{"id":1290,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1290"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:53","slug":"03-the-essence-of-poetry-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/09-the-future-poetry-volume-09\/03-the-essence-of-poetry-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-03_The Essence of Poetry.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

 
\nThe Essence of Poetry<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                    I<\/b><\/font>N <\/b>ORDER to get a firm clue which we
\ncan \u00adfollow fruitfully in the retrospect and prospect we have proposed to
\nourselves, it will not be amiss to enquire what is the highest power we demand,
\nfrom poetry; or, \u2014 let us put it more largely and get nearer the root of the
\nmatter, \u2014 what may be the nature of poetry, its essential law, and how out of ‘
\nthat arises the possi\u00adbility of its use as the mantra <\/i>of the Real. Not
\nthat we need spend a vain effort in labouring to define anything so profound,
\nelusive and indefinable as the breath of poetic creation; to take the
\nmyriad-stringed harp of Saraswati to pieces for the pur\u00adpose of scientific
\nanalysis must always be a narrow and rather barren amusement. But we do stand
\nin need of some guiding intuitions, some helpful descriptions which will serve
\nto enlighten our search; and to fix in that way, not by definition, but by des\u00adcription,
\nthe essential things in poetry is neither an impossible, nor an unprofitable
\nendeavour.<\/span><\/p>\n

We meet here two common enough errors, to
\none of which the ordinary uninstructed mind is most liable, to the other the
\ntoo instructed critic or the too intellectually conscientious artist or
\ncraftsman. To the ordinary mind, judging poetry without really entering into
\nit, it looks as if it were nothing more than an aesthe\u00adtic pleasure of the
\nimagination, the intellect and the ear, a sort of elevated pastime. If that
\nwere all, we need not have wasted time in seeking for its spirit, its inner
\naim, its deeper law. Any\u00adthing pretty, pleasant and melodious with a beautiful
\nidea in it would serve our turn; a song of Anacreon, or a plaint of Mimnermus
\nwould be as good as the Oedrpus, Agamemnon or Odyssey, for from this point of
\nview they might well strike us as equally and even, one might contend, more
\nperfect in their light, but exquisite unity and brevity. Pleasure, certainly,
\nwe expect from poetry as from all art; but the external sensible and even <\/p>\n

Page \u2013 9<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe
\ninner imaginative pleasure are only first elements; refined in order to meet
\nthe highest requirements of the intelligence, the imagination and the ear, they
\n<\/i>have to be still farther heightened and in their nature raised beyond even
\ntheir own noblest levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

For neither the intelligence, the
\nimagination nor the ear are the true recipients of the poetic delight even as
\nthey are not its true creators; they are only its channels and instruments: the
\ntrue creator, the true hearer is the soul. The more rapidly and transparently
\nthe rest do their work of transmission, the less they make of their separate
\nclaim to satisfaction, the more directly the word reaches and sinks deep into
\nthe soul, the greater the poetry. Therefore poetry has not really done its
\nwork, at least its highest work, until it has raised the pleasure of the
\ninstrument and transmuted it into the deeper delight of the soul. A divine
\nAnand, a delight interpretative, creative, revealing, formative, \u2014 one might
\nalmost say, an inverse reflection of the joy which the universal Soul has felt
\nin its great release of energy when it rang out into the rhythmic forms of the
\nuniverse the spiritual truth, the large interpretative idea, the life, the
\npower, the emotion of things packed into its original creative vision \u2014 such
\nspiritual joy is that which the soul of the poet feels and which, when he can
\nconquer the human difficulties of his task, he succeeds in pouring also into
\nall those who are prepared to receive it. And this delight is not merely a
\ngodlike pastime; it is a great formative and illuminative power. <\/p>\n

The critic \u2014 of a certain type \u2014 or the
\nintellectually con\u00adscientious artist will, on the other hand, often talk as if
\npoetry were mainly a matter of a faultlessly correct or at most, an exquisite
\ntechnique. Certainly, in all art good technique is the first step towards
\nperfection; but there are so many other steps, there is a whole world beyond
\nbefore you can get near to what you seek; so much so that even a deficient
\ncorrectness of execution will not prevent an intense and gifted soul from
\ncreating great poetry which keeps its hold on the centuries. Moreover, tech\u00adnique,
\nhowever indispensable, occupies a smaller field perhaps in poetry than in any
\nother art,\u00a0 <\/span>first, because its
\ninstrument, the rhythmic word, is fuller of subtle and immaterial elements;
\nthen because, the most <\/i>complex, flexible, variously suggestive of all<\/p>\n

