{"id":1279,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:48","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1279"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:48","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:48","slug":"04-rhythm-and-movement-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\/04-rhythm-and-movement-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-04_Rhythm and Movement.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nC<\/span>HAPTER<\/span><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>III<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nRhythm and Movement<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nT<\/font><\/b>HE
\nMantra, poetic expression of the deepest spiritual\u00a0 <\/span>reality, is only possible when three highest
\nintensities of poetic speech meet and become indissolubly\u00a0 <\/span>one, a highest\u00a0 <\/span>intensity of rhythmic movement, a highest
\nintensity of verbal form and thought-substance, or style, and a highest intensity
\nof the soul’s vision of truth. All great poetry comes about by a unison of
\nthese three elements; it is the insufficiency of one or another which makes the
\ninequalities in the work of even the greatest poets; and it is the failure of
\nsome one element which is the cause of their lapses, of the scoriae in their
\nwork, the spots in the sun. But it is only at certain highest level of the
\nfused intensities that the Mantra becomes possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a certain point of view it is the
\nrhythm, the poetic movement which is of primary importance; for that is the
\nfirst fundamental, indispensable element without which all the rest, whatever
\nits other value, remains inacceptable to the Muse of poetry. A perfect rhythm
\nwill often even give immortality to work which is slight in vision and very far
\nfrom the higher intensities of style. But it is not merely metrical rhythm,
\neven in a perfect technical excellence, which we mean when we speak of poetic
\nmovement; that perfection is only the first step, the physical basis. There
\nmust be a deeper and more subtle music, a rhythmical soul-movement entering
\ninto the metrical form and often overflooding it, before the real poetic
\nachievement begins. A mere metrical excellence, however subtle, rich or varied,
\nhowever perfectly it satisfies the outer ear, does not meet the deeper aims of
\nthe creative spirit; for there is an inner hearing which makes its greater
\nclaim, and to reach and satisfy it is the true aim of the creator of melody and
\nharmony. <\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless metre, by which we mean a
\nfixed and balanced measures of sound, mātrā <\/i>is not only the
\ntraditional, <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\nbut
\nalso surely the right physical basis for the poetic movement. A recent modern
\ntendency, \u2014 that which has given us the poetry of Whitman and Carpenter and the
\nexperimentalists in vers libre <\/i>in France and Italy, – denies this
\ntradition and sets aside metre as a limiting bondage, perhaps even a frivolous
\nartificiality or a falsification of true, free and natural poetic rhythm. That
\nis, it seems to me, a point of view which cannot eventually prevail, because it
\ndoes not deserve to prevail. It certainly cannot triumph, unless it justifies
\nitself by supreme rhythmical achievements beside which the highest work of the
\ngreat masters of poetic harmony in the past shall sink into a clear
\ninferiority. That has not yet been done. On the contrary, vers libre <\/i>has
\ndone its best when it has either limited its aim in rhythm to a kind of
\nchanting poetical prose or else based itself on a sort of irregular and complex
\nmetrical movement which in its inner law, though not in its form, recalls the
\nideal of Greek choric poetry.
\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Milton disparaging rhyme, which he had
\nhimself used with so much skill in his earlier, less sublime, but more
\nbeautiful poetry, forgot or ignored the spiritual value or rhyme, its power to
\nenforce and clinch the appeal of melodic or harmonic recurrence which is a
\nprincipal element in the measured movement of poetry, its habit of opening
\nsealed doors to inspiration, its capacity to suggest and reveal beauty to that
\nsupra-intellectual something in us which music is powerful to awake. The
\nWhitmanic technique falls into a similar, but wider error. When mankind found
\nout the power of thought and feeling thrown into fixed and recurring measures
\nof sound to move and take possession of the mind and soul, they were not
\ndiscovering a mere artistic device, but a subtle truth of psychology, of which
\nthe conscious theory is preserved in the Vedic tradition. And when the ancient
\nIndians chose more often than not to throw whatever they wished to endure, even
\nphilosophy, science and law, into metrical form, it was not merely to aid the
\nmemory, – they were able to memorise huge prose Brahmanas quite as accurately
\nas the Vedic hymnal or the metrical Upanishads, – but because they perceived that
\nmetrical speech has in itself not only an easier durability, but a greater
\nnatural power than unmetrical, not only an intenser value of sound, but a force
\nto compel language and <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

