{"id":1286,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T08:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1286"},"modified":"2013-11-28T15:14:50","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T23:14:50","slug":"21-recent-english-poetry-1-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\/21-recent-english-poetry-1-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-21_Recent English Poetry – 1.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nC<\/font>hapter
\n<\/font><\/span><\/b>XX<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n   Recent English Poetry \u2013 1<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

T<\/font>HE movement away from the Victorian type
\nin recent and contemporary English poetry cannot be said to have yet determined
\nits final orientation. But we may distin\u00adguish in its uncertain fluctuations, its
\nattempts in this or that direction certain notes, certain strong tones, certain
\noriginal indications which may help us to disengage the final whither of its seekings. In the mass it appears as a broadening of the English poetic mind
\ninto a full oneness with the great stream of modern thought and tendency, an
\nopening up out of the narrower Victorian insularity to admit a greater
\nstrength, subtlety and many-sidedness of the intelligence. For this very reason
\nit is still in the nature of a very uncertain feeling out in several directions
\nwhich has not found itself and decided what shall be the centre and guide of
\nits inspiration. There are experiments of all kinds in language and rhythm and
\nsubject and treatment, many notable names each with his special turn and
\npersonality, but no supreme decisive speech and no gathering up of the many
\nthreads into a great representative work. The whole of European literature at
\nthe present time is of this character; it is a fluid mass with a hundred
\nconflicting tendencies, a multitude of experiments, many minor formations,
\nwhich has not yet run into any clear universal mould. All that can be done is
\nto distinguish some common characteristics of an indicative value which emerge
\nin the more significant work and have touched more or less the performance of
\nthe lesser writers. Here we can get at least at a certain per\u00adsistent element,
\ncertain potential issues.<\/p>\n

The thing that strikes at once in a general
\nview is that it is a period of transition, not yet a new age, but the preparation
\nfor a new age of humanity. Everywhere there is a seeking after some new thing,
\na discontent with the moulds, ideas and powers of the past, a spirit of
\ninnovation, a desire to get at deeper powers of <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0                     \u00a0
\n<\/span>Page \u2013 144<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n

language, rhythm, form, because a subtler
\nand vaster life is in birth, there are deeper and more significant things to be
\nsaid than have yet been spoken, and poetry, the highest essence of speech, must
\nfind a fitting voice for them. The claim of tradition is still strong, but even
\nthose who keep most in the old ways, are im\u00adpelled to fill in their lines with
\nmore searching things of a more compelling substance, to Strike from their
\ninstrument sounds, variations, meanings for which it had not before the
\ncapacity. The attempt has not yet been supremely successful in its whole
\npurpose, in spite of some poetic achievement of considerable beauty,
\noriginality and compass, but it has liberated at least with some initial force
\nnovel powers and opened fresh paths; a few bright streams of initiation meet
\nthe eye running to form some mighty Brahmaputra or Ganges which is not yet in
\nsight, though we get here and there a blue Yamuna or white Saraswati or some
\nlarge impetuous torrent making its way through open plain or magic woodland
\ntowards the great unseen confluence. There are many widely separate attempts,
\nsome fine or powerful be\u00adginnings, as yet no large consummation.<\/p>\n

The straining for a new power of rhythm is
\nthe first indi\u00adcation of the coming change. Not quite so marked, not by any
\nmeans so successful as the change in the type and power of poeti\u00adcal
\nexpression, it is still indicative; rhythm is the subtle soul of poetry and a
\nchange in the spirit of the rhythm must come if this change in the spirit of
\nthe poetry is fully to discover itself and altogether realise its own
\ncharacteristic greatness and perfection. Mankind is moving to another spirit in
\nits thought and life founded on another and deeper and larger truth of its
\ninner being than it has yet in the mass been able to see, hold and put into form
\nof living. This change must find its echo and interpreta\u00adtion or even some of
\nits power of revelation and initiation in poetry, and poetry to express this
\ngreater spirit must find out a deeper, larger, more flexible, or, if one may
\nsay so, more multitudmously expressive rhythm than the great poets of the past
\nwere under the necessity of using; something of the same change has to be
\nachieved as has been successfully accomplished in music. We see accordingly
\nsome attempt to break or enlarge, deepen or subtilise the traditional moulds,
\nto substitute others of <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 145<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

a
\nmore delicate character or with a more varied and flexible principle, to search
\nout new packed or dissolved movements. There have been some considerable
\nsuccesses, but nothing of such a complete, sweeping and satisfying force as
\nwould quite content a certain eagerness and impatient urge of the arriving age
\nto find a full rhythmic basis for its own way of self-expression. And so we
\nfind too the attempt to initiate a violent and unpre\u00adcedented revolution in the
\nwhole fundamental method of poetic rhythm.<\/p>\n

