escape this snare, your images and turns of language are very good, though not often quite perfect.

I am not intimate with the English tongue. What should I do in order to acquire the required delicacy of language?

Study the more subtle and delicate writers ―their language, their rhythm; don't imitate, but draw into your mind their influence.

19 October 1933

*

I am reading what you wrote and shall send [it back] in a few days ―it has merit, but the style needs chastening. English style cannot bear too much crowding of images as it creates a coloured mist and blurs the outline of the thought, the line of the thought has to be kept strong and clear, neither draped in too much diffuse wording nor blurred by excess of images. There are also some errors in the use of the language, but these are of less importance. If you read the best writers, observe their way of writing and absorb their influence, that might help you.

10 January 1936

*

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The one stumbling block in the way of perfect poetic expression for you now is the difficulty in combining clear directness and lucidity with your turn for a richly packed and imaged thought. There is a tendency sometimes to put too many images together, shooting them into each other in a way which is not always easy to carry off ―even the greatest masters of poetic style have sometimes stumbled in this kind of effort. And generally there is a tendency to pack the thought and clip the expression to the utmost and sometimes this goes to an excess of compression which makes it a little difficult to seize at once the significance. When you do combine the lucidity with the pressed thought, the result is often very fine.

20 May 1931

Rhetoric and Eloquence

The style of these two prayers is too rhetorical ―the meditations ―addresses to the mind ―were better in this respect.

A rhetorical style fails to convey the impression of sincerity in the thoughts and feelings: it gives the opposite impression that phrases are being turned only for the sake of good writing. This should be avoided.

9 July 1932

*

I want to produce something Upanishadic. But I get no glimmering at all of the sovereignly spiritual-poetic. The poem, Yoga, which I am sending you, almost tells me what I should do to solve my difficulty; but the manner in which it tells seems to drive home the fact of my being so far from what I want ―the sheer stupendous mantra.

I fear it is only eloquence ―a long way from the mantra. From the point of view of a poetic eloquence there are some forceful lines and the rest is well done, but ―there is too much play of the mind, not the hushed intense receptivity of the seer which is necessary for the mantra.

11 April 1933

*

This fineness in details is an imperative need for your poetry; you

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have too often a false note (rhetorical) or a just adequate expression ―every turn, all the minutiae must be fine if the whole is to be exquisite. Otherwise even a fine poem can miss its effect by the inequality of its movement ―as a fine dance can be spoilt by even two or three false steps or stumbles. A few changes here and there in a poem, slight in themselves, can make all the difference between a tolerable and a perfect whole ―as a touch or two with the brush can transform a picture.

4 September 1931

The Right Words in the Right Places

How I struggled with the line, and you, Sir, by just a touch here and there fixed it up! I wish I could do that.

It is a question of getting the right words in the right places instead of allowing them to wander haphazard. Naturally it depends on inspiration, not on any clever piecing together. One sits still (mentally), looks at the words and somebody flashes the thing through you.

24 May 1937

*

How can "anything" be used in a poem? A slight change makes all the difference between something forceful and a mere literary expression that misses its mark.

27 May 1936

*

I am sending you another weak poem. Please correct and tell me what you think of it.

The lines have poetic substance, but are imperfect in expression. A very slight refinement in these respects is enough to bring out the poetic substance. The exact word or turn, the exact rhythmic movement needed is all-important in poetry and a slight change makes a big difference.

*

In the poem I've sent you today, the first line of the third stanza should run:  

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With tones of fathomless joy we instil

instead of

Our tones of fathomless joy instil.

If you alter in that way, the whole beauty is gone. When a perfect inspiration comes, to alter it is a crime and usually carries its own punishment. The alteration you propose makes a deep and solemn psychic truth turn at once into an intellectual statement.

Some Questions of Word-Use

Is there any advantage in changing the phrase ―

as though a press

Of benediction lay on me unseen ―

to

as though the press

Of a benediction lay on me unseen?

No, no. The first was immeasurably better. "A press of benediction" is striking and effective; "the press of a benediction" is flat and means nothing. Besides it is not good English. You can say "a press of affairs", "a press of matter"; you can say "the pressure of this affair", but you cannot say "the press of an affair".

1931

*

Here is a sonnet for your judgment. It deals with the massive spiritual light descending into the brain like an inverted pyramid. The final phrase has a historical allusion:

a conscious hill

Down-kindled by some Cheops of the skies

To monument his lordship over death.

