{"id":1298,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:56","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:56","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:56","slug":"37-poetic-rhythm-and-technique-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\/37-poetic-rhythm-and-technique-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-37_Poetic Rhythm and Technique.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

<\/p>\n

\nS<\/font>ECTION\u00a0 <\/span><\/font>
\nT<\/font>HREE<\/font><\/p>\n

 Poetic Rhythm and Technique<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n
\nTWO FACTORS IN POETIC RHYTHM<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

1 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n            I<\/font>f your purpose is to acquire not only metrical skill
\nbut the sense and the power
\nof rhythm, to study the poets may do something, but not all. There are two
\nfactors in poetic rhythm, \u2014 there is the technique (the variation of movement
\nwithout spoiling the fundamental structure of the metre, right management of
\nvowel and consonantal assonances and dissonances, the masterful combination of
\nthe musical element of stress with the less obvious element of quantity, etc.),
\nand there is the secret soul of rhythm which uses but exceeds these things. The
\nfirst you can learn, if you read with your ear always in a tapasyā <\/i>of
\nvigilant attention to these constituents, but without the second what you
\nachieve may be technically faultless and even skilful, but poetically a dead
\nletter. This soul of rhythm can only be found by listening in to what is behind
\nthe music of words and sounds and things. You will get something of it by
\nlistening for that subtler element in great poetry, but mostly it must either
\ngrow or suddenly open in yourself. This sudden opening can come if the Power
\nwithin wishes to express itself in that way. I have more than once seen a
\nsudden flowering of capacities in every kind of activity come by a rapid
\nopening of the consciousness, so that one who laboured long without the least
\nsuccess to express himself in rhythm becomes a master of poetic language and
\ncadences almost in a day. Poetry is a question of the right openness to the
\nWord that is trying to express itself \u2014 for the Word is there ready to descend
\nin those inner planes where all artistic forms take birth, but it is the
\ntransmitting mind that must change and become a perfect channel and not an
\nobstacle. <\/span>
\n <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

As
\nfor the technique, there are two different things, the intellectual knowledge which
\none applies, and the intuitive cognition
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 391<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

which
\nacts in its own right, even if it is not actually possessed by the worker. Many
\npoets for instance have little knowledge of metrical or linguistic technique
\nand cannot explain how the write or what are the qualities and elements of
\ntheir success, but they write, all the same, things that are perfect in rhythm
\nand language. Intellectual knowledge of technique helps of course, provided one
\ndoes not make of it a mere device or a rigid fetter. There are some arts that
\ncannot be done well without some technical knowledge, e.g. painting, sculpture.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

14.5.1936<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nIMPORTANCE OF METRE AND TECHNIQUE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>1<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

I
\ndon\u2019t know that Swinburne failed for this reason \u2014 before assenting to such a
\ndictum I should like to know which were these poems he spoiled buy too much
\nartistry of technique. So far as I remember, his best poems are those in which
\nhe is most perfect in artistry, most curious or skilful, most subtle. I think
\nhis decline began when he felt himself too much at ease and poured himself out
\nin an endless waster of melody without caring for substance and the finer
\nfinenesses of form. Attention to technique harms only when a writer is so busy
\nwith it that he becomes indifferent to substance. But if the substance is
\nadequate, the attention to technique can only give it greater beauty. Even
\ndevices like a refrain, internal rhymes, etc. can indeed be great aids to the
\ninspiration and the expression and superfluous equipment restraining the
\nmovement and sincerity of poetic form. Metre, on the contrary, is the most
\nnatural mould of expression for certain states of creative emotion and vision,
\nit is much more natural and spontaneous than a non-metrical form; the emotion
\nexpresses itself best and most powerfully in a balanced rather than i9n a loose
\nand shapeless rhythm. The search for technique is simply the search\u00a0 <\/span>for the best and most appropriate form for
\nexpressing what <\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 392<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

has
\nto be said and once it is found., the inspiration can flow quite naturally and
\nfluently into it. There can be no harm therefore in close attention to
\ntechnique so long as there is no inattention to substance. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>There are only two conditions about
\nartistry: (1) that the artistry does not become so exterior as to be no longer
\nart and\u00a0 <\/span>(2)\u00a0 <\/span>that substance ( in which of course I include
\nbhāva ) <\/i>is not left behind in the desert or else art and bhāva
\n<\/i>not woven into each other. <\/span><\/p>\n

24.8.1935<\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Swinburne\u2019s
\ndefect is preference of sound to sense, but I would find it difficult to find
\nfault with his music or his rhythmical method. There is no reason why one
\nshould not use assonance and alliteration, if one knows how to use them as
\nSqwinburne did. Everybody cannot succeed like that and those who cannot must be
\nvery careful and restrained in their use. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRHYME\u00a0 <\/span>AND\u00a0 <\/span>INSPIRATION<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Some
\nrhyme with ease, others find a difficulty. The coming of the rhyme is a part of
\nthe inspiration just like the coming of the power of language. The rhyme often
\ncomes of itself and brings the language and the connection of ideas with it.
\nFor all these things are quite ready behind somewhere and it is only a matter
\nof reception and transmission. It is the physical mind and brain that make the
\ndifficulty <\/span><\/p>\n

2.2.1934 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nINSPIRATION\u00a0 <\/span>AND\u00a0 <\/span>STURY\u00a0
\n<\/span>OF\u00a0 <\/span>TECHNIQUE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

You do not need at
\nall to afflict your inspiration by studying metrical technique \u2014 you have all
\nthe technique you need, within you. I have never studied prosody myself \u2014 in
\nEnglish, at least; what I know I know by reading and writing and following my
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 393<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

ear and using my
\nintelligence. If one is interested in the technical study of prosody for its
\nown sake, that is another matter \u2014 but it is not at all indispensable.<\/span><\/p>\n

