{"id":1276,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T08:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1276"},"modified":"2013-11-28T15:15:04","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T23:15:04","slug":"23-recent-english-poetry-3-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\/23-recent-english-poetry-3-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-23_Recent English Poetry &#8211; 3.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div class=\"Section1\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%' align=\"center\"><b><br \/>\n<span style='line-height:150%'><font size=\"4\">c<\/font><font size=\"2\">hapter<\/font><span><font size=\"4\"><br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><\/span><\/b><b><span style='line-height:150%'><font size=\"4\">XXII<\/font><\/span><\/b><font size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%' align=\"center\"><b><br \/>\n<span style='line-height:150%'><br \/>\n<font size=\"4\">\u00a0<\/font><\/span><span style='line-height:150%'><font size=\"4\">&nbsp; Recent English Poetry<\/font><span><font size=\"4\"> &#8211; 3<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<font size=\"4\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<font size=\"4\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br \/>\nT<\/font>HE rhythmic change which<br \/>\ndistinguishes the new poetry, may not be easy to seize at the first hearing,<br \/>\nfor it is a subtle thing in its spirit more than in its body, commencing only and<br \/>\nobscured by the outward adherence to the apparent turn-out and method of older<br \/>\nforms; but there is a change too, more readily tangible, in the language of<br \/>\nthis poetry, in that fusion of a concentrated substance of the idea and a<br \/>\ntransmuting essence of the speech which we mean by poetic style. But here too,<br \/>\nif we would understand in its issues the evolution of poetic speech in a<br \/>\nlanguage, it is on the subtler things of the spirit, the significant inner<br \/>\nchanges that we must keep our eye; for it is these that determine the rest and<br \/>\nare the heart of the matter. We take little account of the psychology of poetic<br \/>\ngenius and are content with saying that the word of the poet is the speech of<br \/>\nthe imagination or that he works by an inspiration. But this is an insufficient<br \/>\naccount; for imagination is of many different kinds and inspiration touches the<br \/>\nmind at different levels and breaks out through different media before it<br \/>\nissues through the gates of the creative imagination. What we mean by<br \/>\ninspiration is that the impetus to poetic creation and utterance comes to us<br \/>\nfrom a superconscient source above the ordinary mentality, so that what is<br \/>\nwritten seems not to be the fabrication of the brain-mind, but something more<br \/>\nsovereign breathed or poured in from above. That is the possession by the<br \/>\ndivine <i>enthousiasmos<\/i> of which Plato has spoken. But it is seldom that<br \/>\nthe whole word leaps direct from that source, that cavern of natal light<br \/>\nready-shaped and with the pure stamp of its divine origin, \u2014 ordinarily it goes<br \/>\nthrough some secondary process in the brain-mind itself, gets its impulse and<br \/>\nunformed substance perhaps from above, but subjects it to&#8217; an intellectual or<br \/>\nother earthly change; there is in that change always indeed some superior power<br \/>\nborn of the excitement of the<\/p>\n<p class=\"FR1\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;text-indent:24.0pt;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:\"Times New Roman\";font-weight:normal;font-style:normal'>Page \u2013 167<\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>higher possession, but also some alloy too of our<br \/>\nmortality. And the character, value and force of the word of the poet vary<br \/>\naccor\u00adding to the action of those parts of our mentality which dominate in the<br \/>\nchange, &#8212; the vital mind, the emotional<br \/>\ntemperament, the imaginative or reflective<br \/>\nintellect or the higher intuitive intelli\u00adgence. The Tantric<br \/>\ntheory of Speech, the inspired seeing and creative goddess enthroned in our<br \/>\nvarious soul-centres in her several forms and with her higher and higher<br \/>\nstations, becomes here an actual and luminously perceptible truth of our being.<br \/>\nBut also there is in us a direct medium between that divine and this human<br \/>\nmentality, an intuitive soul-mind supporting the rest, which has its share both<br \/>\nin the transmission and the formal creation, and it is where this gets out into<br \/>\novert working, discloses its shaping touch or makes heard its transmitting<br \/>\nvoice that we get the really immortal tones of speech and heights of creation.<br \/>\nAnd it is the epochs when there is in the mind of a race some enthusiastic<br \/>\noutburst or some calm august action of this intuitive power, intermediary of<br \/>\nthe inspirations of the spirit or its revela\u00adtions,<br \/>\nthat .make the great ages of poetry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:24.0pt;line-height:150%'>In English<br \/>\nliterature this period was the Elizabethan. Then the speech of poetry got into<br \/>\nit a ring and turn of direct intuitive power, a spontaneous fullness of vision<br \/>\nand divine fashion in its utterance which it had not at all before and has<br \/>\nhardly had after\u00adwards. Even the lesser poets of the time are touched by it,<br \/>\nbut in Shakespeare it runs in a stream and condenses to a richly-loaded and<br \/>\ncrowding mass of the work and word of the intuition almost unexampled in any<br \/>\npoetry. The difference can be measured by taking the work of Chaucer or of<br \/>\nsubsequent poets almost at their best and of Shakespeare at a quite ordinary<br \/>\nlevel and feeling the effect on the poetic listener in our own intuitive being.