{"id":1275,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:46","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T08:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1275"},"modified":"2013-11-28T15:15:27","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T23:15:27","slug":"35-the-process-form-and-substance-of-poetry-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/09-the-future-poetry-volume-09\/35-the-process-form-and-substance-of-poetry-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-35_The Process, Form and Substance of Poetry\u00a0.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nSECTION ONE<\/font><\/b> 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Process, Form and Substance of Poetry <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPOETIC NOBILITY AND GRANDEUR: EPIC AND<\/font><\/span> BALLAD MOVEMENTS<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

I<\/font><\/b> \n<\/p>\n

              I<\/b> <\/span>am unable to agree that Chapman’s poetry is
\nnoble or equal, even at its best, to Homer and it seems to me that you have not
\nseized the subtler quality of what Arnold means by noble. "Muscular vigour, strong nervous rhythm" are forceful, not noble. Everywhere in your
\nremarks you seem to confuse nobility and forcefulness but there is between the
\ntwo a gulf of difference. Chapman is certainly forceful, next to Marlowe, I
\nsuppose, the most forceful poet among the Elizabethans. Among the lines you
\nquote from him to prove your thesis, there is only one that approaches
\nnobility:<\/p>\n

Much
\nhave I suffered for<\/span> thy love,
\nmuch laboured,<\/span> wish\u00e8d much<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014 and even then it is spoilt for me by the
\nlast two words which are almost feeble. The second quotation:<\/p>\n

When the unmeasured firmament bursts to
\ndisclose her light <\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage – 314<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

has a rhythm which does not mate with the idea and
\nthe diction; these are exceedingly fine and powerful \u2014 but not noble. There is
\nno nobility at all in the third:<\/p>\n

And such a stormy day shall come, in mind and soul I know,<\/i><\/p>\n

When sacred Troy shall shedher towersfor tears of’overthrow.<\/i><\/p>\n

             The first line of the couplet is rhetorical and
\npadded, the second is a violent, indeed extravagant conceit which does not
\nconvey any true and high emotion but is intended to strike and startle the
\nintellectual imagination. One has only to compare Homer’s magnificent lines
\nabsolute in their nobility of testrained yet strong emotion, in which the words
\nand rhythm\u00a0 <\/span>give the very soul of the
\nemotion, but in its depth, not with any outward vehe\u00admence. In the fourth
\nquotation:<\/p>\n

Heard Thetis\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>foul
\npetition and wished in any wise <\/i><\/p>\n

The splendour of the burning ships might
\nsatiate his eyes<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014 the first line has the ordinary ballad
\nmovement and diction and cannot rank, the second is very fine poetry, vivid,
\npowerful, impressive; with a beginning of grandeur \u2014 but the nobility of Homer,
\nVirgil or Mifton is not there. The line strikes at the mind with a great
\nvehemence in order to impress it – nobility in poetry enters in and takes
\npossession with an assured gait by its own right. It would seem to me that one
\nhas only to put the work of these greater poets side by side with Chapman’s
\nbest to feel the difference. Chapman no doubt lifts rocks and makes mountains
\nsuddenly to rise \u2014 in that sense he has elevation or rather eleva\u00adtions; but in
\ndoing it he gesticulates, wrestles, succeeds finally\u00a0 <\/span>with a shout of triumph; that does not give a
\nnoble effect or a noble movement. See in contrast with what a self-possessed
\ngrandeur, dignity or godlike ease Milton, Virgil, Homer make their ascensions
\nor keep their high levels.<\/p>\n

     Then I come to Arnold’s
\nexample of which you’question the nobility on the strength of my description of
\none essential of the poetically noble. Mark that the calm, self-mastery,
\nbeautiful control which I have spoken of as essential to nobility is a poetic, <\/p>\n

\nPage – 315<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

not an ethical or Yogic calm and control. It does
\nnot exclude the poignant expression of grief or passion, but it expresses it
\nwith a certain high restraint so that even when the mood is personal it yet borders
\non the widely impersonal. Cleopatra’s words\u00b9 are an example of what I mean; the
\ndisdainful compassion for the fury of the chosen instrument of self-destruction
\nwhich vainly thinks it can truly hurt her, the call to death to act swiftly and
\nyet the sense of being high above what death can do, which these few simple
\nwords convey has the true essence of nobility. "Im\u00adpatience" only!
\nYou have not caught the significance of the words "poor venomous
\nfool", the tone of the "Be angry, and despatch", the tense and
\nnoble grandeur of the suicide scene with the high light it sheds on Cleopatra’s
\ncharacter. For she. was a remarkable woman, a great queen, a skilful ruler and
\npolitician, not merely the erotic intriguer people make of her. Shakespeare is
\nnot good at describing greatness, he poetised the homme moyen <\/span><\/i>but he
\nhas caught something here. The whole passage stands on a par with the words of
\nAntony "I am dying, Egypt, dying" (down to "A Roman by a Roman
\nvaliantly vanquished") which stand among the noblest expressions of high,
\ndeep, yet collected and contained emotion in literature \u2014 though that is a
\nmasculine and this a feminine nobility. There is in the ballad of Sir Patrick
\nSpense the same poignancy and restraint \u2014 something that gives a sense of
\nuniversality and almost impersonality in the midst of the pathetic expression
\nof sorrow. There is a quiver but a high compassionate quiver, there is no wail
\nor stutter or vehe\u00admence. As for the rhythm, it may be the ballad
\n"alive", but it is not "kicking" \u2014 and it has the overtones
\nand undertones which ballad rhythm has not at its native level. Then for the
\nother example you have given \u2014 lines didactic in intention can be<\/p>\n