This tendency in some writers goes no
\nfarther than an irregular use of metre which does not really carry us any
\nfarther towards the desired result and is in no way an improvement on the past,
\nsince it has no true artistic principle to guide us to freer and more
\nconsummate harmonies. But pushed to its logical issue it has created the still
\ngrowing form of free verse of which we now find examples in most of the great
\nliterary languages and coupled with it a theory that this is the one future
\nchance for poetry. Metre and rhyme are said to be played out, things of the
\npast, which can no longer be allowed to chain and hamper the great and free
\nmovement which the enlarging spirit of poetry demands;
\nas rhyme was in Milton’s later view only a dainty trifle which he flung aside
\nfor the organ harmonies of his blank verse, so metre itself is a petty thing,
\nhalf ornament, half fetter, which has to be flung aside for some nobly
\nself-governed democratic anarchy that is to develop from this new type. That is
\na theory of very doubtful validity. In the hands of most
\nof its exponents it seems to be in practice nothing but a license for writing
\nprose in variously cut lengths, prose breaking off at the end of a clause or in
\nthe middle of it to go on refreshed in the line below, \u2014 I have seen even a
\nline of free verse consisting of a majestic solitary pronoun, \u2014 and that is
\nmore an eccentric method of printing than a new rhythm. But without accepting
\nthe theory in its intolerant entirety one can appreciate the motive which moved
\nthe greater masters and more skilful craftsmen of this form, if form it can be
\ncalled, to make the innovation. There is some\u00adthing large and many-sided and
\nconstantly mutable in the life, thought and spirit of today which needs, to
\nexpress it sympatheti\u00adcally, vast and flowing movements or, on the contrary,
\nbrief, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 146<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

sudden
\nand abrupt paces or the alternation of these and inter\u00admediate and variant lengths
\nand turns: there is something at the same time densely full and singularly and
\nminutely subtle in the modem thinking mind which is with difficulty
\naccommodable by the restricted range of subtleties, variations and fullnesses
\nof any given poetic measure. Why not then break away from all the old hampering
\nrestrictions and find a new principle of harmony in accordance with the
\nfreedom, the breadth and largeness of view, the fineness of feeling and
\nsensation of the modern spirit, some form which shall have the liberty of prose
\nand yet com\u00admand the intensified heights and fluctuations and falls of the
\ncadence of poetry? There is no reason why not, if the thing can be done, \u2014 the
\nproof of these things lies in the execution; but it may be doubted whether the
\nmethod used is the right method. At any rate it has not been fully justified
\neven in the hands of its greatest or most skilful exponents. <\/b>
\nIt<\/span> is used, as in Whitman, to give the
\nroll of the sea of life or the broad and varying movements ‘ of the spirit of
\nhumanity in its vigorous experience and aspiration, or, as in Carpenter, to
\narrive at the free and harmonious accession of the human intelligence to
\nprofound, large and powerful truths of the spirit, or, as in certain French
\nwriters, to mould into accurate rhythm the very substance and soul and
\ncharacteristic movement of soul-states, ideas or objects described and seen.
\nThese are things that need to be done, but it remains to be seen whether they
\ncannot be done in the recognised and characteristic movement of poetry, rather
\nthan in a compromise with prose cadences. The genius of poetic measure walking
\nin the path opened by the ancient discovery of cadenced beat and concentrated
\nrhythm has not yet exhausted itself, nor is there any proof that it cannot accommodate
\nits power to new needs or any sign. that it can only survive in an arrested
\nsenility or fall into a refined decadence.<\/p>\n