<br \/>\nWe take Chaucer with his easy adequate limpidity,\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span><i>He was a verray parfit<br \/>\ngentil knight,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>and then pass on to Shakespeare&#8217;s rapid seizing of<br \/>\nthe intuitive inevitable word and the disclosing turn of phrase which admits us<br \/>\nat once to a direct vision of the thing he shows us, \u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"FR1\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;text-indent:24.0pt;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:\"Times New Roman\";font-weight:normal;font-style:normal'>Page \u2013 168<\/span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:\"Times New Roman\"'><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"FR1\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i>&nbsp; Of moving accidents by flood and field,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Of hair-breadth\u2019<span>\u00a0 <\/span>scapes<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>I\u2019<span>\u00a0 <\/span>the imminent deadly breach,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>where with quite as simple a thing to say and a<br \/>\nperfect force of directness in saying it, it is yet a vastly different kind of<br \/>\ndirectness. The one speaks from the poetic intellect and satisfies by a just<br \/>\nand pleasing expression, in the other the words get, one might say, into the<br \/>\nentrails of vision and do not stop short at the clear mea\u00adsure of the thing<br \/>\nseen, but evoke their very quality and give us immediately the inmost vital<br \/>\nfibre and thrill of the life they des\u00adcribe and interpret. It is not merely a<br \/>\ndifference of the measure of the genius, but of its source. This language of<br \/>\nShakespeare&#8217;s is a unique and wonderful thing; it has everywhere the royalty of<br \/>\nthe sovereign intuitive mind looking into and not merely at life and in this<br \/>\nmost myriad-minded of poets it takes like life itself many tones, but that<br \/>\nintuitive readiness to get through, seize the lurking word and bring it out<br \/>\nfrom the heart of the thing itself is almost always its secret. From that, he<br \/>\nmight have said, could he have given a better account of his own working, and<br \/>\nnot by any mere mirroring of things in Nature,<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i>It was my hint to speak, such &#8216;was<br \/>\nthe process.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:22.0pt;line-height:150%'>We are most readily struck<br \/>\nin Shakespeare by the lines and passages in which the word thus seized and<br \/>\nbrought out is fol\u00adlowed swiftly oh the heels by another and another of its<br \/>\nkind, many crowding together or even fused and run into each other in a single<br \/>\nphrase of many suggestions, \u2014 for this manner is pecu\u00adliarly his own and others<br \/>\ncan only occasionally come near to it. Such passages recur to the mind as those<br \/>\nin the soliloquy on sleep or the well-known lines in <i>Macbeth,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Raze out the written<br \/>\ntroubles of the brain,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>And with some sweet<br \/>\noblivious antidote <\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Which weighs upon the<br \/>\nheart.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'>Page \u2013 169<\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span>His<\/span><br \/>\nis often a highly imaged style, but Shakespeare&#8217;s images are not, as with so<br \/>\nmany poets, decorative or brought in to enforce and visualise the intellectual<br \/>\nsense, they are more immediately revelatory, intimate to the thing he speaks<br \/>\nand rather the proper stuff of the fact itself than images. But he has too a<br \/>\nclearer, less crowded, still swifter fashion of speech in which they are absent;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>for an<br \/>\nexample,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i>She should have died hereafter;<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i>There would have been a time for such a word, \u2014<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>which has yet the same deep and penetrating<br \/>\nintuitive spirit in its utterance.<b> Or<\/b> the two manners meet together and<br \/>\nlean on each other,\u2014<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>I have lived long enough: my way of life<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Is<br \/>\nfallen into the sere, the yellow leaf,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>or become one, as in the last speeches of Antony, \u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i>&nbsp;<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>I am dying, Egypt, dying; only<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>I here importune death awhile, until<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Of<br \/>\nmany thousand kisses the poor last<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i>I lay upon thy lips.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span>But<\/span><br \/>\nall have the same characteristic stamp of the intuitive mind<i> <\/i>rapidly and powerfully at work; but always<br \/>\ntoo, \u2014 and this is the important distinction, \u2014 that .mediator<br \/>\nbetween the secret spirit and our ordinary surface mentality works in him through<br \/>\nand behind the life vision to give the vital impression, the vital psychology,<br \/>\nthe life-burden of the thought, the emotion, the act or the thing seen in<br \/>\nNature,<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>The movement that immediately followed, abandoned<br \/>\nthis power which Shakespeare and the Elizabethans had brought into English poetry; it<br \/>\nsought after a language cut into the precision or full with the suggestions of<br \/>\nthe poetical intellect, and it gained something by its sacrifice; it purified<br \/>\nthe language, got rid of Elizabethan conceit and extravagance, laid a clearer<br \/>\nbasis of&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'>Page \u2013 170<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center;line-height:150%'><b><i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>thought,<br \/>\nwent back to ordinary speech and raised it into a fit instrument of the<br \/>\npoetical imagination. But it lost this Shakespearian directness of intuitive vision<br \/>\nand spontaneous power of &#8216;utterance. Gray in a notable passage observes and<br \/>\nlaments the loss, without penetrating into its cause and nature, and he tried<br \/>\nsometimes in his own way, within the cadre of an intellectualised language, to<br \/>\nrecover something of the power. The later poets get a compensation in other<br \/>\ndirections by a heightening of the clarified thought and imagination, but the<br \/>\nbasic substance of the speech seems to have irrecoverably changed and its more<br \/>\ntenuous spirit and make impose on the searching audacities of the intuition the<br \/>\ncurbing restraints and limits of the imaginative in\u00adtelligence. Shelley&#8217;s<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i>Our sweetest songs are those that tell of<br \/>\nsaddest thought,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Keats&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>or his<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:14.