\u00b9 If thou and nature can
\nso gently part, <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch,<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Which hurts and is desir’d.\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n

……….Come, thou mortal wretch,<\/font><\/p>\n

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

Of life at once untie; poor venomous fool,<\/font><\/p>\n

Be angry, and despatch.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n–<\/font>        
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/span>Shakespeare<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage – 316<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

noble, as for instance, the example quoted by Arnold from Virgil,<\/p>\n

Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Fortunam ex aliis,<\/i> <\/p>\n

or the line quoted from Apollo’s speech about the dead body of
\nHector and Achilles\u2019 long-nourished and too self-indulgent rage against it.
\nJohnson’s two lines,<\/p>\n

 <\/i><\/p>\n

Still raise for good the supplicating voice,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But leave to Heaven the
\nmeasure and the choice,<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

are less fine and harmonious in their structure;
\nthere is some\u00adthing of a rhetorical turn and therefore it reaches a lower
\nheight of nobility, but nobility there is, especially in the second line of the<\/span> couplet. I do not find it cold;
\nthere is surely a strong touch of poetic emotion there.<\/p>\n

    I may say, however,’that grandeur and
\nnobility are kindred but not interchangeable terms. One can be noble without
\nreach\u00ading grandeur – one can be grand without the subtle quality of nobility.
\nZeus Qlympius is grand and noble; Ravana or Briareus with the thousand arms is
\ngrand without being noble. Lear going mad in the storm is grand, but too
\nvehement and disordered to be noble. I think the essential difference between
\nthe epic movement and ballad rhythm and language lies in this distinction
\nbetween nobility and force \u2014 in the true ballad usually a bare, direct and rude
\nforce. The ballad metre has been taken by modern poets and lifted out of its
\nnormal form and move\u00adment, tfiVen subtle turns and cadences and made the
\nvehicle of lyric beauty and fervour or of strong or beautiful narrative; but
\nthis is not the true original ballad movement and ballad motive. Scott’s
\nmovement is narrative, not epic \u2014 there is also a lyrical narrative movement
\nand that is the quality reached by Coleridge, perhaps the finest use yet made
\nof the ballad move\u00adment. It is doubtful whether the ballad form can bear the
\nepic lift for more than a line or two, a stanza or two \u2014 under the epic stress
\nthe original jerkiness remains while the lyric flow smooths it out. When it
\ntries to lift to the epic height, it does so with a <\/p>\n

\nPage – 317<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

jerk, an explosive leap or a quick canter; one feels
\nthe rise, but there is still something of the old trot underneath the movement.
\nIt is, at least what I feel throughout in Chesterton \u2014 there is a sense of
\neffort, of disguise with the crudity of the original form still showing through
\nthe brilliantly coloured drapery that has been put upon it. If there is no
\nclaim to epic movement I do not mind and can take it for what it can give, but
\ncomparisons with Homer and Virgil and the classic hexameter are perilous and
\nreveal the yawning gulf between the two movements. As to the line of fourteen
\nsyllables. Chapman often overcomes its difficulties but the jog-trot constantly
\ncomes out. It may be that all that can be surmounted but Chapman and Chesterton
\ndo not surmount it – whatever their heights of diction or imagination, the
\nmetre interferes with their maintenance, even, I think, with their attain\u00ading
\ntheir full eminence. Possibly a greater genius might wipe out the defect – but
\nwould a greater genius have cared to make the endeavour?<\/p>\n

    I have left myself no space or time for
\nChesterton as a poet and it is better so because I have not read The Ballad of the White Horse<\/i> and know
\nhim only by extracts. ‘Your pas\u00adsages establish him as a poet, a fine>and
\nvivid poet by intervals, but not as a great or an epic poet \u2014 that is my
\nimpression. Sometimes I find your praise of particular passages extravagant, as
\nwhen you seem to put Marlowe’s mighty line<\/p>\n

See, see where Christ’s
\nblood streams in the firmament<\/i><\/p>\n

and Chesterton’s facetious turn about the
\nstretched necks and burned beards on a par. Humour can be poetic and even epic,
\nlike Kaikeyi’s praise of Manthara’s hump in the Ramayana; but this joke of
\nChesterton’s does not merit such an apotheosis. That is ballad style, not
\nmighty or epic. Again all that passage about Colan and Earl Harold is poor
\nballad stuff \u2014\u00a0 <\/span>except the first three
\nlines and the last two \u2014 poor in diction, poor in move\u00adment. I am unable to
\nenthuse over<\/p>\n

It smote Earl Harold over the eye<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>And blood began to run.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/i>Page – 318<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