28.4.1934 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRHYTHMICAL\u00a0 <\/span>OVERTONES\u00a0 <\/span>AND\u00a0
\n<\/span>UNDERTONES<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nwas speaking of rhythmical overtones and undertones. That is to say, there is a
\nmetrical rhythm which belongs to the skilful use of metre \u2014 any good poet can
\nmanage that; but besides that there is a music which rises up into that of the
\nrhythm or a music that underlies it, carries it as it were as the movement of
\nthe water carries the movement of a boat. They can both exist together in the
\nsame line, but it is more a mater of the inner than the outer ear and I am
\nafraid I can\u2019t define further. To go into the subject would mean a long essay.
\nBut to give examples \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Journeys
\nend in lovers meeting,<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Every
\nwise man\u2019s son doth know,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Is
\nexcellent metrical rhythm, but there are no overtones and undertones. In <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Golden lads and girls all must,<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>As chimney-sweepers, come to dust<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

There
\nis a beginning of undertone, but no overtone, while the \u2018Take, O take those
\nlips away\u201d (the whole lyric) is all overtones. Again<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend
\nme your ears;<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I come to bury Caesar, not to praise
\nhim<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Has
\nadmirable rhythm, but there are no overtones or undertones. But<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In maiden meditation, fancy-free<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Has
\nbeautiful running undertones, while <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 394<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In the dark backward and abysm of
\ntime<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Is all overtones, and<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Absent
\nthee from felicity awhile,<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>And
\nin this harsh world draw thy breath in pain<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Is
\nall overtones and undertones together. I don\u2019t suppose this will make you much
\nwiser, but it is all I can do for you at present.<\/span><\/p>\n

11.5.19937<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nENGLISH QUANTATIVE
\nVERSE AND CLASSICAL METRES \u2014<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nMELODY OF ENGLISH AND BENGALI LANGUAGES<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

There
\nhave been attempts to write in English quantitative verse on the Greek and Latin
\nprinciple with the classical metres, attempts which began in the Elizabethan
\ntimes, but they have not been successful because the method was either too
\nslipshod or tried to adhere too rigidly to the rules of quantity natural to
\nGreek and Latin but not to the English tongue instead of making an adaptation
\nof it for the English ear or, still better, discovering directly in English
\nitself the true principle of an English quantitative principle in English and
\nwith great advantage. I have not seen Bridges\u2019 attempts, but I do not see why
\nhis failure \u2014\u00a0 <\/span>if it was one \u2014 should
\ndamn the possibility. I think one day it will be done. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It is true that English rhythm falls
\nmost naturally into the iambic movement. But I do not admit the adverse
\nstrictures passed on the other (trochaic, anapaestic, dactylic) bases of metre.
\nAll depends on how you handle them, \u2014 if as much pains are bestowed on them, as
\non the iambic metre in the hands of great poets like Milton, Shelley, Keats
\ndoes not pall \u2014 I do not get tired of the melody of the Skylark. <\/i>Swinburne\u2019s
\nanapaestic metres, as in Dolores, <\/i>are kept up for pages without
\ndifficulty with the most royal ease, without fatigue either to the writer or
\nthe
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 395<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

Reader. Both
\ntrochee and anapaest are surely quite natural to the language. The dactyl is
\nmore difficult to continue, but I believe it can be done, even in a long
\ndactylic metre like the hexameter, if interspersed with spondees (as the metre
\nallows) and supported by subtle modulations of rhythm, variations of pause and
\ncaesura. The iambic metre itself was at first taxed with monotony in a drumming
\nbeat until it was used in a more plastic way by Shakespeare and Milton. All
\ndepends on the skill which one brings to the work and the tool is quarreled
\nwith only when the workman does not know how to use it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The English language is not
\nnaturally melodious like the Italian or Bengali \u2014 no language with a Teutonic
\nbase can be \u2014but it is capable of remarkable harmonic effects and also it can
\nby a skilful handling be made to give out the most beautiful melodies. Bengali
\nand Italian are soft, easy and mellifluous languages \u2014 English is difficult and
\nhas to be struggled with in order to produce its best effects, but out of that
\nvery difficulty has arisen an astonishing plasticity, depth and manifold
\nsubtlety of rhythm, These qualities do not repose on metrical handling alone
\nbut much more on the less analyzable elements of the entire rhythmic structure
\nmetrical basis itself is a peculiar and subtle combination on which English rhythm
\ndepends without explicitly avowing it, \u2014 a skilful and most extraordinarily
\nvariable combination of three elements, \u2014 the numeric foot and a play of
\nstresses, and a recognizable but free and plastic use of quantitative play (
\nnot quantitative feet), all three running into each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I am afraid your estimate here is
\nmarred by the personal or national habit. One is always inclined to make this
\nclaim for one\u2019s own language because one can catch every shade and element of
\nit while in another language, however well-learned, the ear is not so
\nclairaudient. I cannot agree that the examples you give of Bengali melody beat
\nhollow the melody of the greatest English lyrists. Shakespeare, Swinburne\u2019s
\nbest work in Atalanta<\/i> and elsewhere, Shelley at his fines and some
\nothers attain a melody that cannot be surpassed. It is a different kind of
\nmelody but not inferior. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bengali has a more melodious basis,
\nit can accomplish melody <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 396<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

more easily than
\nEnglish, it has a freer variety of melodies now, for formerly as English poetry
\nwas mostly iambic, Bengali poetry used to be mostly ak<\/span>sarav<\/span>rtta.(
\n<\/i>I remember how my brother Manmohan would annoy me by denouncing the absence
\nof melody, the featureless monotony of Bengali rhythm and tell me how Tagore
\nought to be read to be truly melodious \u2014 like English in stress, with ludicrous
\neffects. At however is by the way.)\u00a0 <\/span>What
\nI mean is that variety of melodic bases was not very conspicuous at that time
\nin Bengali poetry. Nowadays this variety is there and undoubtedly opens
\npossibilities such as perhaps do not exist in other languages. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I do not see, however, how the
\nmetrical aspect by itself can really be taken apart from other more subtle
\nelements; I do not mean the spirit and feeling or the sense of the language
\nonly, thought without depth or adequacy there metrical melody is only a
\nmelodious corpse, but the spirit\u00a0 <\/span>and
\nfeeling or subtle (not intellectual) elements of rhythm and it is on these that
\nEnglish depends for the greater power and plasticity of its harmonic and even,
\nif to a less extent, of its melodic effects,. In a word, there is truth in what
\nyou say but it cannot be pushed so far as you push it. <\/span><\/p>\n