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>To that large utterance of the early Gods,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><span>\u00a0<\/span>or Wordsworth\u2019s<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>the heavy and the weary weight <\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>Of all this unintelligible world,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>give the force and pitch and measure of this<br \/>\noften clear, strong, large and luminous, but less intensely surprising and uplifting<br \/>\nmanner. English poetry has got away from the Elizabethan outbreak nearer to a<br \/>\nkinship with the mind and manner of the Greek and Latin poets and their<br \/>\nintellectual descendants, though still, it is to be noted, keeping something, a<br \/>\nsubtle and intimate turn, a power of fire and ether which has become native to<br \/>\nit, a legacy from the Shakespearian speech which was not there in<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'>Page \u2013 171<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center;line-height:150%'><b><i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>its beginnings. This imaginatively intellectual basis<br \/>\nof speech remains constant down to the end of the Victorian era.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>But at the same time there emerges, at times, a<br \/>\ncertain effort to recapture the Shakespearian potency and intensity accom\u00adpanied<br \/>\nby a new and higher element in the workings of the poetic inspiration. When we<br \/>\ntry to put a name on it, \u2014 a thing which the poet himself seldom does<br \/>\nsuccessfully, for the creative instinct does not usually care to burden itself<br \/>\nwith a too intellectual self-consciousness, \u2014 we can see that this is an<br \/>\nattempt to return to the fullness and the awakening turn of the direct<br \/>\nintuitive expres\u00adsion on a subtler and more ethereal level. The clarified<br \/>\nintellect observing life from above is in itself a higher thing than the vital<br \/>\nand emotional mind which responds more immediately and powerfully to life, but<br \/>\nis caught in its bonds; and if the direct in\u00adtuitive power can be got to work<br \/>\non the level just above the ordinary thinking mind where that mind opens<br \/>\nthrough the full intuitive intelligence to a greater supra-intellectual mass<br \/>\nand subtlety of light, it will bring in the revelation and inspiration of<br \/>\nmightier and profounder things than when it works from behind the mind \u2014 even<br \/>\nthe vividly thinking mind of life and its vital sight and feeling. For here, on<br \/>\nthe lower level, we get at most, as in Shakespeare, -at the spirit in life with<br \/>\nall its power of vital thought and its potency of passion and emotion; but<br \/>\nthere we shall get the greater spirit which embraces life, but shows us too all<br \/>\nthat is behind it, all that it dimly means and strives in em\u00adbarrassed act and<br \/>\nthought to bring into expression. Of this effort and this new thing we get<br \/>\nmagical first indications in the pre-Victorian poets, as in Wordsworth\u2019s<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i>&nbsp;<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:10.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>And beauty born of murmuring sound<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:10.0pt;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Shall pass into her face,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><span>&nbsp;<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>.<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>or see the first motion towards it, the first seeking for a<br \/>\nsuitable style, as in Keats&#8217;<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:10.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>Deep in the shady sadness of a vale<\/i><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:24.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>Far sunken from the healthy breath of<br \/>\nmorn,<\/i><span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>Far from the fiery noon and eve&#8217;s one star,&nbsp;<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'>Page \u2013 172<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i><span><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>but also though less often, a sudden leaping out of the thing<br \/>\nitself,\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'><i>Solitary thinkings; such as dodge <\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'><i>Conception to the very bourne of heaven,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>or,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'><i>The journey homeward to habitual self!<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>These lines of Keats are Shakespearian in<br \/>\ntheir quality, they have recovered&#8217; the direct revealing word and intimate<br \/>\nimage of the full intuitive manner, but they enter into a world of thought, and<br \/>\ninner truth other than Shakespeare&#8217;s; by the passage through the detaching<br \/>\nintellect and beyond it they have got to the borders of the realm of another<br \/>\nand greater self than the life-self, though there we include and take up life<br \/>\ninto the deeper self-vision. In the Victorian poets we get occasionally the<br \/>\nsame tendency in a stronger but less happy force; for it is weighted down by an<br \/>\nincreased intellectuality, in Browning by the robust strenuousness of the<br \/>\nanalytic intelligence, in Tennyson by the tendency to mere trimming of<br \/>\nexpression or glitter and wealth of artistic colour; but we have its voice<br \/>\nsometimes, as in this line of the <i>Latos-Eaters, \u2014<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:16.