            The lines marrying the soft sentimentalism of the
\n"small white daisies" with the crude brutality of the "blood out
\nof the brain" made me at first smile with the sense of the incongruous, it
\nseemed almost like. an attempt at humour \u2014 at least at the grotesque. I prefer
\nScott’s Tunstall; in spite of its want of imagination and breadth it is as good
\na thing as any Scott has written; on the contrary, these lines show Chesterton
\nfar below his best. The passage about the cholera and wheat is less flat; it is
\neven impres\u00adsive in a way, but impressive by an exaggerated bigness and forced
\nattempt at epic greatness on one side and a forced and exaggerated childish
\nsentimentalism on the other. The two do not fuse and the contrast is grotesque.
\nThis cholera image might be fine out of its context, it is at least forceful
\nand vivid, but applied to a man (not a god or a demigod) it sounds too inflated
\n\u2014 while the image of the massacrer muttering sentimentally about bread while he
\nslew is so unnatural as to tread on or over the borders of the grotesque \u2014 it raises
\neven a smile like the poor small white daisies red with blood out of Earl
\nHarold’s brain. I could criticise further, but I refrain. On the other hand,
\nChester\u00adton is certainly very fine by flashes. His images and similes and
\nmetaphors are rather explosive, sometimes they are mere conceits like the
\n"cottage in the clouds", but all the same they have very often a high
\npoetic quality of revealing vividness. At times also he has fine ideas finely
\nexpressed and occasionally he achieves a great lyrical beauty and feeling. He
\nis terribly unequal and unre\u00adliable, violent, rocketlike, ostentatious, but at
\nleast in parts of this poem he does enter into the realms of poetry. Only, I
\nrefuse to regard the poem as an epic \u2014 a sometimes low-falling, sometimes
\nhigh-swinging lyrical narrative is the only claim I can concede to it.<\/p>\n

2<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

"Noble" has a special meaning, also
\n"elevation" is used in a cer\u00adtain sense by Arnold. In that sense
\nthese words do not seem to me to be applicable either to Chapman or to the
\nballad metre. Strong, forceful, energetic, impressive they may be \u2014 but nobi\u00adlity
\nis a rarer, calmer, more self-mastered, highly harmonious <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage – 319<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

thing than these are. Also, nobility and grandeur are not quite
\nthe same thing.<\/p>\n

2.2.1935<\/p>\n

3<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/b><\/p>\n

I have not much taste for the English ballad
\nform; it is generally either too flat or too loud and artificial and its basic
\nstuff is a strenuous popular obviousness that needs a very rare genius to
\ntransform it. <\/p>\n

20.11.1932<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PHILOSOPHY IN POETRY<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 1<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does your correspondent mean by "philosophy" in a
\npoem? Of course if one sets out to write a metaphysical argu\u00adment in verse like
\nthe Greek Empedocles or the Roman Lucretius, it is a risky business and is
\nlikely to land you into prosaic poetry which is a less pardonable mixture than
\npoetic prose. Even when philosophising in a less perilous way, one has to be
\ncareful not to be flat or heavy. It is obviously easier to be poetic when
\nsinging about a skylark than when one tries to weave a robe of verse to clothe
\nthe attributes of the Brahman. But that does not mean that there is to be no
\nthought or no spiritual thought or no expression of truth in poetry; there is
\nno great poet who has not tried to philosophise. Shelley wrote about the
\nskylark, but he also wrote about the Brahman.<\/p>\n

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Stains the white radiance of Eternity,<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

is as good poetry as<\/p>\n

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

There are flights of unsurpassable poetry in
\nthe Gita and the<\/p>\n

 Page – 320<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

Upanishads. These rigid dicta are always excessive
\nand there is no reason why a poet should allow the expression of his person\u00adality
\nor the spirit within him or his whole poetic mind to be clipped, cabined or
\nstifled by any theories or "thou shalt not"-s of this character.<\/p>\n

7.12.193.1<\/p>\n

P.S. And if one were to take
\nstock of your correspondent’s theories (that no poems should ever have any
\nphilosophy, etc.), then half the world’s poetry would have to disappear. Truth
\nand Thought and Light cast into forms of beauty cannot be banished in that
\ncavalier way. Music and art and poetry have striven from the beginning to
\nexpress the vision of the deepest and greatest things and not the things of the
\nsurface only, and it will be so as long as there are poetry and art and music.<\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If H had indicated that the God spoken of was not
\nthe sole Divinity he would have spoiled the poem. For the purpose of the poem
\nhe has to be spoken of as the sole Divinity. Why must we take the poem as an exercise
\nin philosophy? A poem is a poem, not a doctrine. It expresses something in the
\npoet’s mind or his feeling. If it agrees with the total truth or the highest
\ntruth of the universe, so much the better, but we cannot demand that of every
\npoet and every poem. My appreciation was given from the purely aesthetic
\nstandpoint. Even if a poet were to extol a false doctrine such as a malevolent
\nGod creating a painful universe, still if it were a fine poem I would enjoy and
\npraise it \u2014 although it would be there too an appearance of the universe but
\nnot spoiled by putting it forward as a doctrine.<\/p>\n

1.2.1935<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SAMENESS AND<\/span> VARIETY IN POETRY<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 1<\/b><\/p>\n