May, 1934<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nACCLIMATISATION OF CLASSICAL METRES IN ENGLISH<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In
\nthe attempt to acclimatize the classical scansions in English, everything
\ndepends on whether they are acclimatized or not. That is to say, there must be
\na spontaneous, natural, seemingly native-born singing or flowing or subtly
\nmoving rhythm. The lines must glide or run or walk easily or, if you like, execute
\na complex dance, stately or light, but not stumble, not shamble and not walk
\nlike the Commander\u2019s statue suddenly endowed with life but stiff and stony in
\nits march. Now the last is just what happens to classical metres in English
\nwhen they are not acclimatized, naturalized, made to seem even naturally
\nEnglish, although new. It is like cardboard cut into measures, there is no life
\nor movement of life \u2026 It was this inability to naturalise that <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 397<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

ruined the chances
\nof the admission of classical metres in the attempts of earlier poets \u2014 we must
\navoid that mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

23.11.19933 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nFAILURE OF EARLY ENGLISH HEXAMETER<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Former
\npoets failed in the attempt at hexameter because they did not find the right
\nbasic line and measure; they forgot that stress and quantity must both be
\nconsidered in English. Even though in theory the stress alone makes the
\nquantity, there is another kind of true quantity which must be given a
\nsubordinate but very necessary recognition; besides, even in stress there are
\nkinds, true and fictitious, major and minor. In analyzing the movement of an
\nEnglish line, one could make three independent schemes according to these three
\nbases and the combination would give the value of the rhythm. You Can ignore
\nall this in an established metre and go safely by the force of instinct and
\nhabit; but for making so difficult an innovation as the hexameter, instinct and
\nhabit were not enough, a clear eye upon all these constituents was needed and
\nit was not there. Longfellow, even Clough, went on the theory of accentual;
\nquantity alone and in spite of their talent as versifiers made a mess \u2014
\nproducing something that discredited the very idea of the creation of an
\nEnglish hexameter. Other poets made no serious or sustained endeavour. Arnold
\nwas interesting so long as he theorized about it, but his practical specimens
\nwere disastrous. I have not time to make my point clearer for the moment; I may
\nreturn to it hereafter. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nCOMMENTS ON MILFORD\u2019S VIEWS ON QUANTITY IN ENGLISH VERSE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Milford
\naccepts the rule that two consonants after a short vowel make the short vowel
\nlong, even if they are outside the word and come in another word following it.
\nTo my mind that is an absurdity. I shall go on pronouncing the y <\/i>of frosty
\n<\/i>as short whether it has two consonants after it or only one or none; it
\nremains <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 398<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

frosty <\/span><\/i>whether it is a frosty
\nscalp <\/i>or frosty top <\/i>or a frosty anything. In no case have I
\npronounced it or could I consent to pronounce it as frostee. <\/i>My
\nhexameters are intended to be read naturally as one would read any English
\nsentence. But it you admit a short syllable to be long whenever there are two
\nconsonants after it, then Bridges\u2019 scansions are perfectly justified. Milford
\ndoes not accept that conclusion; he says Bridges\u2019 scansions are an absurdity.
\nBut he bases this on his idea that quantitative length does not count in
\nEnglish verse. It is intonation that makes the metre, he says, high tones or
\nlow tones \u2014 not longs and shorts, and stress is there of the greatest
\nimportance. On that ground he refuses to discuss my idea of weight or dwelling
\nof the voice or admit quantity or anything else but tone as determinative of
\nthe metre and declares that there is no such thing as metrical length. Perhaps
\nalso that is the reason why he counts frosty <\/i>as a spondee before scalp;
\n<\/i>he thinks that it causes it to be intoned in a different way. I don\u2019t see
\nhow it does that; for my part, I intone it just the same before top <\/i>as
\nbefore scalp. The ordinary theory is, I believe, that the sc <\/i>of scalp
\n<\/i>is a slightly longer word that <\/i>top and that affects perhaps the
\nrhythm of the line but not the metre; it cannot lengthen the preceding syllable
\nso as to turn a trochee into a spondee. Sanskrit quantitation is irrelevant
\nhere (it is the same as Latin or Greek in this respect) for both Milford and I
\nagree that the classical quantitative conventions are not reproducible in
\nEnglish:\u00a0 <\/span>we both spew out Bridges\u2019
\neccentric rhythms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This answers also your question as
\nto what Milford means by \u201cfundamental confusion\u201d regarding aridity. <\/i>He refuses
\nto accept the idea of metrical length. But I am concerned with metrical as well
\nas natural vowel quantities. My theory is that natural length in English
\ndepends, or can depend,. On the dwelling of the voice giving metrical value or
\nweight to the syllable; in quantitative verse one has to take account of all
\nsuch dwelling or weight of the voice, both weight by ictus (stress) and weight <\/span><\/p>\n

\n                Page – 399<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

