{"id":1285,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1285"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:51","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:51","slug":"05-style-and-substance-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\/05-style-and-substance-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-05_Style and Substance.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\nC<\/span>HAPTER<\/span><\/font>
\nIV<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStyle and Substance<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

R<\/font>HYTHM is the premier necessity of poetical
\nexpression because it is the sound-movement which carries on its wave the
\nthought-movement in the word; and it is the musical sound-image which most
\nhelps to fill in, to extend, subtilise and deepen the thought impression or the
\nemotional or vital impression and to carry the sense beyond itself into an
\nexpression of the intellectually inexpressible – always the peculiar power of
\nmusic. This truth was better understood on the whole or at least more
\nconsistently felt by the ancients than by the modern mind and ear, perhaps
\nbecause they were more in the habit of singing, chanting or intoning their
\npoetry while we are content to read ours, a habit which brings out the
\nintellectual and emotional element, but unduly depresses the rhythmic value. On
\nthe other hand modem poetry has achieved a far greater subtlety, fineness and
\ndepth of suggestion in style and thought than the ancients, – with perhaps some
\nloss in power, height and simple largeness. The ancients would not so easily as
\nthe modems have admitted into the rank .of great poets writers of poor rhythmic
\nfaculty or condoned, ignored or praised in really great poets rhythmic lapses,
\nroughnesses and crudities for the sake of their power of style and substance.<\/p>\n

In regard to poetic style we have to make,
\nfor the purpose of the idea we have in view, the starting-point of the Mantra,
\nprecisely the same distinctions as in regard to poetic rhythm, – since here too
\nwe find actually everything admitted as poetry which has some power of style
\nand is cast into some kind of rhythmical form. But the question is what kind of
\npower and in that kind what intensity of achievement? There is plenty of poetry
\nsigned by poets of present reputation or lasting fame which one is obliged to
\nconsign to a border region of half-poetry, because its principle of expression
\nhas not got far enough away
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage – 23<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

from
\nthe principle of prose expression. It seems to forget that while the first aim
\nof prose style is to define and fix an object, fact, feeling, thought before
\nthe appreciating intelligence with whatever clearness, power, richness or other
\nbeauty of presentation may be added to that essential aim, the first aim of
\npoetic style is to make the thing presented living to the imaginative vision,
\nthe spiritual sense, the soul-feeling and soul-sight. Where the failure is to
\nexpress at all with any sufficient power, to get home in any way, the
\ndistinction becomes palpable enough and we readily say of such writings that
\nthis is verse but not poetry.\u00a0 <\/span>But where
\nthere is some thought-power or other worth of substance attended with some
\npower of expression, false values more easily become current and even a whole
\nliterary age may dwell on this borderland or be misled into an undue exa1tation
\nand cult for this half-poetry.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Poetry, like the kindred arts of
\npainting, sculpture, architecture, appeals to the spirit of man through significant
\nimages, and it makes no essential difference that in this case the image is
\nmental and verbal and not material. The essential power of the poetic word is
\nto make us see, not to make us think or feel; thought and feeling must arise
\nout of or rather be included in the sight, but sight is the primary consequence
\nand power of poetic speech. For the poet has to make us live in the soul and in
\nthe inner mind what is ordinarily lived in the outer mind and the senses, and
\nfor that he must first make us see by the soul, in its light and with its
\ndeeper vision what we ordinarily see in a more limited and halting fashion by
\nthe senses and the intelligence. He is, as the ancients knew, a seer and not
\nmerely a maker of’ rhymes, not merely a jongleur, rhapsodist or troubadour, and
\nnot merely a thinker in lines and stanzas. He sees beyond the sight of the
\nsurface mind and finds the revealing word, not merely the adequate and
\neffective, but the illumined and illuminating the inspired and inevitable word,
\nwhich compels us to see also. To arrive at that word is the whole endeavour of
\npoetic style.<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The modem distinction is that
\nthe poet appeals to the imagination and not to the intellect. But there are
\nmany kinds of imagination; the objective imagination which visualises strongly
\nthe outward aspects of life and things; the subjective imagination<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 24<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

which
\nvisualises strongly the mental and emotional impressions they have the power to
\nstart in the mind; the imagination which deals in the play of mental fictions
\nand to which we give the name of poetic fancy; the aesthetic imagination which
\ndelights in the beauty of words and images for their own sake and sees no
\nfarther. All these have their place in poetry, but they only give the poet his
\nmaterials, they are only the first instruments in the creation of poetic style.
\nThe essential poetic imagination does not stop short with even the most subtle
\nreproductions of things external or internal, with the richest or delicatest
\nplay of fancy or with the most beautiful colouring of word or image. It is
\ncreative, not of either the actual or the fictitious, but of the more and the
\nmost real; it sees the spiritual truth of things, – of this truth too there are
\nmany gradations, – which may take either the actual or the ideal for its
\nstarting-point. The aim of poetry, as of all true art, is neither a
\nphotographic or otherwise realistic imitation of Nature, nor a romantic
\nfurbishing and painting or idealistic improvement of her image, but an
\ninterpretation by the images she herself affords us not on one, but on many
\nplanes of her creation, of that which she conceals from us, but is ready, when
\nrightly approached to reveal.<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This is the true, because the
\nhighest and essential aim of poetry, but the human mind arrives at it only by a
\nsuccession of steps, the first of which seems far enough away from its object.
\nIt begins by stringing its most obvious and external ideas, feelings and
\nsensations of things on a thread of verse in a sufficient language of no very high
\nquality. But even when it gets to a greater adequacy and effectiveness, it is
\noften no more than a vital, an emotional or an intellectual adequacy and
\neffectiveness. There is a strong vital poetry which powerfully, appeals to our
\nsensations and our sense of life, like much of Byron or the less inspired mass
\nof the Elizabethan drama; a strong emotional poetry which stirs our\u00a0 <\/span>feelings and gives us the sense and active
\nimage of the passions; a strong intellectual poetry which satisfies our
\ncuriosity about life and its mechanism, or deals with its psychological and
\nother "problems", or shapes for us our thoughts in an effective
\nstriking and often quite resistlessly quotable fashion. All this has its
\npleasures for the mind and the surface <\/span><\/p>\n