Ordinary poems (and novels) always write
\nabout love and similar<\/p>\n

 Page – 321<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

things. Is it one point against ordinary (non-spiritual)
\npoetry? If there is sameness of expression in spiritual poems, it is due either
\nto the poet’s binding himself by the tradition of a fixed set of symbols (e.g.
\nVaishnava poets, Vedic poets) or to his having only a limited field of expression
\nor imagination or to his delibe\u00adrately limiting himself to certain experiences
\nor customs that are dear to him. To readers who feel these things it does not
\nappear monotonous. Those who listen to Mirabai’s songs, don’t get tired of
\nthem, nor do I get tired of reading the Upanishads. The Greeks did not tire of
\nreading Anacreon’s poems enough he always wrote of wine and beautiful boys (an
\nexample of same\u00adness in unspiritual poetry). The Vedic and Vaishnava poets
\nremain immortal in spite of then" sameness which is in another way like
\nthat of the poetry of the troubadours in mediaeval Europe, deliberately chosen.
\nVariety, vaicitra,<\/i> is all very well, but it is the power of the poetry
\nthat really matters. After all every poet writes always in the same style, repeats
\nthe same vision of things in "different garbs".<\/p>\n

25. 5.1938<\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b>Well, and if a poet is a spiritual seeker what
\ndoes Tagore\u00b9 want him to write about? Dancing girls? A has done that. Wine and
\nwomen? Hafiz has done that. But he can only use them as symbols as a rule. Must
\nhe write about politics ? Why should he describe the outer aspects of world
\nnature, viśva-prakrti,<\/i> for their own sake, when his vision is of
\nsomething else within or even apart from her? Merely for the sake of variety?
\nHe then be\u00adcomes a mere litterateur.
\n<\/i><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Of course if a man simply
\nwrites to get poetic fame and a lot of readers, if he is only a poet, Tagore’s
\nadvice may be good for him.<\/p>\n

25.5.1938<\/p>\n

3<\/b><\/p>\n

Obviously, it is desirable not to repeat oneself or, if one has
\nto,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9 These remarks are apropos of
\nTagore’s view that only spiritual inspiration dealing with <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/font>Page – 322<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

it is desirable to repeat in another language and
\nin a new light. Still, even that cannot be overdone. The difficulty with most
\nwriters of spiritual poetry is that they have either a limited field of
\nexperience or are tacked on to a limited inspiration though an intense one. How
\nto get out of it ? The only recipe I know is to widen oneself (or one’s
\nreceptivity) always. Or else perhaps wait in the eternal quietude for a new
\n"white word" to "break" it \u2014 if it does not come,
\ntelephone. <\/p>\n

30.8.1937<\/p>\n

POETIC INTUITION AND CRITICAL
\nINTELLECT<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 What you have written as the general theory
\nof the matter seems to be correct and it does not differ substantially from what
\nI wrote. But your phrase about unpurposive repetition might carry a suggestion
\nwhich I would not be able to accept; it might seem to indicate that the poet
\nmust have a "purpose" in whatever he writes and must be able to give
\na logical account of it to the critical intellect. That is surely not the way
\nin which the poet or at least the mystic poet has to do his work. He does not
\nhimself deliberately choose or arrange word and rhythm but only sees it as it
\ncomes in the very act of inspiration. If there is any purpose of any kind, it
\nalso comes by and in the process of inspiration. He can criticise himself and
\nthe work; he can see whether it was a wrong or an inferior movement, he does
\nnot set about correct\u00ading it by any intellectual method but waits for the true
\nthing to come in its place. He cannot always account to the logical intellect
\nfor what he has done; he feels or intuits, and the reader or critic has to do
\nthe same.<\/p>\n

26.4.1946<\/p>\n

POETIC IMAGINATION AND EXPERIENCE<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But is it necessary to say which is which? It
\nis not possible to\u00a0 <\/span>deny that it was an
\nexperience, even if one cannot affirm it \u2014 not being in the consciousness of
\nthe writer. But even if it is an<\/p>\n

 Page – 323<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

imagination, it is a powerful poetic imagination which
\nexpresses what would be the exact feeling in the real experience. It seems to
\nme that that is quite enough. There are so many things in Wordsworth and
\nShelley which people say were only mental feel\u00adings and imaginations and yet
\nthey express the deeper seeings or feelings of the seer. For poetry it seems to
\nme the point is irrevelant.<\/p>\n

27.5.1936<\/p>\n

POETIC EXPRESSION AND PERSONAL
\nFEELING OF THE POET<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/b><\/p>\n

 What you say is quite true. Poets are mediums for
\na force of vision and expression that is not theirs, so they need not feel
\nexcept by reflection the emotions they utter. But of course that is not always
\nthe case \u2014 sometimes they express what they feel or at any rate what a part of
\ntheir being feels.<\/p>\n

25.9.1934<\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

What the poets feel when writing (those who
\nare truly inspired) is the great Ananda of creation, possession by a great
\nPower superior to their ordinary minds which puts some emotion or vision of
\nthings into a form of beauty. They feel the emotion of the thing they express,
\nbut not always as a personal feeling, but as Something which seizes hold of
\nthem for self-expression. But the personal feeling also may form a basis for
\nthe creation. <\/p>\n

26.9.1934<\/p>\n

POETIC EXPRESSION AND PERSONAL
\nATTITUDE OF THE POET<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These designations, a magnified ego, an
\nexalted outlook of the vital mind apply in Sadhana, but hardly to poetic
\nexpression which lifts or ought to lift to a field of pure personal-impersonal<\/p>\n

 Page – 324<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

bhāva.<\/i> An utterance of this kind can express
\na state of conscious\u00adness or an experience which is not necessarily the
\nwriter’s per\u00adsonal position or ego attitude but that of an inner spirit. So
\nlong as it is so the question of ego does not arise. It arises only if one
\nturns away from the poem to the writer and asks in what mood he wrote it and
\nthat is a question of psychological fact alien to the purpose of poetry. <\/p>\n