You must have heard of Cheops, the Egyptian King who built the Great Pyramid at Gizeh?

Of course I have heard of Cheops, but did not expect to hear of him again in this context. Don't you think the limiting proper  

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name brings in an excessive touch of intellectual ingenuity, almost as if the poem were built for the sake of this metaphor and not for its subject? I would myself prefer a general term so as to prevent any drop from sublimity, e.g.

Down-sloped by some King-Builder of the skies.

But it is a good sonnet and there is certainly both vision and poetry in it.

25 September 1933

*

"Revealed her mateless beauty the (or their) true paradise" is not permissible in prose, but it is one of those contracted expressions which are allowed in poetry and it is quite intelligible. The other form "revealed their mateless love as their true paradise" seems to me rather tame and prosaic.

8 October 1934

*

And if great music rolled from his far mouth,

This doesn't sound right. Either "rolled" must be changed or it should be something like "A mighty music rolled": that is to say, rolled is too sonant unless what precedes it is sonant also.

16 April 1937

*

Your remark about my fifth line ["And if great music . . . "] is liable to seem hypercritical but really there is a subtle truth in it. However, it is not possible to begin the line with an "A" ―for then the connection with the rest of the stanza is not so direct nor will the balance between the two quatrains be very clear.

I do not agree about the hypercriticism ―the reason I gave is of course a mental account, but the main test is the fall and feel of the words either on the "solar plexus" or on the receptive intuition and here a slight alteration makes all the difference. "a great music rolled" is obviously unconvincing whether as expression or rhythm. I had thought of "when" in view of the  

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intellectual construction of the lines, but dropped it because it lowered the rhythm and impressiveness of the line. If "when" however is to be there, I don't know whether "mighty" is any longer the right word though better than "great". For inevitability (of whatever height) everything depends on the combination of words and the suggestive sound rhythm.

17 April 1937

On Writing Sonnets

A sonnet is a poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines arranged either in an octet and sestet with a particular arrangement of the rhyme-structure ―two-rhymed octet (of eight lines) abba abba and the sestet (of six lines) three rhymed, the arrangement according to choice, except that a closing couplet is avoided ―or else in three quatrains with alternate rhymes and a closing couplet. The building of the thought in the sonnet must be very carefully worked out. A thought is built up or prepared in the octet and its culmination or outcome expressed in the sestet ―. Or else it is worked up in the three quatrains and the climax or culminating point reached in the closing couplet. The first is the Miltonic, the second the Shakespearean form of the sonnet. Other forms can be made but these are the two classic sonnet structures in English literature.

Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats are the greatest sonnet writers in English. You can find the best sonnets in the Golden Treasury. There are others also who have written sonnets of the highest quality e.g. Sidney, Shelley ―you will find there these also.

17 April 1936

*

Has it struck you that these sonnets are rather simple as regards their rhythm? Should not there be variations in pauses and overflows, different rhymes, etc.?

It is the Shakespearean model, three quatrains each with alternate rhymes and a couplet. Pauses and overflows are not usual in this type. Variations ―depends on what variations.  

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For example, the rhymes in the sestet could be CDE, CDE.

It would no longer be the Shakespearean model. In the Miltonic form the sestet is rhymed anyhow, the one you prefer being only one sequence, provided there are three rhymes and no couplet; but then the octet has to follow a fixed system of two rhymes only ABBA ABBA. Nowadays however people throw the sonnet into all sorts of irregular forms, I believe.

20 December 1936

The Ode

What is meant by an ode? Is it another name for an invocation?

No. It is a lyrical poem of some length on a single subject e.g. the Skylark (Shelley), Autumn (Keats), the Nativity (Birth of Christ) (Milton) working out a description or central idea on the subject.

14 June 1937

Lyric, Narrative, Epic

I am having much difficulty with the aksara-vrtta (yaugika as it is now called). I can manage svara-vrtta and mātra-vrtta, . . but not the other.

It is a question of the inspiration adopting the form proposed. At first there may be a little difficulty as it is the more lyric movements in which it has been accustomed to flow.

11 August 1936

*

It is quite natural that the narrative should flow less than the lyrical ―it is a work that demands more strenuous qualities and a well-built preparation. But it is by overcoming the difficulties that the poetic capacity grows. If one is satisfied with the lyrical vein it is all right ―but if one wants to do great work in more difficult forms, one must face the difficulties.