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\n

the
\ninstruments of the artistic creator, it has more infinite possi\u00adbilities in
\nmany directions than any other. The rhythmic word has a subtly sensible
\nelement, its sound value, a quite immaterial element, its significance or
\nthought value, and both of these again, its sound and its sense, have
\nseparately and together a soul value, a direct spiritual power, which is
\ninfinitely the most important thing about them. And though this comes to birth
\nwith a small element subject to the laws of technique, yet almost immediately,
\nalmost at the beginning of its flight, its power soars up beyond the province
\nof any laws of mechanical construc\u00adtion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rather it determines itself its own form.
\nThe poet least of all artists needs to create with his eye fixed anxiously on
\nthe tech\u00adnique of his art. He has to possess it, no doubt; but in the heat of
\ncreation the intellectual sense of it becomes a subordinate action or even a
\nmere undertone in his mind, and in his best moments he is permitted, in away,
\nto forget it altogether. For then the perfection of his sound-movement and
\nstyle come en\u00adtirely as the spontaneous form of his soul:\u00a0 <\/span>that utters itself in an inspired rhythm and
\nan innate, a revealed word, even as the universal Soul created the harmonies of
\nthe universe out of the power of the word secret <\/i>and eternal within him,
\nleaving the mechanical work to be done in a surge of hidden spiritual excite\u00adment
\nby the subconscient part of his Nature. It is this highest speech which is the
\nsupreme poetic utterance, the immortal ele\u00adment in his poetry, and a little of
\nit is enough to save the rest of his work from oblivion. Svalpam apyasya
\ndharmasya<\/i>!<\/span><\/p>\n

This power makes the rhythmic word of the
\npoet the highest form of speech available to man for the expression whether of
\nhis self-vision or of his world-vision. It is noticeable that even the highest
\nexperience, the pure spiritual which enters into things \u00adthat can never be
\nwholly expressed, still, when it does try to express them and not merely to
\nexplain them intellectually, tends instinctively to use, often the rhythmic
\nforms, almost always the manner of speech characteristic of poetry. But poetry
\nattempts to extend this manner of vision and utterance to all experience, even
\nthe most objective, and therefore it has a natural urge to\u00adwards the expression
\nof some thing in the object beyond its mere <\/p>\n

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\n11<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

appearances;
\neven when these seem outwardly to be all that it is enjoying.<\/span><\/p>\n

We may usefully cast a glance not at the
\nfast expressible secret, but at the first elements of this heightening and
\nintensity peculiar to poetic utterance. Ordinary speech uses language mostly
\nfor a limited practical utility of communication; it uses it for life and for
\nthe expression of ideas and feelings necessary or useful to life. In doing so,
\nwe treat words as conventional signs for ideas with nothing but a perfunctory
\nattention to their natural force, much as we use any kind of common machine or
\nsimple implement; we treat them as if, though useful for life, they were
\nthemselves without life. When we wish to put a more vital power into them, we
\nhave to lend it to them out of ourselves, by marked intonations of the voice,
\nby the emotional force or vital energy We, throw into the sound so as to infuse
\ninto the conventional word-sign something which is not inherent in itself. But
\nif we <\/i>go back earlier in the history of language and still more if we
\nlook into its origins: we shall, I think, find that it was not always so with
\nhuman speech. Words had not only a real and vivid life of their own, but the
\nspeaker was more conscious of it; than we can possibly be with our mechanised
\nand sophisticated intellects. This arose from the primitive nature of language
\nwhich, probably, in its first movement was not intended, \u2014 or shall we say, did
\nnot intend, \u2014 so much to stand for distinct ideas of the intelligence as for
\nfeelings, sensations, broad indefinite mental impressions with minute shades of
\nquality in them which we do not now care to pursue. The intellectual sense in
\nits precision must have been a secondary element which grew, more dominant as
\nlanguage evolved.<\/p>\n