29.6.1935<\/p>\n

THE TWO PARTS OF THE POETIC
\nCREATOR<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your poem is forcible enough, but the quality
\nis rather rhetorical than poetic. Yet at the end there are two lines which are
\nvery fine poetry:<\/p>\n

Gay singing birds caught
\nin a ring of fire<\/i><\/p>\n

and<\/span><\/p>\n

A silent scorn that
\nsears Eternity.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

If you could not write the whole in that
\nstrain which would have made it epic almost in pitch, it is, I think, because
\nyour indigna\u00adtion was largely mental and moral, the emotion though very strong
\nbeing too much intellectualised in expression to give the poetic intensity of
\nspeech and movement. Indignation, the saeva
\nindignatio<\/i><\/span> of Juvenal, can produce poetry, but it must be either
\nvividly a vital revolt which stirs the whole feeling into a white heat of
\nself-expression \u2014 as in Milton’s famous sonnet\u00b9 \u2014 or a high spiritual or deep
\npsychic rejection of the undivine. Besides, it is well known that the emotion
\nof the external being, in the raw as it were, does not make good material for
\npoetry; it has to be transmuted into something deeper, less externally
\npersonal, more permanent before it can be turned into good poetry. There are
\nalways two parts of oneself which collaborate in poetry \u2014 the instrumental
\nwhich lives and feels what is written, makes a sort of projective
\nidentification with it, and the Seer-Creator within<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\u00b9 <\/b>On<\/i><\/font><\/span>
\nthe late Massacre in <\/i><\/font>Piedmont<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage – 325<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

who is not involved, but sees the inner significance
\nof it and listens for the word that shall entirely express this significance.
\nIt is in some meeting-place of these two that what is felt or lived is
\ntransmuted into true stuff of poetry. Probably you are not sufficiently
\ndetached from this particular life-experience and the reactions it created to
\ngo back deeper into yourself and trans\u00admute it in this way. And yet you have
\ndone it in the two magni\u00adficent lines I have noted, which have the virtue of
\nseizing the inner significance behind the thing experienced in the poetic or
\ninterpretative and not in the outward mental way. The first of these two lines
\nconveys the pathos and tragedy of the thing and also the stupidity of the waste
\nmuch more effectively than pages of denunciation or comment and the other
\nstresses with an extra\u00adordinary power in a few words the problem as flung by
\nthe revol\u00adting human mind and life against the Cosmic Impersonal.<\/p>\n

The detachment of which you speak, comes by
\nattaining the poise of the Spirit, the equality, of which the Gita speaks
\nalways, but also by sight, by knowledge. For instance, looking at what happened
\nin 1914 \u2014 or for that matter at all that is and has been happening in human
\nhistory \u2014 the eye of the Yogin sees not only the outward events and persons and
\ncauses, but the enormous forces which precipitate them into action. If the men
\nwho fought were instruments in the hands of rulers and financiers, these in
\nturn were mere puppets in the clutch of those forces. When one is habituated to
\nsee the things behind, one is no longer prone to be touched by the outward
\naspects \u2014 or to expect any remedy from political, institutional or social
\nchanges; the only way out is through the descent of a consciousness which is
\nnot the puppet of these forces but is greater than they are and can compel them
\neither to change or disappear.<\/p>\n

17.7.1931<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NEED OF LIFE-EXPERIENCE FOR
\nLITERARY CREATION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 1<\/b> <\/b><\/p>\n

Emotion
\nalone is not enough for producing anything that can <\/p>\n

                Page – 326<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

be called creation, at best it can give form to
\nsomething lyrical and passionate or to something charming or appealing. For any
\nconsiderable creation there must be a background of life, a vital rich and
\nstored or a mind and an imagination that has seen much and observed much or a
\nsoul that has striven and been conscious of its strivings. These are needed, or
\none or other of them, but the purdah is not likely to produce them, though
\nthere may be a lucky accident in the worst circumstances, but one can’t count
\non accidents. A George Eliot, a George Sand, a Virginia Woolf, a Sappho, or
\neven a Comtesse de Noailles grew up in other circumstances.<\/p>\n

30.4.1933 <\/p>\n

               2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The great novelists like the great dramatists
\nhave been usually men who lived widely or intensely and brought a world out of the
\ncombination of their inner and their outer observation, vision, experience. Of
\ncourse if you have a world in yourself, that is another matter.<\/p>\n

RELATION BETWEEN THE PERSONAL
\nCHARACTER AND LIFE EXPERIENCE AND THE WORK OF AN ARTIST<\/p>\n

The point that a man’s poetry or art need not
\nexpress anything that has happened in his personal life is rather too obvious
\nto be made so much of. The point is how far it can be supposed to be a
\ntranscript of his mind or mental life. It is obvious that his vital cast, his
\ncharacter may have very little to do with his writing, it might be its very
\nopposite; his physical mind also need not deter\u00admine the character of his
\nwritings; the physical mind of a romantic poet or artist may have been that of
\na commonplace respectable bourgeois; one who in his fiction is a benevolent phi\u00adlanthropist
\nreformer full of cheery optimistic sunshine may have been in actual life
\nselfish, hard, even cruel. All that is now well known and illustrated by
\nnumerous examples in the lives of great poets and artists. It is evidently in
\nthe inner mental personality<\/p>\n