24 July 1937

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Narratives then can be made or written very poetically, not like a mere fact-to-fact storytelling?

But what do you mean by poetically? A fact-to-fact storytelling can be very poetic. Poetry is poetic whether it is put in simple language or freely adorned with images and rich phrases. The latter kind is not the only "poetic" poetry nor is necessarily the best. Homer is very direct and simple, Virgil less so but still restrained in his diction; Keats tends always to richness; but one cannot say that Keats is poetic and Homer and Virgil are not. The rich style has this danger that it may drown the narration so that its outlines are no longer clear. This is what has happened with Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and Lucrece; so that Shakespeare cannot be called a great narrative poet.

13 July 1937

*

As narrative poetry and epic are not the same, why should the former give me a training in the latter?

It is necessary to be able to work out a subject at length in a clear well-built way ―epic is usually of a narrative build ―so narrative poetry is the best training for that. The narrative writers you speak of did not aspire to be epic poets.

6 June 1937

*

How may I learn the epic style of blank verse?

I suppose it is best done by reading the epic writers until you get the epic rush or sweep.

Is it too early for me to learn it?

Epic writing needs a sustained energy of rhythm and word which is not easy to get or maintain. I am not sure whether you can get it now. I think you would first have to practise maintaining the level of the more energetic among the lines you have been writing.

3 May 1937  

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Is your Love and Death an epic, and Urvasie and Baji Prabhou?

Love and Death is epic in long passages. Urvasie is written on the epic model. Baji Prabhou is not epic in style or rhythm.

Are your twelve recent poems too in the epic style?

No, they are lyrical, though sometimes there may come in an epic elevation.

Will reading Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained help?

Paradise Lost, yes. In the other Milton's fire had dimmed.

Kindly mention all the epic writers in all the languages ―it is good to know, at least.

In English Paradise Lost and Keats' Hyperion (unfinished) are the two chief epics. In Sanskrit Mahabharata, Ramayana, Kalidasa's Kumarsambhava, Bharavi's Kiratarjuniya. In Bengali Meghnadbodh. In Italian Dante's Divine Comedy and Tasso's (I have forgotten the name for the moment) are in the epic cast. In Greek of course Homer, in Latin Virgil. There are other poems which attempt the epic style, but are not among the masterpieces. There are also primitive epics in German and Finnish (Nibelungenlied, Kalevala) ―

4 May 1937

*

This afternoon, in a kind of sleep, I read a whole passage of an epic in English. All fled like vapour on waking up. I caught only this:

This is only part of a line, three feet ―the blank verse line is five feet. As far as it goes, it is quite correct. Full lines could be something like this:

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A foot in the pentameter blank verse is of two syllables; normally the accent is on the second syllable of the foot, but for variety's sake it can fall on the first. e.g. we|. Or there can be a foot without stress e.g.  . followed sometimes by a foot of double stress as . Sometimes an anapaest, very light, can be put in in place of the 2 syllable foot, e.g. In the   . Other variations there can be, but they are more rare.

5 May 1937

*

Is there a difference between blank verse and poetry which is quite epic and blank verse and poetry which is written only in the epic style, model or manner?

I don't quite understand the point of the question. Poetry is epic or it is not. There may be differences of elevation in the epic style, but this seems to be a distinction without a difference.

Surely there must be some difference between an epic, true and genuine throughout and a poem which is only in the epic style or has the epic tone?

An epic is a long poem usually narrative on a great subject written in a style and rhythm that is of a high nobility or sublime. But short poems, a sonnet for instance can be in the epic style or tone, e.g. some of Milton's or Meredith's sonnet on Lucifer or, as far as I can remember it, Shelley's on Ozymandias.

What are the qualities or characteristics that tell one "This is an epic"?

I think the formula I have given is the only possible definition. Apart from that, each epic poet has his own qualities and characteristics that differ widely from the others. For the rest one can feel what is the epic nobility or sublimity, one can't very well analyse it.  

Page-616

In Sanskrit epics, e.g. Kumarsambhav, what has made up the rhythm? And how does it sound so grave, lofty, wide and deep?

It is a characteristic that comes natural to Sanskrit written in the classical style.

How can one have all these qualities together?

Why not? they are not incompatible qualities.

English seems to have the necessary tone more easily, but is it possible in Bengali?