By
\nprolongation of the voice (ordinary syllabic length); the two are different,
\nbut for metrical purposes in a quantitative verse can rank as or equal value. I
\ndo not say that stress turns a short vowel into a long one. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Milford does not take the trouble to
\nunderstand my theory \u2014 he ignores the importance I give to modulations and
\ntreats cretics and antibacchii and molossi as if they were dactyls, where they
\nare only substitutes for dactyls; he ignores my objection to stressing short
\ninsignificant words like and, with, but, the <\/i>\u2014 and thinks that I do that
\neverywhere, which would be to ignore my theory. In fact I have scrupulously
\napplied my theory in every detail of my practice. Take, for instance, <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Art
\nthou not heaven-bound even as I with the<\/i><\/span><\/p>\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 <\/span>Earth?
\nHast thou ended.\u00b9<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Here art <\/i>is
\nlong by natural quantity though unstressed, which disproves Milford\u2019s criticism
\nthat in practice I never put an unstressed long as the first syllable of a
\ndactylic foot or spondee, as I should do by my theory. I don\u2019t do it often
\nbecause normally in English rhythm stress bears the foot \u2014 a fact to which I
\nHAVE GIVEN FULL EMPHASIS IN MY THEORY. That is the reason why I condemn the
\nBridgesean disregard of stress in the rhythm, \u2014 still I do it occasionally
\nwhenever it can come in quite naturally. \u00b2<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00b9 <\/font>
\n<\/span>
\nA line from Ahana, a poem by Sri Aurobindo. See
\ncollected Poems (Centenary Edition 1972).<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00b2\u00a0 <\/span>E.g.
\nOpening tribrachs are very frequent in my hexameter. See Ahana:<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>Is
\nhe the first? Was there none then before him? Shall none come after?<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut Milford thinks I have stressed the first short syllable to make
\nthem into dactyls \u2014 a thing I abhor. See also Ahana, (initial anapaest):<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>Ĭn
\nthě hārd \/ reckoning made by the grey-robed accountant at even <\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\nor (two anapaests) : <\/span><\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>Yět
\nsŭrvīves \/ bliss in the rhythm of our heart-beats, yět ĭs
\nthēre \/ wonder, <\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\nor again:<\/span><\/font><\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>Ănd
\nwě gō \/ stumbling, maddened and thriulled to his dreadful embraces<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nOr in my poem Ilion: <\/span><\/font> <\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>Aňd
\nthě fīrst \/ Argive fell slain as he leaped on the Phrygian beaches.
\n<\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nThere are even
\nopening amphibrachs here and there, see Ahana:<\/font><\/span><\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>Ĭllūmi
\n\/ nations, trance-seeds of silence, flowers of musing, <\/font><\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 400<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

My
\nquantitative system, as I have shown at great length, is based on the natural
\nmovement of the English tongue, the same in prose and poetry, not on any
\nartificial theory. <\/span><\/p>\n

24.12.1942<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nQUANTITATIVE METRE IN BENGALI POETRY<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

This
\nquestion of quantity is one in which I find it difficult to arrive at a
\nconclusion. You can prove that it can be done and has been successfully done in
\nBengali, and y0ou can prove and have proved it yourself over again by writing
\nis absent in S. It is quite true also that stylisation is permissible and a
\nrecognized form of art \u2014 I mean professed and overt stu7ylisation and not that
\nwhich hides itself under a contrary profession of naturalness or faithful
\nfollowing of external nature.\/ The only question is how much of it Bengali
\npoetry goes at all to the root of the matter. The question is whether it is
\npossible to have ease of movement in this kind of quantitative metre. For a few
\nlines it can be very beautiful or for a short poem or a song \u2014that much cannot
\nbe doubted. But can it be made a spontaneous movement of Bengali poetry like
\nthe ordinary mātrāv<\/span>rttas <\/i>or the others, in which one
\ncan walk or run at will without looking at one\u2019s steps to see that one does not
\nstumble and without concentrating the reader\u2019s mind too much on the technique
\nso that his attention is diverted from the sense and bh<\/i>āva? If you
\ncan achieve some large and free structure in which quantity takes a recognized
\nplace as part of the foundation, \u2014 if need not be reproduction of a Sanskrit
\nmetre, \u2014 that would solve the problem in the affirmative. <\/span><\/p>\n

31.5.1932 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nACCENT IN ENGLISH RHYTHM<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Is
\nit true that the laghu-guru <\/i>is to the Bengali ear as impossible as would
\nbe to the English ear the line made up by Tagore:
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 401<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

\u201cAutumn
\nflaunteth in his bushy bowers\u201d? In English such a violence could not be
\nentertained for a moment. It was because Spenser and other tried to base their
\nhexameters and pentameters on this flagrant violation of the first law of
\nEnglish rhythm that the first attempt to introduce quantitative metres in
\nEnglish proved a failure. Accent cannot be ignored in English rhythm \u2014 it is
\nwhy in my attempts at quantitative metre I always count a strongly accentuated
\nsyllable, even if the vowel is short, as a long one \u2014 for the stress does
\nreally make\u00a0 <\/span>it long for metrical purposes.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

21.7.1936 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE ALEXANDRINE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nsuppose the Alexandrine has been condemned because no one has even been able to
\nmake effective use of it as a staple metre. The difficulty, I suppose, is its
\nnormal tendency to fall into two monotonously equal halves while the possible
\nvariations on that monotony seem to stumble often into awkward inequalities.
\nThe Alexandrine is an admirable instrument in French verse because of the more
\nplastic character of the movement, not bound to its stresses but only to an
\nequality of metric syllables capable of a sufficient variety in the rhythm. In
\nEnglish it does not work so well; a single Alexandrine or an occasional
\nAlexandrine couplet can have a great dignity and amplitude of sweep in English,
\nbut a succession fails or has most often failed to impose itself on the ear.
\nAll this, however, may be simply because the secret of the right handling has
\nnot been found: it is at least my impression that a very good rhythmist with
\nthe Alexandrine movement secretly born somewhere in him and waiting to be
\nbrought out could succeed in rehabilitating the metre. <\/span><\/p>\n

5.2.1932<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOCTOSYLLABIC METRE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nregular octosyllabic metre is at once the easiest to write and the most
\ndifficult to justify by a strong and original rhythmic treatment; it may be that
\nit is only buy filling it with very original <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 402<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

thought-substance
\nand image and the deeper tones and sound-significances which these would bring
\nthat it could be saved from its besetting obviousness. On the other hand, the
\nmelody to which it lends itself, if raised to a certain intensity, can be
\nfraught with a seizing charm that makes us forget the obviousness of the metre.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

4.2.1932 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nIAMBIC PENTAMETER<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