 Page – 327<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

of a man that the key to his creation must be
\ndiscovered, not in his outward mind or life. Here again a poem or work of art
\nneed not be (though it may be) an exact transcription of a mental or spiritual
\nexperience; nor, if the creating mind takes up an inci\u00addent of the life, a
\nvital impression, emotion or reaction that had actually taken place, need it be
\nmore than a starting-point for the poetic creation. The "I" of a poem
\nis more often than not a dramatic or representative I, nothing less and nothing
\nmore. But it does not help to fall back on the imagination and say that all is
\nonly the imagination working with whatever material it may happen to choose.
\nThe question is how the imagination of a poet came to be cast in this peculiar
\nmould which differen\u00adtiates him as a creator not only from the millions who do
\nnot create but from all other poetic creators. There are two possible answers.
\nA poet or artist may be merely a medium for a creative Force which uses him as
\na channel and is concerned only with expression in art and not with the man’s
\npersonality or his inner or outer life. Or, man being a multiple personality, a
\ncrowd of personalities which are tangled up on the surface but separate within,
\nthe poet or artist in him may be only one of these many personalities and
\nconcerned only with its inner and creative func\u00adtion ; its work done, it may
\nretire and leave the man to the others. It may or may not use the experiences
\nof the others as material for its
\nwork; it may also meddle with the activity of the others <\/i><\/span>and try
\nto square their make-up and action to its own images and ideals. In fact it is
\na mixture of the two things that creates the poet. He is a medium for the
\ncreative Force which acts through him; it uses or picks up anything stored up
\nin his mind from his inner life or his memories or impressions of outer life
\nand things, anything it can or cares to make use of and this it moulds and
\nturns to its purpose. But still it is through the poet personality in him that
\nit works and this poet personality may be either a mere reed through which the
\nSpirit blows but laid aside after the tune is over, or it may be an active
\npower having some say even in the surface mental composition and vital and
\nphysical activities of the total composite creature. In that general
\npossibility there is room for a hundred degrees and variations and no rule can
\nbe laid down that covers all cases.<\/p>\n

 Page – 328<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

LITERARY STYLE AND HEREDITARY
\nINFLUENCES<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seems to me that this statement\u00b9 is quite
\nuntrue. A man’s style expresses himself, not the sum and outcome of his
\nancestors.<\/p>\n

24.1.1937<\/p>\n

THE ILLUSION OF REALISM<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

1<\/b><\/p>\n

I am afraid your correspondent is under the grip
\nof what I may call the illusion of realism. What all artists do is to take some\u00adthing
\nfrom life \u2014 even if it be only a partial hint \u2014 and transfer it by the magic of
\ntheir imagination and make a world of their own; the realists, e.g., Zola,
\nTolstoi, do it as much as anybody else. Each artist is a creator of his own
\nworld \u2014 why then insist on this legal fiction that the artist’s world must
\nappear as an exact imitation of the actual world around us ? Even if it does so
\nseem, that is only a skilful make-up, an appearance. It may be con\u00adstructed to
\nlook like that \u2014 but why must it be ? The characters and creations of even the
\nmost strongly objective fiction, much more the characters and creations of
\npoetry live by the law of their own life, which is something in the inner mind
\nof their crea\u00adtor \u2014 they cannot be constructed as copies of things outside. <\/p>\n

30.1.1933<\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Why should a creative artist write only about
\nproblems?<\/p>\n

What a stupidly rigid principle! Can X really
\nwrite nothing except what he has seen or experienced? What an unimaginative man
\nhe must be and how limited!<\/p>\n

I wonder whether Victor Hugo had to live in a
\nconvict’s<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9 "For style in the full sense is more than
\nthe deliberate and designed creation, more even than the unconscious and
\ninvoluntary creation, of the individual man, who therein expresses himself. The
\nself that he thus expresses is a bundle of inherited tendencies that come, the
\nman himself can never know whence." Havelock Ellis, The Dance\u00a0 <\/span>of\u00a0
\n<\/span>Life,<\/i> Constable <\/b>&
\nCo., <\/b><\/span>London, 1923, p. 175. <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/i>Page – 329<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i>prison before he
\ncreated Jean Valjean. Certainly one has to look at life, but there is no
\nobligation to copy faithfully from life. The man of imagination carries a world
\nin himself and a mere hint or suggestion from life is enough to start it going.
\nIt is recognised now that Balzac and Dickens created out of themselves their
\ngreatest characters which were not at all faithful to the life around them.
\nBalzac’s descriptions of society are hopelessly wrong, he knew nothing about
\nit, but his world is much more striking and real than the actual world around
\nhim which he misrepresented – even, life has imitated the figures he made,
\nrather than the other way round,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides, who is living in entire seclusion in
\nPondicherry? There are living men and women around you and human nature is in
\nfull play here as much as in the biggest city \u2014 only one has to have an eye to
\nsee what is within them and the imagination that takes a few bricks and can
\nmake out of them a great edifice. One must be able to see that human nature is
\none everywhere and pick out of it the essential things that can be turned into
\ngreat art.<\/p>\n