I don't know why it shouldn't be. Madhu Sudan's style is a lofty epical style; it is not really grave and deep because his mind was not grave or deep ―but that was the defect of the poet, not necessarily an incapacity of the language.

11 May 1937

*

I would like my present poems to come in a few lines, but the epical tone to be more and more perfect every day.

The epic movement is something that flows; it may not be good to try to shut it into a few lines. There might be a danger of making something too compact. If that can be avoided, then of course it is better to write a few lines with a heightened epic tone than many with the lesser tone.

13 May 1937

*

One day after reading something you wrote about epics and epic poetry, a flaming aspiration entered my heart that one day I must write an epic. [Details of the proposed epic given.] Please tell me what an epic should consist of.

There must be a great subject ―the one you propose is obviously a very big one; there must be what is called an architecture of the poem, each part of it clearly planned and in its right place so as to create a perfect harmony, like the noble or magnificent mass  

Page-617

and detail of a great building; there must be a perfect working out of the subject.

Will the study of the structure and characteristics of the great epics help me to learn about the building and technique?

It is not necessary to read all the epics ―two or three if properly appreciated, i.e. if you see and feel the right things in it to learn from would be sufficient.

I shall wait till I hear from you whether you approve of the aspiration at all.

The idea you have given is a very vast one, but if the epic faculty develops in you there is no reason why you should not carry it out. Only there must be no impatience. Milton waited twenty years before he started the epic he had dreamt of. Also from the point of view and kind of style in which you want to write it, you will have not only to get the access to the inspiration of the overhead poetry but to be quite open to the flow of that consciousness ―otherwise you would only do small poems in it like Amal's, such a vast work would be impossible. At present go on with your development ―you have the epic flow but not as yet the epic building, that must come in small things before you can do it in large ones. It will come in time, but time is necessary.

21 May 1937

*

Please tell me why I often jump back to the sonnet source instead of steadily keeping to the epic source. The more I try to be "fine" the more I lose the epic source.

It is a matter of habit. Also the attempt to be "fine" is not good for epic writing. None of the great epic poets wrote "finely" ―nobility or power or a clear and great strength of style and substance and spirit is their characteristic.

What shall I do in order to get access to the inspiration of overhead poetry? And more especially, "to be quite open to

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the flow of that consciousness" [see letter of 21 May 1937, p. 618]? What is this over-consciousness? Will it come to me so early? Or were you speaking only with regard to the future?

I spoke of the future. This is a thing that can only be done by growth of consciousness through sadhana.

Why did Milton wait so long? To prepare himself?

If he had written it when he first conceived the idea, he would have written a beautiful and noble romance, but not an epic. He felt he was not ready. For a long time afterwards he was engaged in politics and wrote only a few sonnets.

27 May 1937

*

Were all the epic poets quite advanced in age when they began their work? Has age anything to do with one's best work?

At a more advanced age the mind is more mature and capable of a large and great subject. The greatest works in literature have usually been done at such an age.

14 June 1937

*

Must I wait till I am 48 or 50? By doing sadhana, may I not be ready between 35 and 38? Forty or after is too far.

There is no fixed age, but most work (great work) of that kind has been done at 40 or 50 or after. Sadhana is another matter, but as I have said sadhana cannot be done with the sole object of writing an epic.

29 June 1937

An Epic Line

Do you think the blank verse here [in the poem Agni Jatavedas] has any epical ring?

No ―there are sometimes epic or almost epic lines, but the whole or most of it has not the epic ring. There is one epic line

An infinite rapture veiled by infinite pain.  

Page-619

Perhaps the first three lines are near the epic ―there may be one or two others.

19 May 1937

The Line and the Poem

In English poetry it will not do only to string beautiful lines together ―the subject must be thought out to the end ―there is necessary a harmonious building, idea structure or feeling structure or vision structure. It is necessary to learn this also for the epic poetry.

29 May 1937

*

The first line [in a poem sent for approval] is one I have used before, but it didn't stir you so much, perhaps because the necklace of which it was one jewel was not harmoniously beautiful.

Naturally ―poetry is not a matter of separate lines ―a poem is beautiful as a whole ―when it is perfect each line has its own beauty but also the beauty of the whole.