The most considerable representatives of
\nthis new and free form of poetic rhythm are English and American, Carpenter and
\nWhitman. Tagore’s translations of his lyrics have come in as a powerful
\nadventitious aid, but are not really to the point in the question at issue; for
\nthese translations are nothing but a rhyth\u00admically poetic prose and that kind
\nof writing, cadenced prose. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 147<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\np<\/span>oetry,
\na well recognised form, cannot and does not try to com\u00adpete with the
\nestablished principle of measure; it is an indul\u00adgence, a minor variation which
\nhas yet its definite place and serves certain purposes which could not
\notherwise be fulfilled with any adequacy. <\/b>
\nIt<\/span> is perhaps the only method for the work Tagore intended, a
\npoetic translation of poetry reproductive of the exact thought and spiritual
\nintention of the original; for a version in the fixed measures of another
\nlanguage not only substi\u00adtutes another mould for the original movement, but by
\nthe substi\u00adtution gives it almost another soul, so powerful, distinct and
\ncreative a thing is poetic rhythm; but the more flexible, less insis\u00adtent
\ncadence of poetic prose does not so seize on and recast the spirit of the
\noriginal movement; it may even give a far-off mini\u00admised shadow, echo, illusion
\nof it, if the same or a similar spirit is at work: it can never have the same
\npower, but it may have some echo of a similar suggestion. When, for instance,
\nTagore writes in English,\u2014<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

"Thou settest a barrier in thine
\nown being and thou callest thy severed self in myriad notes. This thy
\nself-separa\u00adtion has taken body in me. The great pageant of thee and me has
\noverspread the sky. With the tune of thee and me all the air is vibrant, and
\nall ages pass with the hiding and seeking of thee and me."\u2014<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/i><\/p>\n

we have a very beautiful delicately
\ncadenced poetic prose and nothing more. Tagore is what some of the .French
\nwriters of vers libre<\/i> are and Whitman
\nand Carpenter are not, a delicate and subtle craftsman, and he has done his
\nwork with a perfect grace and spiritual fineness; but there is no attempt to do
\nany\u00adthing more than the just work in hand, no intention of displacing the old
\nway of poetry in which he has done in his own language such wonderful things,
\nby a new principle of poetic movement. If there were any such intention, it
\nwould have to be pronounced a failure. One has only to compare this English
\nrose, beautiful as it is, with the original poetry to see how much has gone out
\nwith the change; something is successfully substituted which may satisfy the
\nEnglish reader, but can never satisfy the ear or the <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 148<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

mind that has once listened to the singer’s
\nown native and magical melodies. And this is so even though the intellectual
\nsubstance, the intellectual precision and distinctness of the thought are often
\nmore effective, carry home more quickly in the translation, be\u00adcause in the
\noriginal the intellectual element, the thought limits are being constantly overborne
\nand are sometimes almost swal\u00adlowed up by the waves of suggestion that come
\nstealing in with the music: so much more is heard than is said that the soul
\nlisten\u00ading goes floating into that infinity and counts the definite contri\u00adbution
\nof the intelligence as of a lesser value. Precisely there lies the greatest
\npower of poetic rhythm for the very highest work that the new age has to do,
\nand that it can be done by a new use of the poetic method without breaking the
\nwhole form of poetry, Tagore’s own lyrical work1<\/sup> in his mother
\ntongue is the best evidence. <\/p>\n

Whitman\u2019s aim is consciently, clearly,
\nprofessedly to make a great revolution in the whole method of poetry, and if
\nanybody could have succeeded, it ought to have been this giant of poetic
\nthought with his energy of diction, this spiritual crowned athlete and vital
\nprophet of democracy, liberty and the soul of man and Nature and all humanity.
\nHe is a great poet, one of the greatest in the power of his substance, the
\nenergy of his vision, the force of his style, the largeness at once of his
\npersonality and his universality. His is the most Homeric voice since Homer, in
\nspite of the modern’s ruder, less elevated aesthesis of speech and the
\ndifference between that limited Olympian and this broad-souled Titan, in this
\nthat he has the nearness to something elemental which makes everything he says,
\neven the most common and prosaic, sound out with a ring of greatness, gives a
\nforce even to his barest or heaviest phrases, throws even upon the coarsest,
\ndullest, most physical things something of the divinity; and he has the
\nelemental Homeric power of sufficient straightforward speech, the rush too of
\noceanic sound though it is here the surging of the Atlantic between continents,
\nnot the magic roll and wash of the Aegean around the isles of Greece. What he
\nhas not, is the<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n‘
\nThis cannot quite be said or not in the same degree about other work of
\nTagore’s Where this great lyrist is not so much himself in his movement, though
\nhe is always a master of rhythm.<\/font> <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 149<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