26.5.1934<\/p>\n

ART FOR ART’S<\/font><\/span> SAKE<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Art for Art’s sake ? But what, after all, is
\nmeant by this slogan and what is the real issue behind it ? Is it meant, as I
\nthink it was when the slogan first came into use, that the technique, the
\nartistry is all in all ? The contention would then be that it does not matter
\nwhat you write or paint or sculpt or what music you make or about what you make
\nit so long as it is beautiful writing, competent painting, good sculpture, fine
\nmusic. It is very evidently true in a certain sense, \u2014 in this sense that whatever
\nis perfectly expressed or represented or interpreted under the condi\u00adtions of a
\ngiven art proves itself by that very fact to be legitimate material for the
\nartist’s labour. But that free admission cannot be confined only to all
\nobjects, however common or deemed to be vulgar, \u2014 an apple, a kitchen pail, a
\ndonkey, a dish of carrots, \u2014 it can give a right of citizenship in the domain
\nof art to a moral<\/p>\n

 Page – 330<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

theme or thesis, a philosophic conclusion, a
\nsocial experiment; even the Five Years’ Plan or the proceedings of a District
\nBoard or the success of a drainage scheme, an electric factory or a big hotel
\ncan be brought, after the most modern or the still more robustious Bolshevik
\nmode, into the artist’s province. For, tech\u00adnique being all, the sole question
\nwould be whether he as poet, novelist, dramatist, painter or sculptor has been
\nable to triumph over the difficulties and bring out creatively the
\npossibilities of his subject. There is no logical basis here for accepting an
\napple and rejecting the Apple-Cart. But still you may say that at least the
\nobject of the artist must be art only, \u2014 even if he treats ethical, social or
\npolitical questions, he must not make it his main object to wing with the
\nenthusiasm of aesthetic creation a moral, social or political aim. But if in
\ndoing it he satisfies the conditions of his art, shows a perfect technique and
\nin it beauty, power, perfection, why not ? The moralist, preacher, philosopher,
\nsocial or political enthusiast is often doubled with an artist \u2014 as shining
\nproofs and examples there are Plato and Shelley, to go no farther. Only, you
\ncan say of him on the basis of this theory that as a work of art his creation
\nshould be judged by its success of craftsmanship and not by its contents; it is
\nnot made greater by the value of his ethical ideas, his enthusiasms or his
\nmetaphy\u00adsical seekings.<\/p>\n

But then, the theory itself is true only up
\nto a certain point. For technique is a means of expression; one does not write
\nmerely to use beautiful words or paint for the sole sake of line and colour;
\nthere is something that one is trying through these means to express or to
\ndiscover. What is that something? The first answer would be \u2014 it is the
\ncreation, it is the discovery of Beauty. Art is for that alone and can be judged
\nonly by its revelation or discovery of Beauty. Whatever is capable of being
\nmanifested as Beauty is the material of the artist. But there is not only
\nphysical beauty in the world \u2014 there is moral, intellec\u00adtual, spiritual beauty
\nalso. Still, one might say that "Art for Art’s sake" means that only
\nwhat is aesthetically beautiful must be expressed and all that contradicts the
\naesthetic sense of beauty must be avoided. Art has nothing to do with Life in
\nitself, things in themselves. Good, Truth or the Divine for their own sake, but<\/p>\n

 Page – 331<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

only in so far as they appeal to some aesthetic
\nsense of beauty, \u2014 and that would seem to be a sound basis for excluding the
\nFive Years\u2019 Plan, a moral sermon or a philosophical treatise. But here, again,
\nwhat after all is Beauty? How much is it in the thing itself and how much in
\nthe consciousness that perceives it? Is not the eye of the artist constantly
\ncatching some element of aesthetic value in the plain, the ugly, the sordid,
\nthe repellent and triumphantly conveying it through his material, \u2014 through the
\nword, through line and colour, through the sculptured shape?<\/p>\n

There is a certain state of Yogic
\nconsciousness in which all things become beautiful to the eye of the seer,
\nsimply because they spiritually are \u2014 because they are a rendering in line and
\nform of the quality and force of existence, of the consciousness, of the Ananda
\nthat rules the worlds, \u2014 of the hidden Divine. What a thing is to the exterior
\nsense may not be, often is not beautiful for the ordinary aesthetic vision, but
\nthe Yogin sees in it the something More which the external eye does not see, he
\nsees the soul behind, the self and spirit, he sees too lines, hues, harmonies
\nand expressive dispositions which are not to the first surface sight visible or
\nseizable. It may be said that he brings into the object something that is in
\nhimself, transmutes it by adding out of his own being to it \u2014 as the artist too
\ndoes something of the same kind but in another way. It is not quite that,
\nhowever; what the Yogin sees, what the artist sees, is there, his is a
\ntransmuting vision because it is a revealing vision; he discovers behind what
\nthe object appears to be, the something More that it is. And so from this point
\nof view of a realised supreme harmony all is or can be subject-matter for the
\nartist, because in all he can dis\u00adcover and reveal the Beauty that is
\neverywhere. Again, we land ourselves in a devastating catholicity; for here too
\none cannot pull up short at any given line. It may be a hard saying that one
\nmust or may discover and reveal beauty in a pig or its poke or in a parish pump
\nor an advertisement of somebody’s pills, and yet something like that seems to
\nbe what modern Art and Litera\u00adture are trying with vigour and conscientious
\nlabour to do. By extension one ought to be able to extract beauty equally well
\nout of morality or social reform or a political caucus or allow at least that
\nall these things can, if he wills, become legitimate subjects for<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Page – 332<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

the artist. Here, too, one cannot say that it is
\non condition he thinks of beauty only and does not make moralising or social
\nreform or a political idea his main object. For if with that idea foremost in
\nhis mind he still produces a great work of art, dis\u00adcovering Beauty as he moves
\nto his aim, proving himself in spite of his unaesthetic preoccupations a great
\nartist, it is all we can justly ask from him, whatever his starting-point, to
\nbe a creator of Beauty. Art is discovery and revelation of Beauty, and we can
\nsay nothing more by way of prohibitive or limiting rule.<\/p>\n