For the reason why sound came to express
\nfixed ideas lies not in any natural and inherent equivalence between the sound
\nand its intellectual sense, for there is none – intellectually any sound might
\nexpress any sense, if men were agreed on a conventional equivalence between
\nthem; it started from an indefinable quality or property in the sound to raise
\ncertain vibrations in the life-soul of the human creature, in his sensational;
\nhis emotional, his crude mental being. An example may indicate more clearly
\nwhat I mean. The word wolf, the origin of which is no longer <\/p>\n

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\n

present
\nto our minds, denotes to our intelligence a certain living object and that is
\nall, the rest, we have to do for ourselves: the Sanskrit word \u201ctearer\u201d, came in
\nthe end to do the same thing, but originally it expressed the sensational
\nrelation between the wolf and man which most affected the man\u2019s life, and it
\ndid so by a certain quality in the sound which readily associated it with the
\nsensation. of tearing. This must have given early language powerful life, a
\nconcrete vigour, in one direction a natural poetic force which it has lost,
\nhowever greatly it has gained in <\/p>\n

precision,
\nclarity, utility.\n<\/p>\n

Now, poetry goes back in a way and
\nrecovers, though in another fashion, as much as it can of this original
\nelement. It does this partly by a stress on the image replacing the old sensa\u00adtional
\nconcreteness, partly by a greater attention to the suggestive force of the
\nsound, its life, its power, the mental impression it carries. It associates
\nthis with the definitive thought value con\u00adtributed by the intelligence and
\nincreases both by each other. In that way it succeeds at the same time in
\ncarrying up the power of speech to the direct expression of a higher reach of
\nexperience than the intellectua1 or vital. For it brings out not only the
\ndefinitive intellectual value of the word, not only its power of emotion and
\nsensation, its vital suggestion, but through and beyond these its
\nsoul-suggestion, its spirit. So poetry arrives at the indication of infinite
\nmeanings beyond the finite intellectual meaning the word carries. It expresses
\nnot only the life-soul of man as did the primitive word, not only the ideas of
\nhis intelli\u00adgence for which speech now usually serves, but the experience, the
\nvision, the ideas, as we may say, of the higher and wider soul in him. Making
\nthem real to our life-soul as well as present to our intellect, it opens to us
\nby the word the doors of the Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prose style carries speech to a much higher
\npower than its ordinary use, but it differs from poetry in not making this yet
\ngreater attempt. For it fakes its stand firmly on the intellectual value of’
\nthe word. It uses rhythms which ordinary speech neglects and aims at a general
\nfluid harmony of movement. It seeks to associate words agreeably and luminously
\nso as at once to please and to clarify the intelligence. It strives after a
\nmore accurate, subtle, flexible and satisfying expression than the rough <\/p>\n

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\n

methods
\nof ordinary speech care to compass. A higher adequacy of speech is its first
\nobject. Beyond this adequacy it may aim at a greater forcefulness and
\neffectiveness by various devices of speech, which are so many rhetorical means
\nfor heightening its force of intellectual appeal. Passing beyond this first
\nlimit, this just or strong, but always restraining measure, it may admit a more
\nemphatic rhythm, more directly and powerfully stimulate the emotion, appeal to
\na more vivid aesthetic sense. It may even make such a free or rich use of
\nimages as to suggest an outward approximation to the manner of poetry; but it
\nemploys them decoratively, as ornaments, alamkāra, <\/i>or for their
\neffective value in giving a stronger intellectual vision of the thing or the
\nthought it describes or defines; it does not use the image for that pro\u00adfounder
\nand more living vision for which the poet is always seeking. And always it has
\nits eye on its chief hearer and judge, the intelligence, and calls in other
\npowers only as important aids to capture his suffrage. Reason and taste, two
\npowers of the <\/i>intelligence, are rightly the supreme gods of the prose
\nstylist, while to the poet they are only minor deities.<\/span><\/p>\n