An
\ninspiration which leans more on a sublimated or illumined thought than on some
\nstrong or subtle or very simple psychic or vital intensity and swiftness of
\nfeeling, seems to call naturally for the iambic pentameter, though it need not
\nconfine itself to that form. I myself have not yet found another metre which
\ngives room enough alongwith an apposite movement \u2014 shorter metres are too
\ncramped, the longer ones need a technical dexterity (if one is not to be either
\ncommonplace or clumsy) for which I have not leisure. <\/span><\/p>\n

5.3.1932 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nCOMBINATION OF IAMBICS AND ANAPAESTS<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Iambics and
\nanapaests can be combined in English verse at any time, provided one does not
\nset out to write a purely iambic or a purely anapaestic metre. Mixed anapaest
\nand iamb make a most beautifully flexible lyric rhythm. It has no more
\nconnection with free verse than the constellation of the Great Bear has to do
\nwith a cat\u2019s tail. \u201cFree\u201d verse free from the shackles of rhyme and metre, but
\nrhythmic (or trying to be rhythmic) in one way or another. If you put rhymes,
\nthat will be considered a shackle and the \u201cfree\u201d will kick at the chain.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE PROBLEM OF FREE VERSE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The problem of
\nfree verse is to keep the rhythm and afflatus of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 403<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

poetry
\nwhile asserting one\u2019s liberty as in prose to vary the rhythm and movement at
\nwill instead of being tied down to metre and to a single unchangeable form
\nthroughout the whole length of a poem. But most writers in this kind achieve
\nprose cut up into lines or something that is half and half and therefore
\nunsatisfying. I think few have escaped this kind of shipwreck. <\/span><\/p>\n

18.9.1936 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nCONDITIONS FOR WRITING SUCCESSFUL BLANK VERSE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Building
\nof each line, building of the passage, variation of balance, the arrangement of
\ntone and stress and many other things have to be mastered before you can be a
\npossessor of the instrument \u2014 unless you are born with a blank verse genius,
\nbut that is rare. <\/span><\/p>\n

7.7.1933 <\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

  <\/span><\/p>\n

It
\nlooks as if you were facing the problem of blank verse by attempting it under
\nconditions of the maximum difficulty. Not content with choosing a form which is
\nbased on the single line blank verse (I mean, of course, each line a clear-cut
\nentity by itself) as opposed to the flowing and freely enjambed variety you try
\nto unite flow lines and single line and farther undertake a form of blank verse
\nquatrains! I have myself tried the blank verse on a large scale in Savitri <\/i>I
\nfound myself falling involuntarily into a series of four-line movement. But
\neven though I was careful in the building, I found it led to a stiff monotony
\nand had to make a principle of variation \u2014 one line, two line, three line, four
\nline or longer passages (paragraphs as it were ) alternating with each other;
\notherwise the system would be a failure. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In attempting the blank verse
\nquatrain one has to avoid like
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 404<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

poison
\nall flatness of movement \u2014 a flat movement immediately creates sense of void
\nand sets the ear asking for the absent rhyme. The last line of each verse
\nespecially must be a powerful line acting as a strong close so that the rhyming
\nclose-cadence is missed no more. And, secondly, there must be a very caref8ul
\nbuilding of the structure. A mixture of sculpture and architecture is indicated
\n\u2014 there should be plenty of clear-cut single lines but they must be built into
\na quatrain that is itself a perfect structural whole. In your lines it is these
\nqualities that are lacking, so that the poetic substance fails in its effect
\nowing to rhythmic insufficiency. One closing line of yours will absolutely not
\ndo \u2014 that of the fourth stanza \u2014 its feminine ending is enough to damn it; you
\nmay have feminine endings but not in the last line of the quatrain, and its
\nwhole movement is an unfinished movement. The others would do, but they lose
\nhalf their force by being continuations of clauses which look back to the
\nprevious line for their sense. They can do that sometimes, but only on condition
\nof their still having a clear-cut wholeness in themselves and coming in with a
\ndecisive force. In the4 structure you have attempted to combine the flow of the
\nlyrical quatrain with the force of a single line blank verse system. I suppose
\nit can be done, but here the single line has interfered with the flow and the
\nflow has interfered with the single line force. <\/span><\/p>\n

18.7.1933<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIMPERFECT\u00a0 <\/span>RHYMES<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

It
\nis no use applying a Bengali ear to English rhythms any more than a French ear
\nto English or an English ear to French metres. The Frenchman may object to
\nEnglish blank verse because his own ear misses the rhyme or the Englishman to
\nthe French Alexandrine because he finds it rhetorical and monotonous.
\nIrrelevant objections both. Imperfect rhymes are regarded in English metre as a
\nsource of charm in the rhythmic field bringing in possibilities of delicate
\nvariation in the constant clang of exact rhymes.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 405<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>One cannot expect
\nto seize in poetry the finer and more elusive tones, which are so important, in
\na learned language, however well-learnt, as in one\u2019s native and natural tongue
\n\u2014 unless of course one succeeds in making it natural, if not native. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

They
\nare called in English imperfect rhymes and can be freely but not too freely
\nused. Only you have to understand the approximations and kinships of vowel
\nsounds in English, otherwise you will produce illegitimate children like
\n\u201csplendour\u201d and \u201cwonder\u201d which is not a rhyme but an assonance.<\/span><\/p>\n