4 November 1938

Sri Aurobindo's Critical Comments

on Poetry Written in the Ashram

You seem to demand a very rigid and academic fixity of meaning from my hastily penned comments on the poetry sent to me. I have no unvarying aesthetic standard or fixed qualitative criterion, ―not only so but I hold any such thing to be impossible with regard to so subtle and unintellectual an essence as poetry. It is only physical things that can be subjected to fixed measures and unvarying criteria. Appreciation of poetry is a question of feeling, of intuitive perception, of a certain aesthetic sense, it is not the result of an intellectual judgment.

My judgment does differ with different writers and also with different kinds of writing. If I put "very good" on a poem of Shailen's, it does not mean that it is on a par with Harin's or Arjava's or yours. It means that it is very good Shailen, but  

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not that it is very good Harin or very good Arjava. "If `very good' was won by them all," you write! But, good heavens, you write that as if I were a master giving marks in a class. I may write "good" or "very good" on the work of a novice if I see that it has succeeded in being poetry and not mere verse however correct or well rhymed ―but if Harin or if Arjava or you were to produce work like that, I would not say "very good" at all. There are poems of yours which I have slashed and pronounced unsatisfactory, but if certain others were to send me that, I would say, "Well, you have been remarkably successful this time." I am not giving comparative marks according to a fixed scale. I am using words flexibly according to the occasion and the individual. It would be the same with different kinds of writing. If I write "very good" or "excellent" on some verses of Dara about his chair, I am not giving it a certificate of equality with some poem of yours similarly appreciated ―I am only saying that as humorous easy verse in the lightest vein it is very successful, an entertaining piece of work. Applied to your poem it would mean something different altogether.

Coming from your huge P.S. to the tiny body of your letter, what do you mean by "a perfect success"? I meant that pitched in a certain key and style it [a certain poem] had worked itself out very well in that key and style in a very satisfying way from the point of view of thought, expression and rhythm. From that standpoint it is a perfect success. If you ask whether it is at your highest possible pitch of inspiration, I would say no, but it is nowhere weak or inadequate and it says something poetically well worth saying and says it well. One cannot always be writing at the highest pitch of one's possibility, but that is no reason why work of very good quality in itself should be rejected.

15 November 1934

*

I see no earthly use in producing something that is just "all right" when I am obsessed with an intuition of some hitherto unrevealed miraculous poetic creation existing on a plane I absolutely despair of reaching. . . . I beg to be excused, again,  

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for this much ado about nothing but I am awfully disgusted with myself.

You should get rid of the disgust. The sonnet in its amended form is fine enough ―if I do not shoot up into enthusiasm about it, it is for two reasons ―1st because I am becoming cautious about the use of superlatives nowadays, not for poetical or critical but for other reasons and secondly because I expect you to do much better than your present best and if I use high expressions, what the devil shall I do when you rise to yet unexpected summits. So you need not be damped by my "all rights" etc. ―on the contrary you should give full value to both the all and the right.

1 May 1934

*

Could you just mark for me the nuances of "very good", "very fine" and "very beautiful"? Sometimes you write: "exceedingly fine and beautiful".

But these remarks of mine are not intended to summarise a considered and measured criticism ―they simply express the impression made on me at the time of reading. I shall be very badly embarrassed if you insist on my explaining the nuances of such very summary expressions. "Exceedingly" for instance does not convey that the poem was "inevitable", it simply means that I was exceedingly pleased with it for some reason or another. If I wanted to pronounce a measured criticism or appreciation, I should do it in more precise language and at greater length than that.

17 September 1934

*

If I could be told what exactly to change in order that my recent lines might achieve full success and become "very fine", I would be thankful.

I have told you once that I have become more subdued in my appreciations of poetry ―so "fine" may very well be changed to "very fine". The poem you wrote was without a flaw positive or negative ―to alter it would be to spoil it.

11 October 1934

*

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The word "fine" means not, of course, "full of flaws" but there is something, somehow, somewhere wrong ―for the following reason. "Good" means some imperfection, some flaw. Now, when I asked you whether the terms" very good", "very fine", "very beautiful" indicated different levels of excellence or merely different kinds on the same level, you said different kinds rather than levels. This means, analogically, that "good" and "fine" indicate also the same level. Ergo, "fine" means, too, some imperfection, some flaw.

What an extraordinarily sinuous and fantastic knowledge! My language would indeed be peculiar if the words I use mean just their opposites ―i.e. good = bad, fine = flawed, beautiful = ugly. A poem may be good poetry without being a complete success, but if it is very good then it is a complete success. Fine cannot possibly mean something that is not fine, as it always implies a high excellence. Naturally the kind of fineness may vary and the degree also. There is no new unprecedented superior shade or transvaluation of values. I mean just the same thing as when I speak of fine lines ―i.e. lines reaching a high level of excellence. These words are only summary words giving the general impression.