unfailing
\npoetic beauty and nobility which saves greatness from its defects \u2014 that
\nsupreme gift of corner and Valmiki \u2014 and the self-restraint and obedience to a
\ndivine law which makes even the gods more divine. Whitman will remain great
\nafter all the objec\u00adtions that can be made against his method or his use of it,
\nbut the question is whether what served his unique personality, can be made a
\nrule for lesser or different spirits, and whether the defects which we see but
\ndo not and cannot weigh too closely in him, will not be fatal when not saved by
\nhis all-uplifting largeness. A giant can pile up Pelion and Ossa and make of it
\nan unhewn chaotic stair to Olympus, but others would be better and more safely
\nemployed in cutting steps of marble or raising by music a ladder of sapphires
\nand rubies to their higher or their middle heavens. Personality, force,
\ntemperament can do unusual miracles, but the miracle cannot always be turned
\ninto a method or a standard.<\/p>\n

Whitman\u2019s verse, if it can be so called, is
\nnot simply a cadenced prose, though quite a multitude of his lines only just
\nrise above the prose rhythm. The difference is that there is a constant will to
\nintensify the fall of the movement so that instead of the unobtrusive ictus of
\nprose, we have a fall of the tread, almost a beat, and sometimes a real beat, a
\nmeeting and parting, some\u00adtimes a deliberate clash or even crowding together of
\nstresses \u2022which recall the spirit of the poetical movement, though they obey no
\nrecognised structural law of repetitions and variations. In this kind of rhythm
\nwe find actually three different levels, \u2014 the distinction may be a little
\nrough, but it will serve, \u2014 a grada\u00adtion which is very instructive. First we
\nhave a movement which just manages to be other than prose movement, but yet is
\nfull of the memory of a certain kind of prose rhythm. Here the first defect is
\nthat the ear is sometimes irritated, sometimes dis\u00adappointed and baulked by a
\ndivided demand, memory or expec\u00adtation, hears always the prose suggestion behind
\npursuing and dragging down the feet of the poetic enthusiasm. It is as if one
\nwere watching the "aerial walk" of a Hatha-yogin who had just
\nconquered the force of gravitation, but only to the extent of a few inches, so
\nthat one is always expecting the moment which will bring him down with a bump
\nto mother earth. It is something like a skimming just above the ground of
\nprose, sometimes a dragging. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 150<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

of
\nthe feet with a frequent touch and upkicking of the dust, for inevitably the
\npoetic diction and imaginative power of style fall to the same level. Much of
\nWhitman\u2019s work is in this manner; he carries it off by the largeness and
\nsea-like roll of the total impression, but others have not the same success, \u2014
\neven the French craftsmen are weighed down, \u2014 and in them the whole has a
\ndraggled and painful effect of an amphibious waddling incertitude. But there is
\na nobler level at which he often keeps which does not get out of sight of the
\nprose plain or lift up above all its gravitation,
\nbut still has a certain poetic power, greatness <\/i><\/span>and nobility of
\nmovement. But it is still below what an equal force would have given in the
\nmaster measures of poetry.<\/p>\n

But the possibilities of an instrument have
\nto be judged by its greatest effects, and there are poems, lines, passages in
\nwhich Whitman strikes out a harmony which has no kinship to nor any memory of
\nthe prose gravitation, but is as far above it as anything done in the great
\nmetrical cadences. And here, and not only in Whitman, but in all writers in
\nthis form who rise to that height, we find that consciously or unconsciously
\nthey arrive at the same secret principle, and that is the essential principle
\nof Greek choric and dithyrambic poetry turned to the law of a language which
\nhas not the strong resource of quantity. Arnold deliberately attempted an
\nadaptation but, in spite of beautiful passages, with scant success; still when
\nhe writes such a line as<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