19.12.1935<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBENGALI GADYA-CHHANDA<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I
\ncan\u2019t say that I have studied or even read Bengali gadya-chanda.<\/i> So I am
\nunable to pronounce. In fact what is gadya-chanda? <\/i>Is it the equivalent
\nof European free verse? But there the essence of the thing is that you model
\neach line freely as you like \u2014regularity of any kind is out of court there. Is
\nit the aim to create a kind of rhymed prose metre? On what principle? N seems
\nto want a movement which will give more volume, strength and sonority than
\nBengali verse can succeed in creating, but which is yet poetry, not prose cut
\ninto lines of different lengths. All things can be tried \u2014the test is success,
\ntrue poetic excellence,. N has sent me some of his gadya-chanda<\/i> before.
\nIt seemed to me to have much flow and energy, but there is something hanging on
\nto it which weighs, almost drags \u2014 is it the ghost of prose? But that is only a
\npersonal impression; as I have said, on this subject I am not a qualified
\njudge. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nINVENTION\u00a0 <\/span>OF NEW METRES<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, X is
\nright about the desirability of inventing new
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 406<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

chandas <\/span><\/i>and metres. Your
\nfriend who combats this view probably means that the very greatest poets seldom
\ninvented a metre. I suppose they were too royally lazy to give themselves the
\ntrouble and preferred stealing other people\u2019s rhythms and polishing them up to
\nperfection, \u2014 just as Shakespeare stole bodily all his plots from wherever he
\ncould find any worth the lifting. But if that applies to Shakespeare or Virgil,
\nstill there are others whose achievements made a consummate metrical invention
\na companion of high poetic genius \u2014 Alcaeus, Sappho, Catullus, Horace. These
\npoets did a great thing in inventing or transferring from other tongues metres
\nnew to the language or introducing Greek metrical forms into Latin or
\nperfecting them in th4 direction of a more careful balance or a more flawless
\nelegance. But, apart from such illustrious precedents, a good thing such as the
\ncombination of metrical invention with perfect poetry would still be worth
\ndoing even if no one had had the good sense to do it before. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nUNPOPULARITY OF NEW METRES \u2014 CRYPTIC POETRY<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

It
\nis certainly not true that a good metre must necessarily be an easy metre \u2014
\neasy to read or easy to write. In fact, even with old-established perfectly
\nfamiliar metres, how many of the readers of poetry have an ear which seizes the
\ntrue movement and the whole subtlety and beauty of the rhythm? It is only in
\nthe more popular kind of poems that it gets in their hearing its full value. It
\nis all the more impossible when you bring in not only new rhythms but a new
\nprinciple of rhythm \u2014 or at least one that is not very familiar \u2014 to expect it
\nto be easily followed at first by the many. It is only if you are already a
\nrecognized master that by force of your reputation you can impose whatever you
\nlike on your public, for then even if they do not catch your drift, they will
\nstill applaud you and will take some pains to learn the new principle. If you
\nare imposing a principle not only of rhythm but of scansion to which the ear in
\nspite of past attempts is not trained so as to seize the basic lay of the
\nmovements in all its variation, a fair amount of incomprehension, some
\ndifficulty <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 407<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

in
\nknowing how to read the verse is very probable. Easier forms of a new rhythm
\nmay be caught in their movements, even if some will not be able to scan it; but
\nother difficult forms may give trouble. All that is not true objection to the
\nattempt at something new: novelty is difficult for the human mind \u2014 or ear \u2014 to
\naccept, but novelty is asked for all the same in all human activities for their
\ngrowth, amplitude, richer life. As you say the principle, what was a difficulty
\nbecomes easy, the unusual, first condemned as abnormal or impossible, becomes a
\nnormal and daily movement. <\/span><\/p>\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 <\/span>As
\nfor the charge of being cryptic, that is quite another mater. On what does it
\nbase itself? Obscurity due to inadequate expression is one thing, but the
\ncryptic may be simply the expression of more than can be seized at first sight
\nby the ordinary mind. It may be that the ideas are not of domain in which that
\nmind is accustomed to move or that there is new turn of expression other than
\nthe kind which it has been trained to follow. Again the ordinary turn of
\nBengali writing is lucid, direct, easy (in that it resembles French); if you
\nbring into it a more intricate and suggestive manner in which the connections
\nor transitions of thought are less obvious, that may create a difficulty. To
\nwhich of these causes is the accusation of being cryptic due? Certainly not the
\nfirst., since you are accused of having too adequate and not too inadequate a
\nvocabulary. A poet can be too easy to read, because there is not much in what
\nhe writes and it is exhausted at the first glance, or too difficult because you
\nhave to burrow for the meaning no difference to the excellence of the work, if
\nthe reader can catch its burden at the first glance or has to dwell a little on
\nit for the full force of it to come to the surface. One has perhaps sometimes
\nto do the latter in your poems, but I do not find anything unduly cryptic \u2014
\ncertainly there is nothing that can be really called obscure. The feeling, the
\nway of expression, the combinations of thought, word or image tend often to be
\nnew and unfamiliar, but that can be very well a strength and a merit, not an
\nelement of failure. <\/span><\/p>\n

28.1.1933<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 408<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\nPOETIC ORIGINALITY AND PAST INFLUENCES<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/span> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

                            T<\/b>he poem\u00b9 is a very good one. The one thing that
\ncan be said against it is that you need to go through it twice or thrice before
\nthe full beauty of the thought, rhythm and imagery comes to the surface \u2014 but
\nis that a demerit? Poems that are too easily read, as a French, critic puts it,
\nare not always the best \u2026 There is a great beauty and significant force in the
\nimagery and a remarkably successful fusion of the supporting object (physical
\nsymbol) into the revealing or transmuting image and the image into the object,
\nwhich is part of the highest art of symbolic or mystic poetry. \u201cHeard before\u201d?
\nIf you refer to elements of the rhythm, words or phrases here and there, or
\nimages used before though not in the same way, where is the poetry in so old
\nand rich a literature as the English that altogether escapes this suspicion of
\n\u201cheard before\u201d? Absolute originality in that sense is rare, almost
\nnon-existent; we are all those who went before us with something new added that
\nis ourselves, and it is this something added that transfigures and is the real
\noriginality. In this sense there is a great impression of original power in the
\nbeauty of the first verse and hardly less in the second. It seems to me very
\nsuccessful, and \u201ctriviality\u201d is the description that can be least applied to it
\nwhile it could lack interest only to those who have no mind for poetry of this
\ncharacter.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\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
\n<\/font> <\/span>\u00b9 <\/font> <\/span>
\nHarsh
\nlike the shorn head high of a gaunt grey-hooded friar<\/span><\/font><\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>Who
\nfears the beauty and use of sculptured limbs<\/font><\/span><\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>(Branding
\nthe sculptor-archetype a liar),<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/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>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>O moon but lately risen from the foam
\nwhere the sea-mew skims \u2014 <\/font> \u00a0<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\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
\n<\/font> <\/span>\u00a0<\/font><\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Form that a wan light cassocks, grace that a
\ntonsure dims.<\/font>\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span><\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Joy that the leaden curse is rolled away
\nto leave the golden <\/font><\/span> <\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Tresses of earth-transforming gramarye<\/font><\/span><\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Whereby our wildered flesh-fret is enfolden
\n\u2014<\/font><\/span><\/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
\n<\/font> <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>O fair as the foam-fashioned
\ngoddess that awoke from the wondering sea, <\/font><\/span> <\/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 <\/font> <\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Love with the earth-shroud lifted, star
\nfrom the shade set free!<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u2014<\/span><\/font>      
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/span>
\nArjava, New Risen Moon\u2019s
\nEclipse in Poems, p.20<\/font>\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 409<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n