11 October 1934

*

Originally you said [of a certain poem], "it is a fine poem" but when I asked whether that meant any inferiority to those you had designated as "very fine" or "very good" etc., you answered "No." Does that imply that I might add "very" here also?

Really, I don't measure my appreciations or rather my impressions in the dreadfully professorial way you suggest. What is wrong with "fine"? A fine poem is not worth keeping?

11 May 1936

*

Now if one poem you have considered "very fine" and another only "fine", is it illogical of me to suppose that there is some difference of quality between the two? Even if I keep the poem I cannot feel that I have done my best ―but the situation  

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becomes strange if by "fine" and "very fine" you mean the same thing sometimes. Does it really amount to asking you to be "dreadfully professorial" if I beg you to let this distinction, created by "very" or some such expression, be clear?

But, again, what is wrong with fine? How is fineness a failure? ―It is professorial because, when you insist on the curious distinction between very fine and "only" fine, it seems to be like an examiner giving marks, alpha class, beta class, gamma, delta class etc. Poetry can't be marked in that way, that's why I objected. If any of your poems is unsatisfactory, I generally say so and sharply enough too.

May 1936

*

Jyotirmayi confided to me that when you call any of her poems "very successful" she feels quite depressed for not being able to write something "very fine" or "very beautiful". I told her that as soon as she saw "very" anywhere she must shoot straight up to the seventh heaven of joy. But surely, surely, if that blessed word is pointedly omitted, even a pachyderm like me might feel a little pricked!

What an importance to give to an adverb! Fine by itself is quite equal to "very good" ―shall I start other categories e.g. "very very" and "very very very"?

2 August 1936

*

It is a fact that "very good" doesn't appeal as much as "very beautiful", "very fine".

There is some difference of course but the words must not be taken as exact weight measures. They simply record an impression.

6 August 1936

*

You've said that the poem now is "very fine", but why is it so?

Why is a poem fine? By its power of expression and rhythm, I suppose, and its force of substance and image. As all these are there, I call it a fine poem.

5 December 1936

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You all attach too much importance to the exact letter of my remarks of the kind as if it were a giving of marks. I have been obliged to renounce the use of the word "good" or even "very good" because it depressed Nirod ―though I would be very much satisfied myself if I could always write poetry certified to be very good. I write "very fine" against work which is not improvable, so why ask me for suggestions for improving the unimprovable? As for rising superior to yourself that is another matter ―one always hopes to do better than one has yet done, but that means not an avoidance of defects ―I always point out ruthlessly anything defective in your work ―but to rise higher, wider, deeper etc., etc. in the consciousness. Incidentally, even if my remarks are taken to be of mark-giving value, what shall I do in future if I have exhausted all adverbs? How shall I mark your self-exceeding if I have already certified your work as exceeding? I shall have to fall back on roars "Oh, damned fine, damned damned damned fine!"

15 May 1937

Sri Aurobindo's Comments on Poetry

Written Outside the Ashram

As to Suhrawardy, you can if you like send the complimentary portion of my remarks with perhaps a hint that I found his writing rather unequal, so that it may not be all sugar. But the phrases about "album poetry" and chaotic technique are too vivid ―being meant only for private consumption ―to be transmitted to the writer of the poems criticised; I would for that have expressed the same view in less drastic language. As I have already said once, I do not like to write anything disparaging or discouraging for those whom I cannot help to do better. I received much poetry from Indian writers for review in the Arya, but I always refrained because I would have had to be very severe. I wrote only about Harindranath because there I could sincerely, and I think justly, write unqualified praise.

25 May 1931

*

I hope Dilip is not sending Kshitish Sen my adverse criticism of  

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his translation ―it was not meant for him. I do not like to discourage people uselessly, ―that is to say, where I cannot show them how to do better; where I cannot encourage, I prefer to say nothing. For the rest (omitting the sentence about rhetorical flatness) he can do as he likes.

19 November 1930

*

I don't want to say anything [about a certain book], because when I cannot positively encourage a young and new writer, I prefer to remain mum. . . . Each writer must be left to develop in his own way.

31 May 1943  

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