Page \u2013 25<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

soul
\nin us, and it is certainly quite legitimate to enjoy them and to enjoy them
\nstrongly and vividly on our way upward; but if we rest content with these only,
\nwe shall never get very high up the hill of the Muses.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The style of such poetry corresponds
\nusually to its substance; for between the word and the vision there tends to
\nbe, though there is not by any means perfectly or invariably, a certain
\nequation. There is a force of vital style, a force of emotional style, a force
\nof intellectual style which we meet constantly in poetry and which it is
\nessential to distinguish from the language of the higher spiritual imagination.
\nThe forceful expression of thought and sentiment is not enough for this higher
\nlanguage. To take some examples, it is not enough for it to express its sense
\nof world-sorrow in a line of cheap sentimental force like Byron’s\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>There’s not a joy the world can give like that
\nit takes away,<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

or
\nto voice an opposite truth in the sprightly-forcible manner of Browning’s\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

God\u2019s in his heaven<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0<\/span>All\u2019s right with the world<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

or
\nto strike the balance in a sense of equality with the pointed and ever quotable
\nintellectuality of Pope’s<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>God
\nsees with equal eyes as lord of all,<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>A hero perish or a sparrow fall.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

This
\nmay be the poetical or half-poetical language of thought and sentiment; it is
\nnot the language of real poetic vision: Note that all three brush the skirts of
\nideas whose deeper expression from the vision of a great poet might touch the
\nvery heights of poetic revelation. Byron’s line is the starting-point in the
\nemotional sensations for that high world-pessimism and its spiritual release
\nwhich finds expression in the Gita’s\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Anityamm
\nasukham lokam imam prāpya bhajasva mām\u00b9<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9"Thou
\nwho hast come to this transient and unhappy world, love and turn to Me."<\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Page \u2013 26<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

and
\none has only to compare the mariner of the two in style and rhythm, even
\nleaving the substance aside, to see the difference between the lesser and the
\ngreater poetry. Browning’s language rises from a robust cheerfulness of
\ntemperament, it does not touch the deeper fountain-heads of truth in us; an
\nopposite temperament may well smile at it as vigorous optimistic fustian.
\nPope’s actually falsifies by its poetical inadequacy that great truth of the
\nGita’s teaching, the truth of the divine equality, because he has not seen and
\ntherefore cannot make us see; his significant images of the truth are, like his
\nperception of it, intellectual and, rhetorical, not poetic images.
\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a higher style of poetry than this
\nwhich yet falls below the level to which we have to climb. It is no longer
\npoetical language of a merely intellectual, vital or emotional force, but
\ninstead or in addition genuinely imaginative style, with a certain, often a
\ngreat beauty of vision in it whether objective or subjective, or with a
\ncertain, often a great but indefinite soul-power bearing up its movement of
\nword and rhythm. It varies in intensity; for the lower intensity we can get
\nplenty of examples from Chaucer, when he is indulging his imagination rather
\nthan his observation, and at a higher pitch from Spenser; for the loftier
\nintensity we can cite at will for one kind from Milton’s early poetry, for
\nanother from poets who have a real spiritual vision like Keats, and Shelley.
\nEnglish poetry runs, indeed, ordinarily in this mould. But this too is not that
\nhighest intensity of the revelatory poetic word from whi.ch the Mantra starts.
\nIt has a certain power of revelation in it, but still the deeper vision is
\ncoated up in something more external and sometimes the poetic intention of
\ndecorative beauty, sometimes some other deliberate intention of the poetic mind
\noverlays with the more outward beauty, beauty of image, beauty of thought,
\nbeauty of emotion, the deeper intention of the spirit within, so that we have
\nstill to look for that beyond the image rather than are seized by it through
\nthe image. A high pleasure is there not unspiritual in its nature, but still it
\nis not that point where pleasure passes into or is rather drowned in the pure
\nspiritual Ananda, the ecstasy of the creative, poetic revelation.<\/span><\/p>\n

That
\nintensity comes where everything else may be present, <\/span><\/p>\n

Page \u2013
\n27<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

but
\nall is powerfully carried on the surge of a spiritual vision which has found
\nits inspired and inevitable speech. All or any of the other elements may be
\nthere, but they are at once subordinated and transfigured to their highest
\ncapacity for poetic light and rapture. This intensity belongs to no particular
\nstyle, depends on no conceivable formula of diction. It may be the height of
\nthe decorative imaged style as often we find it in Kalidasa, or Shakespeare; it
\nmay be that height of bare and direct expression where language seems to be
\nused as a scarcely felt vaulting-board for a leap into the infinite; it may be
\nthe packed intensity of language which uses either the bare or the imaged form
\nat will, but fills every word with its utmost possible rhythmic and thought
\nsuggestion. But in itself it depends on none of these things; it is not a
\nstyle, but poetic style itself, the Word; it creates and carries with it its
\nelements rather than is created by them. Whatever its outward forms, it is
\nalways the one fit style for the Mantra. <\/p>\n

\n               
\nPage – 28<\/font><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER IV Style and Substance   RHYTHM is the premier necessity of poetical expression because it is the sound-movement which carries on its wave the…<\/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-1285","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\/1285","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=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}