\n2<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span>[About the same poem:]<\/span><\/p>\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 <\/span>Surely,
\none cannot be accused of being Hopkinsian, merely because of successfully
\ncopious alliteration and an alliterative compound? These things have happened
\nbefore Hopkins and will go on happening after him even if he is no longer read.
\nIt may be that these turns came to Arjava because of the influence of Hopkins \u2014
\nto that only he can plead Yes or No. What I say is that the way he uses them is
\nnot <\/i>Hopkinsian, not Swinburnian, but Arjavan. \u201cFlesh-fret\u201d has not the
\nleast resemblance to \u201cbugle-blue\u201d or \u201ccuckoo-call\u201d or \u201cfast-flying\u201d, still less
\nto \u201cdapple-dawn-drawn\u201d except the mere external fact of the alliterative
\nstructure; its spiritual quality is quite different. To take an idea or a
\nformation or anything else from a former poet, \u2014 as Moli\u00e8re took his \u201cbon<\/i>\u201d
\nwherever he found it, \u2014 is common to every maker of verse; we don\u2019t write on a
\nblank slate virgin of the past. Indian sculpture or architecture may have taken
\nthis form from the Greeks or that form from the Persians; but neither is in the
\nleast degree Achaemenian or Hellenistic. <\/span><\/p>\n

1.4.1932<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE POETIC \u201cDAIMON\u201d<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

What is exactly your theory? There is one thing \u2014
\ninfluences \u2014 everybody undergoes influences, absorbs them or rejects, makes
\nthem disappear in one\u2019s own developed style or else keeps them as constituent
\nstrands. There is another thing \u2014 Lines of Force. In the universe there are
\nmany lines of Force on which various personalities or various achievements and
\nformations spring up \u2014 e.g. the line Pericles-Caesar-Napoleon or the line
\nAlexander-Jenghis-Tamerlane-Napoleon \u2014 meeting together there \u2014 so it may be
\ntoo in poetry, lines of poetic force prolonging themselves from one poet to
\nanother, meeting and diverging. Yours seems to be a third \u2014 a Daimon or
\nindividual Spirit of Poetry migrating from one individual to another, several
\nperhaps meeting together
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 410<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

in one who gives them all a full expression. Is
\nthat it? If so, it is an interesting idea and arguable. <\/span><\/p>\n

17.2.1935<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nCOMMENTS ON SOME EXPERIMENTS IN METRE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>1<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

I think you failed [in your experiment in the
\nclassical metre] \u2026 because you had no unwritten rhythm behind your mind when
\nyou started writing and none came through by accident \u2014 or what seems one \u2014 as
\nsometimes happens. There is an\u00a0
\n<\/span>inspiration of language and there is an inspiration of rhythm and the
\ntwo must fuse together for poetic perfection to come. As it is, you set out to
\nmanufacture your rhythm and piece together its parts \u2014 that must be the cause
\nof this result. Your failure does not predestine you to eventual failure. Most
\npeople fail at first when they try this kind of departure from the established
\nnorms \u2014 this rejuvenation of the old in the new. I do not remember my own previous
\nattempts in the classical metres but I feel sure they were failures of the kind
\nI stigmatise. If I succeed now, it will be by the grace of God, in other words
\nthe established Yoga consciousness, for in that consciousness things come
\nthrough from, behind the veil with ease, \u2014 so long as a veil exists at all. Of
\ncourse with genius too in its moments of inspiration \u2014 surer than the layman
\nimagines; but genius also is a kind of accidental Yoga, a contact, an opening
\ninto an occult Power. <\/span><\/p>\n

25.11.1933 <\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

This liability to be read as iambic pentameter is
\nthe pitfall of this metre\u00b9\u2014 everything else is easy, this is the critical point
\nin the movement. All the same, it seems to me that it is only the standing
\nconvention which imposes the iambic movement here. The reason why it can do so
\nat all is that in both the lines you <\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Quantitative trimeter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>.<\/span><\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 411<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

keep
\nup what one accustomed to the ordinary rhythms would take to be three
\nsuccessive trochees and would be irresistibly tempted to go on on the same lines.
\nIn order to get the right pace, the reader in dealing with these transplanted
\nclassic metres must be prepared to make the most of quantities and stresses
\n(true ones) and then, if the verse is well executed, there should be no
\ndifficulty. One can help him sometimes by a crowding of stresses in the first
\npart of the line and a refusal of all but the lightest sounds in the close with
\nof course a strong stress at the end.<\/p>\n

22.10.1933<\/p>\n

3<\/b><\/p>\n

I think the principle of this metre1<\/sup> should be to say a few
\nvery clear-cut things in a little space. At least it looks so to me at present
\n\u2014 though a more free handling of the metre might show that the restriction was
\nnot justifiable.<\/p>\n

I had chosen this metre \u2014 or rather it came to me and I accepted it \u2014
\nbecause it seemed to me both brief and easy, so suitable for an experiment. But
\nI find now that it was only seemingly easy and in fact very difficult. The ease
\nwith which I wrote it only came from the fact that by a happy inspiration the
\nright rhythm for it came into my consciousness and wrote itself out by virtue
\nof the rhythm being there. If I had consciously experimented I might have
\nstumbled over the same difficulties as have come in your way.<\/p>\n