sense
\nto heighten themselves in order to fall fitly into this stricter mould. There
\nis perhaps a truth in the Vedic idea that the Spirit of creation framed all the
\nmovements of the world by chandas, <\/i>in certain fixed rhythms of the
\nformative work, and it is because they are faithful to the cosmic metres that
\nthe basic world-movements unchangingly endure. A balanced harmony maintained by
\na system of subtle recurrences is the foundation of immortality in created
\nthings, and metrical movement is simply creative sound grown conscious of this
\nsecret of its own powers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still there are all sorts of heights and
\ngradations in the use of this power. General consent seems indeed to have
\nsanctioned the name of poetry for any kind of effective language set in a
\nvigorous or catching metrical form, and although the wideness of this definition
\nis such that it has enabled even the Macaulays and Kiplings to mount their
\nqueer poetic thrones, I will not object: catholicity is always a virtue.
\nNevertheless, mere force of language tacked on to the trick of the metrical
\nbeat does not answer the higher description of poetry; it may have the form or
\nits shadow, it has not the essence. There is a whole mass of poetry, – the
\nFrench metrical romances and most of the mediaeval Ballad poetry may be taken
\nas examples, – which relies simply on the metrical beat for its rhythm and on
\nan even level of just tolerable expression for its style; there is hardly a
\nline whose rhythm floats home or where the expression strikes deep. Even in
\nlater European poetry, though the art of verse and language has been better
\nlearned, essentially the same method persists, and poets who use it is nothing
\nmore than an effective jog-trot of Pegasus, a pleasing canter or a showy
\ngallop. It has great staying-power, – indeed there seems no reason why, once
\nbegun, it should not go on for ever, – it carries the poet easily over his
\nground, but it does nothing more. Certainly no real soul-movement can get
\neasily into this mould. It has its merits and its powers; it is good for
\nmetrical romances of a sort, for war poetry and popular patriotic poetry, or
\nperhaps any poetry which wants to be an \u201cecho of life\u201d; it may stir, not the
\nsoul, but the vital being in us like a trumpet or excite it like a drum. But
\nafter all the drum and <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

the
\ntrumpet do not carry us far in the way of music.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

But even high above this level we still do
\nnot get at once the greater sound-movement of which we are speaking. Poets of
\nconsiderable power, sometimes the greatest, are satisfied ordinarily with a set
\nharmony or a set melody, which is very satisfying to the outward ear and
\ncarried the aesthetic sense along with it in sort of even, indistinctive
\npleasure and into this mould of easy melody or harmony they throw their teeming
\nor flowing imagination without difficulty or check, without any need of an
\nintenser heightening, a deeper appeal. It is beautiful poetry; it satisfies the
\naesthetic sense, the imagination and the ear; but there the charm ends. Once we
\nhave heard its rhythm, we have nothing new to expect, no surprise for the inner
\near, no danger of the soul being suddenly seized and carried away into unknown
\ndepths. It is sure of being floated along evenly as if upon a flowing stream.
\nOr sometimes it is not so much a flowing stream as\u00a0 <\/span>a steady march or other even movement: this
\ncomes oftenest in poets who appeal more to the thought than to the ear; they
\nare concerned chiefly with the thing they have to say and satisfied to have
\nfound an adequate rhythmic mould into which they can throw it without any
\nfarther preoccupation.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