But there is one thing more that can be said,
\nand that makes a big difference. In the Yogin’s vision of universal beauty, all
\nbecomes beautiful, but all is not reduced to a single level. There are
\ngradations, there is a hierarchy in this All-Beauty and we see that it depends
\non the ascending power (Vibhuti) of Conscious\u00adness and Ananda that expresses
\nitself in the object. All is the Divine, but some things are more divine than
\nothers. In the artist’s vision too there are or can be gradations, a hierarchy
\nof values. Shakespeare can get dramatic and therefore aesthetic values out of
\nDogberry and Malvolio and he is as thorough a creative artist in his treatment
\nof them as in his handling of Macbeth or Lear. But if we had only Dogberry or
\nMalvolio to testify to Shakespeare’s genius, no Macbeth, no Lear, would he be
\nso great a dramatic artist and creator as he now is? It is in the varying
\npossibilities of one subject or another that there lies an immense difference.
\nApelles\u2019 grapes deceived the birds that came to peck at them, but there was
\nmore aesthetic content in the Zeus of Pheidias, a greater content of
\nConsciousness and there\u00adfore of Ananda to express and with it to fill in and
\nintensify the essential principle of Beauty, even though the essence of beauty
\nmay be realised perhaps with equal aesthetic perfection by either artist and in
\neither theme.<\/p>\n

And that is because just as technique is not
\nall, so even Beauty is not all in Art. Art is not only technique or form of
\nBeauty, not only the discovery or the expression of Beauty \u2014 it is a
\nself-expression of Consciousness under the conditions of aes\u00adthetic vision and
\na perfect execution. <\/b>Or,<\/span>
\nto put it otherwise, there are not only aesthetic values, but life-values,
\nmind-values, soul-values that enter into Art. The artist puts out into form not<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage – 333<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

only the powers of his own consciousness, but the
\npowers of the Consciousness that has made the worlds and, their objects. And if
\nthat Consciousness according to the Vedantic view is funda\u00admentally equal
\neverywhere, it is still in manifestation not an equal power in all things.
\nThere is more of the Divine expression in the Vibhuti than in the common man, prāk<\/span>rto
\njanah; <\/i>in some forms of life there are less potentialities for the
\nself-expression of the Spirit than in others. And there are also gradations of
\nconsciousness which make a difference, if not in the aesthetic value or
\ngreatness of a work of art, yet in its contents-value. Homer makes beauty out of
\nman’s outward life and action and stops there. Shakespeare rises one step
\nfurther and reveals to us a life-soul and life-forces and life-values to which
\nHomer had no access. In Valmiki and Vyas there is the constant presence of
\ngreat Idea-Forces and Ideals supporting life and its movements which were
\nbeyond the scope of Homer and Shakespeare. And beyond the Ideals and
\nIdea-Forces even there are other pre\u00adsences, more inner or inmost realities, a
\nsoul behind things and beings, the spirit and its powers, which could be the
\nsubject-matter of an art still more rich and deep and abundant in its interest
\nthan any of these could be. A poet finding these and giving them a voice with a
\ngenius equal to that of the poets of the past might not be greater than they in
\na purely aesthetic valua\u00adtion, but his art’s contents-value, its
\nconsciousness-values could be deeper and higher and much fuller than in any
\nachievement before him. There is something here that goes beyond any consi\u00adderation
\nof Art for Art’s sake or Art for Beauty’s sake; for while these stress usefully
\nsometimes the indispensable first elements of artistic creation, they would
\nlimit too much the creation itself if they stood for the exclusion of the
\nsomething More that com\u00adpels Art to change always in its constant seeking for
\nmore and more that must be expressed of the concealed or the revealed Divine,
\nof the individual and the universal or the transcendent Spirit.<\/p>\n

If we take these three elements as making the
\nwhole of Art, perfection of expressive form, discovery of beauty, revelation of
\nthe soul and essence of things and the powers of creative con\u00adsciousness and
\nAnanda of which they are the vehicles, then we<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage – 334<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

shall get perhaps a solution which includes the
\ntwo sides of the controversy and reconciles their difference. Art for Art’s
\nsake certainly; Art as a perfect form and discovery of Beauty; but also Art for
\nthe soul’s sake, the spirit’s sake and the expression of all that the soul, the
\nspirit wants to seize through the medium of beauty. In that self-expression
\nthere are grades and hierar\u00adchies, widenings and steps that lead to the
\nsummits. And not only to enlarge Art towards the widest wideness but to ascend
\nwith it to the heights that climb towards the Highest is and must be part both
\nof our aesthetic and our spiritual endeavour.<\/p>\n

17.4.1933<\/p>\n

\nPage – 335<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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