The too vast orb of her fate,<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/i><\/p>\n

it is
\nthis choric movement that he reproduces. Whitman’s first poem in Sea-Drift<\/i>
\nand a number of others are written partly or throughout in this manner. When he
\ngives us the dactylic and spondaic harmony of his lines,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nOut
\nof the cradle endlessly rocking,<\/i> <\/p>\n

\nOut
\nof the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,<\/i><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>Out of the Ninth-month midnight,<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/i><\/p>\n

one
\nof them wanting only one foot to be a very perfect hexa\u00admeter or the subtly
\nvaried movement of this other passage, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 151<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nOver
\nthe hoarse surging of the sea,<\/i><\/p>\n

\nOr
\nflitting from brier to brier by day,<\/i><\/p>\n

\nI
\nsaw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,<\/i><\/p>\n

\nThe
\nsolitary guest from <\/i><\/p>\n

Alabama<\/i>,<\/i><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/i><\/p>\n

one
\nhas almost the rhythmical illusion of listening to a Sopho-cIean or Aechylean<\/span> chorus. In the opening
\nstanzas of the noble Prayer of Columbus,<\/i> there is a continuous iambic metrical
\nstress, but with the choric movement. One finds the same thing sometimes in
\nFrench vers libre\u2014<\/i> one poem at least
\nof the kind I have seen of Wonderful beauty, \u2014 though the success is not so
\neasy in that language. Tagore has recently attempted a kind of free verse in
\nBengali, not so good as his regular metres, though melodious enough, as
\neverything must be that is written by this master musician of the word, and
\nthroughout there is the same choric or dithyrambic principle of movement. This
\nthen seems to be the natural high-water mark of free poetical rhythm; it is a
\nuse of the poetic principle of measure in its essence without the limitations
\nof a set form. Evidently much can be done in this rhythmical method. But it is
\nyet doubtful whether in languages which lack the support of quantitative
\nmeasure, poetical expression in this form can carry home with at all the same
\nforce as in the received ways of word-music.<\/p>\n

We may get some idea of the limitations of
\nthe form by one or two examples from the poetry of Carpenter I find quoted by
\nMr. Cousins in his essay. Carpenter with a poetic faculty of a high order, a
\nprophet of democracy and of the Self, like Whitman but of a higher more spiritual
\ntruth of the Self, has like him found it impossible to restrain the largeness
\nof his vision and personality in the bonds of metrical poetry. In both we see
\nthat the prophet and thinker predominate over the poet and artist. Less rough
\nand great than the epic voice from the other side of the ocean, his poetry has
\na more harmonious, limpid and meditative fullness. But the lesser abundance of
\nforce and drive makes us feel more the limitations of his form. The thought is
\nnot only great, but poetically great and satisfying, the expression as form of
\nthought is noble and admirable, but we miss the subtler rhythmic uplift of the
\npoetic enthusiasm which is given <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 152<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

to
\nminds of much less power by the inspiring cadence and the ordered measures of the
\npoetic spirit, chandas.<\/i> His flow is ordinarily of the middle kind with
\noccasional choric turns and movements, but the latter do not carry with them
\nthe fall force of the intenser poetic cadence. To cite one passage, \u2014<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThere
\nin the region of equality in the world of Freedom no longer limited, standing
\non a lofty peak in heaven above the clouds.<\/i><\/p>\n

From below hidden. Yet to all who pass
\ninto that region most clearly visible<\/i><\/p>\n

He the Eternal appeared."<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/i><\/p>\n

Whitman would have broken that up into five
\nlines and got by it a more distinct and forcible effect, \u2014 for the breath of
\npoetry best rises and falls in brief and intense lengths; so printed, it would
\nbe at once apparent that we have a varied choric move\u00adment, a little stumbling
\ninto half-prose just before the end, but otherwise admirable, with two sudden
\nturns of great poetic force, where the movement is precisely that of the Greek
\nchorus. But the total effect is the sense of what one might almost call a noble
\nand chanting superprose rhythm.<\/p>\n

This appears more clearly in another
\npassage where Carpenter\u2019s movement is more at its normal level. He begins with
\na strain which is only just distinguishable from the prose strain, but suddenly
\nrises from it to the beginning of a choric elevation,<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