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>But it has not yet arrived, it is still<br \/>\nseeking for itself, beating fitfully at the gates of the greater intuitive<br \/>\nvision and expression.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:34.0pt;line-height:150%'>But in more recent work it<br \/>\nis precisely the recovery of this supreme power of speech on that loftier and<br \/>\nsubtler level which to one who comes freshly to this poetry breaks out with a<br \/>\nsense of satisfying surprise and discovery. It is not complete; it is not<br \/>\neverywhere; it is only just rising from the acquired basis of the previous<br \/>\nheights of expression to its own realm; but it is there in a comparative<br \/>\nabundance and it is the highest strain of its inten\u00adsities. We find it in<br \/>\nMeredith; when he writes of &quot;Colour, the soul&#8217;s bridegroom&quot;, he has<br \/>\ngot the intimate revealing image of<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;text-indent:32.0pt;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'>Page \u2013 173<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i><span><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>this fuller and higher intuitive manner, or in his lark&#8217;s<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>silver chain of sound<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Of<br \/>\nmany links without a break:<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>when he writes, again,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i>Nor know they joy of sight<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Who deem<br \/>\nthe wave of rapt desire must be<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Its wrecking<br \/>\nand last issue of delight,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>he has got the perfected turn of the direct<br \/>\nintuitive word of thought in its more crowded manner of suggestion, \u2014 the kin\u00adship<br \/>\nin the last line to the Shakespearian manner is close, \u2014 as too its more clear<br \/>\nand limpid speech in other turns,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:150%'><i>The song seraphically<br \/>\nfree<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>From taint of personality;<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>and in the lines,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Dead seasons quicken in one petal spot<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>Of<br \/>\ncolour unforgot,<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>he has it ready for an intuitive and vivid spiritual<br \/>\ninterpretation of Nature. We find it in Phillips&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:30.0pt;line-height:150%'><i><span>Dreadful<br \/>\nsuspended business and vast life<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span><span>\u00a0<\/span><i>Pausing,<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><span>or<br \/>\nin his trees<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i>Motionless in an ecstasy of rain.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'><i>.<span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>In the Irish poets it comes with less of the Shakespearian kinship,<br \/>\nthough Yeats has often enough a different but corresponding manner, but most<br \/>\ncharacteristically in a delicate and fine beauty of the word of vision and of<br \/>\nan intuitive entrance into the mystery&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'>Page \u2013 174<\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>of<br \/>\nthings, as in lines like<b> <\/b><span>A.E&#8217;s<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'><i>Is thrilled by fires of hidden day<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'><i><span>\u00a0<\/span>And<br \/>\nhaunted by all mystery, .<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>or passages already quoted from Yeats, or, to<br \/>\ngive one other instance, his <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><i>When God goes by with<br \/>\nwhite footfall.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>This is a style .and substance which recovers<br \/>\nsomething that had been lost and yet is new and pregnant of new things in<br \/>\nEnglish literature.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'>It is sufficient at present to indicate this new<br \/>\npower of language. But we must see whence it arises and to what possi\u00adbility it<br \/>\npoints in the widening of the realms of poetic interpreta\u00adtion. It points to a<br \/>\ngreater thing than has yet been achieved and it is itself a higher achievement,<br \/>\n\u2014 apart from all question of the force and genius of individual poets.<br \/>\nShakespeare is still\u2014though need he be always?\u2014immeasurably the largest name in<br \/>\nEng\u00adlish poetry; but still, however preeminent his genius, there remain greater<br \/>\nthings to be seen by the poet than Shakespeare saw and greater things to be<br \/>\nsaid in poetry than Shakespeare said, \u2014 and here we have an indication of the way<br \/>\non which they lie and of the gates which open to their hiding-place and own<br \/>\nhome of light and self-revelation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;text-indent:19.0pt;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%'>Page &#8211; 175<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>chapter XXII&nbsp; \u00a0&nbsp; Recent English Poetry &#8211; 3 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; THE rhythmic change which distinguishes the new poetry, may not be easy to seize at&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","wpcat-29-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9601,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions\/9601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}