But even a great attention and skill in the
\nuse of metrical possibilities, in the invention of rhythmical turns, devices,
\nmodulations, variations, strong to satisfy the intelligence, to seize the ear,
\nto maintain its vigilant interest, will not bring us yet to the higher point we
\nhave in view. There are periods of literature in which this kind of skill is
\ncarried very far. The rhythms of Victorian poetry seem to me to be of this
\nkind; they show sometimes the skill of the artist, sometimes of the classical
\nor romantic technician, of the prestigious melodist or harmonist, sometimes the
\npower of the vigorous craftsman or even the performer of robust metrical feats.
\nAll kinds of instrumental faculties have been active; but the one thing that is
\nlacking, except in moments or brief periods of inspiration, is the soul behind
\ncreating and listening to its own greater movements.
\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Poetic rhythm begins to reach its highest
\nlevels, the greater poetic movements become possible when rising from and
\nbeyond any of these powers the soul begins to make its direct demand and <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

yearn
\nfor a profounder satisfaction: they awake when the inner ear begins to listen.
\nTechnically, we may say that this comes in when the poet becomes, in Keats’
\nphrase, a miser of sound and syllable, economical of his means, not in the
\nsense of a niggardly sparing, but of making the most of all its possibilities
\nof sound. It is then that poetry gets farthest away from the method of
\nprose-rhythm. Prose-rhythm aims characteristically at a general harmony in
\nwhich the parts are subdued to get the tone of a total effect; even the sounds
\nwhich give the support or the relief, yet to a great extent seem to be trying
\nto efface themselves in order not to disturb by a too striking particular
\neffect the general harmony which is the whole aim. Poetry, on the contrary,
\nmakes much of its beats and measures; it seeks for a very definite and
\ninsistent rhythm. But still, where the greater rhythmical intensities are not
\npursued, it is only some total effect that predominates and rest is subdued to
\nit. But in these highest, intensest rhythms every sound is made the most of,
\nwhether in its suppression or in its swelling expansion, its narrowness or its
\nopen wideness, in order to get in the combined effect something which the
\nordinary flow of poetry cannot give us.<\/p>\n

But this is only the technical side, the
\nphysical means by which the effect is produced.\u00a0
\n<\/span>It is not the artistic intelligence or the listening physical ear which
\nis most at work, but something within trying to bring out an echo of hidden
\nharmonies, a secret of rhythmical infinities within us. It is not a labour of
\nthe devising intellect or the aesthetic sense which the poet has achieved, but
\na labour of the spirit within itself to cast something out of the surge of the
\neternal depths. The other faculties are there in their place, but the conductor
\nof the orchestral movement is the soul coming forward to get its own work done
\nby its own higher and unanalysable methods. The result is something as near to
\nwordless music as word-music can get, and with the same power of soul-life, or
\nsoul-emotion, or profound supra-intellectual significance. In these higher
\nharmonies and melodies the metrical rhythm is taken up by the spiritual; it is
\nfilled with or sometimes it seems rolled away and lost in a music that has
\nreally another and spiritual secret of movement. <\/p>\n

This
\nis the intensity of poetic movement out of which the<\/p>\n

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\n

greatest
\npossibility of poetic expression arises. It is where the metrical movement
\nremains as a base, but either enshrines and contains or is itself contained and
\nfloats in an element of greater music which exceeds it and yet brings out all
\nits possibilities, that the music fit for the Mantra makes itself audible. It
\nis the triumph of the spirit over the difficulties and limitations of its
\nphysical instrument. Its listener seems to be that eternal spirit whom the
\nUpanishad speaks of as the ear of the ear, he who listens to all hearings; and
\n\u201cbehind the instabilities of word and speech\u201d it is the inevitable harmonies of
\nhis own thought and vision for which he is listening.<\/p>\n

\nPage – 22<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER\u00a0\u00a0 III  Rhythm and Movement   THE Mantra, poetic expression of the deepest spiritual\u00a0 reality, is only possible when three highest intensities of poetic speech…<\/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-1279","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\/1279","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=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}