If it goes beyond these limits, approaches
\nin its measures a more striking rhythmic balance, uses images for sheer vision,
\nopens itself to a mightier breath of speech, prose style passes beyond its
\nprovince and approaches or even enters the confines of poetry. It becomes
\npoetical prose or even poetry itself using the apparent forms of prose as a
\ndisguise or a loose apparel. A high or a fine adequacy, effectivity,
\nintellectual illuminativeness and a carefully tempered aesthetic satisfaction
\nare the natural and normal powers of its speech. But the privilege of the poet
\nis to go beyond and discover that more intense illumination of speech, that
\ninspired word and supreme inevitable utterance, in which there meets the unity
\nof a divine rhythmic movement with a depth of sense and a power of infinite
\nsuggestion welling up directly from the fountain-heads of the spirit within us.
\nHe may not always or often find it, but to seek for it is the law of his
\nutterance, and when he can not only find it, but cast into it some deeply
\nrevealed truth of the spirit itself, he utters the mantra.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

But always, whether in the search or
\n<\/i>the
\nfinding, the whole style and rhythm of poetry are the expression and movement <\/p>\n

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\n14<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

which
\ncome from us out of a certain spiritual excitement caused by a vision in the
\nsoul of which it is eager to deliver itself. The vision may be of anything in
\nNature or God or man or the life of creatures or the life of things; it may be
\na vision of force and ac\u00adtion, or of sensible beauty, or of truth of thought,
\nor of emotion and pleasure and pain, of this life or the life beyond. It is
\nsufficient that it is the soul which sees and the eye, sense, heart and thought
\n\u00admind become the passive instruments of the soul. Then we get the real, the
\nhigh poetry. But if it is too much an excitement of the intellect, the
\nimagination, the emotions, the vital activities seeking rhythmical and forceful
\nexpression which acts, without enough of the greater spiritual excitement
\nembracing them, if all these are not sufficiently sunk into the soul, steeped
\nin it, fused in it and the expression does not come out purified and uplifted
\nby a sort of spiritual transmutation, then we fall to lower levels of poetry,
\nand get work of a much more doubtful immortality.\u00a0 <\/span>And when the appeal is altogether to the
\nlower things in us, to the mere mind, we arrive outside the true domain of
\npoetry; we approach the confines of prose or get prose itself masking in the
\napparent forms of poetry, and the work is distinguished from prose style only
\nor mainly by its mechanical elements, a good verse form and perhaps a more
\ncompact, catching or ener\u00adgetic expression than the prose writer
\nwill-ordinarily permit to the easier and looser balance of his speech. That is
\n<\/i>to say, it will not have at all or not sufficiently the true essence of
\npoetry. \u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

For in all things that speech can express
\nthere are two ele\u00adments, the outward or instrumental and the real or spiritual.
\nIn thought, for instance, there is the intellectual idea, that which the
\nintelligence makes precise and definite to us, and the soul-idea, that which
\nexceeds the intellectual and brings us into nearness or identity with the whole
\nreality of the thing expressed. Equally in emotion, it is not the mere emotion
\nitself the poet seeks, but the soul of the emotion, that in it for the delight
\nof which the soul in us and the world desires or accepts emotional experience.
\nSo too with the poetical sense of objects, the poet’s attempt to embody in his
\nspeech truth of life or truth of Nature. It is this greater truth and its
\ndelight and beauty for which he is seeking, beauty which is truth and truth
\nbeauty and therefore a joy for ever <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n15<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

because
\nit brings us the delight of the soul in the discovery of its own deeper
\nrealities. This greater element the more timid and temperate speech of prose
\ncan sometimes shadow out to us, but the heightened and fearless style of poetry
\nmakes it close and living and the higher cadences of poetry carry in on their
\nwings what the style by itself could not bring. This is the source of that
\nintensity which is the stamp of poetical speech and of the poetical movement.
\nIt comes from the stress of the soul-vision behind the word; it is the
\nspiritual excitement of a rhythmic voyage of self-discovery among the magic
\nislands of form and name in these inner and outer worlds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 16<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER II    The Essence of Poetry                       IN ORDER to get a firm clue which we can \u00adfollow fruitfully in the retrospect and…<\/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-1290","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\/1290","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=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}