"As one shuts a door after a long
\nconfinement in the house \u2014 so out of your own plans and purposes escaping, \u2014<\/i>"<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

then
\ncomes the full choric rise,<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n"Out
\nof the mirror-lined chambers of self (grand though they be, but 0 how dreary!)
\nin which you have hitherto spent your life, \u2014<\/i>"<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

where,
\nif the line had only ended with the parenthesis, it would have been a strain of
\nperfect choric poetry, magnificently thought, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 153<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

imaged
\nand cadenced, but the closing words spoil the effect, for they are a sharp
\ndescent towards the prose level. There are too elevations rising up from a
\nrhythmical prose cadence but lifted high by the scriptural nobility of phrase
\nand spiritual turn which we get so often in Carpenter. These fluctuations
\nappear then to be inherent in the form and it seems to me that being in their
\nnature a constant fall from the striving after a sustained perfection, they
\ntake away altogether from the claims of this "free verse". In lesser
\nwriters there is a similar but much more pronounced inadequacy; they rise little
\nand fall or drag along with the most easily satisfied self-content in lowness.
\nBut that poets ‘of great power should be satisfied with these deficiencies of
\ntheir instrument and their most cultured readers accept them without question,
\nindicates an inferiority, almost a depravation in the modern ear, or at least a
\ngreat remissness in the austerity of the search after perfection. It is now
\nsometimes said that the lines of poetry should follow the lines of life, and
\nlife, it might be contended, is of this kind, thought itself is of this kind,
\nand the rhythm of poetry gains in sincerity by following them. But art is not
\nof this kind, the poetic spirit is not of this kind; the nature of art is to
\nstrive after a nobler beauty and more sustained perfec\u00adtion than life can give,
\nthe nature of poetry is to soar on the wings of the inspiration to the highest
\nintensities and keep winging, as far as may be, always near to them. A form
\nwhich in the name of freedom remits and relaxes this effort, whatever its other
\nmerits and advantages, means a laxity of effort and is a dangerous downward
\nconcession.<\/p>\n

But there is another objection which may be
\ndenied, but seems to me true, that this kind of verse does not give its full
\nspiritual value to the poet’s speech. Carpenter has a power of substance,
\nthought-vision, image, expression which is very rare and in all these respects
\nhe would have been recognised as not only equal but superior to many who have
\nenjoyed in their own day the reputation of poets of the first rank. That he is
\nnot so recognised is due to the inferior form, a form legitimate enough for
\nlesser uses, but not easily capable of the greatest poetic effects. Whitman too
\nfor all his energy loses in this way; even his greatest things do not go
\nabsolutely and immediately home, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 154<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

or
\nhaving entered they do not so easily seize on the soul, take pos\u00adsession and
\nrest in a calm, yet vibrating mastery. The real poetic cadence has that power,
\nand to make the full use of it is the sign of the greatest masters; it has in
\nit then something magical, immediate and miraculous, an unanalysable triumph of
\nthe spirit. But this other movement has not that stamp, it does only a little
\nmore than a highly concentrated prose might do, and this is because of the
\nthree indispensable intensities of poetry; it may have intensity of thought and
\nsoul-substance, intensity of expres\u00adsion, but the intensity of rhythm, which is
\npoetry’s primal need, is lowered and diluted, \u2014 even, one feels, to a certain
\nextent in its choric movements: by that lowering the two other intensities
\nsuffer, the poet himself tends to loosen them to the level of his movement. If
\nthat is so, those who use the form to meet the demands of the new age, are on
\nthe wrong track. But a demand is there and it indicates a real need. It is
\nevident that Whitman and Carpenter could not have expressed themselves
\naltogether in the existing forms, even if they had made the attempt. But if the
\nnew age is to express itself with the highest poetical power, it must be by new
\ndiscoveries within the principle of the intenser poetical rhythm. The recent or
\nliving masters may not have done this, though we may claim that some beginnings
\nhave been made, but the new age is only ‘at its commencement; the decisive
\ndepartures, the unforeseen creations may yet be due which will equip it with an
\ninstrument or many instruments suited to the largeness, depth and subtlety of
\nthe coming spirit.<\/p>\n

Page – 155<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XX    Recent English Poetry \u2013 1   THE movement away from the Victorian type in recent and contemporary English poetry cannot be said…<\/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-1286","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\/1286","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=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9600,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions\/9600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}