The Bird of Fire<\/i>* was written on two consecutive days and
\nafterwards revised. The Trance<\/i>* at one sitting \u2014 it took only a few
\nminutes. You may have the date as they were both completed on the same day and
\nsent to you the next.<\/p>\n

4<\/b><\/p>\n

2<\/sup> These are things decided by the habit or training of the
\near.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup>
\nQuantitative
\ntrimeter.               
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

* Poems by Sri Aurobindo. See Collected Poems<\/i>
\n(Centenary Edition, 1972).<\/span><\/p>\n

         
\n2<\/span><\/sup> This is in reply to the following
\nquestions put by Arjava (J. A. Chadwick) apropos of some lines in his poem Sundown:                       <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

"The wind hush comes, the varied colours westward
\nstream:<\/span><\/p>\n

Were they joy-tinted coral, or song-light seen-heard
\nin a shell fitfully, Drifted ashore by the hours as a waif from the day-wide <\/span>
\nsea<\/span> Of <\/span>Loveliness<\/span> that smites awake our sorrow-dream?<\/span><\/p>\n

"Is
\nthere some way of keeping the loose swinging gait of anapaests within bounds? If
\none has used them freely in one or more lines, does it sound too abrupt to
\nclose with a strict iambic line-as in the final Alexandrine of the above?<\/span><\/p>\n

"It is perhaps a pity that the
\nrhythm of the first three lines runs in such well-worn familiar channels. Is
\nthis intensified by the sing-song of the second line, which slipped into the Saturnian
\nmetre lengthened out by anapaests?<\/span><\/p>\n

"I was intending the third line to
\nscan<\/span><\/p>\n

Drīftěd ăshōre bў thě
\nhoūrs<\/span><\/p>\n

"But I see it could also be taken as four dactyls
\nfollowed by the spondee ‘day-wide’ <\/b>and <\/b><\/span>the monosyllabic foot ‘sea’. Which is the scansion
\nwhich you would prefer? And would the four dactyls make the earlier part of a
\npassable hexameter, or would at least one spondee be needed to break up the
\nmonotony and too-obvious lilt?" <\/span><\/p>\n

Page – 412<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

 <\/i>The
\nintervention of a dactylic (or, if you like, anapaestic) line followed by an
\nAlexandrine would to the ear of a former generation have sounded abrupt and
\ninadmissible. But, I suppose, it would not to an ear accustomed to the greater
\nliberty \u2014 or even licence \u2014 of latter-day movements.<\/p>\n

I do not find that the rhythm of the first three lines is well-worn,
\nthough that of the first and third are familiar in type. The second seems to me
\nnot only not familiar, but unusual and very effective.<\/p>\n

The canter of anapaests can, I suppose, be only relieved by variation or
\nalternation with another metre, as you have done here \u2014 or by a very powerful
\nmusic which would turn the canter into a torrent rush or an oceanic sweep or
\nsurge. But the proper medium for the latter up till now has been a large
\ndactylic movement like the Greek or Latin hexameter; Swinburne has tried to get
\nit into the anapaest, but with only occasional success because of his excessive
\nfacility and looseness, which makes the sound empty owing to want of spiritual
\nsubstance. But this third line seems to be naturally dactylic and not
\nanapaestic. Can one speak of catalectic and acatalectic hexameters? If so, this
\nis a very beautiful catalectic hexameter.<\/p>\n

I may say that the four lines seem to be in their variation very
\nremarkably appropriate and effective, each exactly expressing by the rhythm the
\nspirit and movement of the thing inwardly <\/p>\n

Page
\n– 413<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

seen.
\nI am speaking of each line by itself; the only objection that could be made is
\nto the coming together of so many variations in so brief a whole (if it had
\nbeen longer, I imagine it would not have mattered) as disturbing to the habit
\nof the ear; but I am inclined to think that this objection would rest less on a
\nreality than a prejudice. The habit of the ear is not fundamental, it can
\nchange. What is fundamental in the inner hearing is not, I think, disturbed by
\nthe swiftness of the change from the controlled flow of the first line to the
\nwave dance and shimmer of the second, the rapid drift of the third and then the
\ndeliberate subtlety of the last line.<\/p>\n

Is there in recent poetry an unconscious push towards a new metrical
\nbasis altogether for English poetry \u2014 shown by the outbreak of free verse,
\nwhich fails because it is most often not verse at all \u2014 and the seeking
\nsometimes for irregularity, sometimes for greater plasticity of verse-movement
\n? Originally, Anglo-Saxon verse depended, if I remember right, on alliteration
\nand rhythm, not on measured feet; Greece and Rome through France and Italy
\nimposed the foot measure on English; per-haps the hidden seeking for freedom,
\nfor elbow-room, for the possibility of a varied rhythmic expression
\nnecessitated by the complexity of the inner consciousness might find some vent
\nin a measure which would depend not on feet but on lengths and stresses. I have
\nsometimes thought that and it recurred to me while looking at your second line,
\nfor on that principle it might be read<\/p>\n

Were they
\njoy-tinted coral, or song-light<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>seen-heard
\nin a shell fitfully.<\/i><\/p>\n

One could imagine a measure made of lines in a given number of lengths
\nlike that and each length allowed a given number of stresses; there would be
\nmany combinations and variations possible. For example (not of good poetry, but
\nof the form),<\/p>\n

A far sail
\non the unchangeable monotone of<\/i><\/p>\n

a slow slumbering sea,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A world of power hushed into symbols of
\nhue,<\/i><\/p>\n

silent unendingly;<\/i><\/p>\n

Page – 414<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

Over its head
\nlike a gold ball the sun tossed<\/i><\/p>\n

by the gods in their play<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Follows its curve,<\/i> \u2014 a blazing eye of
\nTime<\/i><\/p>\n

watching the motionless day.<\/i><\/p>\n

Perhaps it is only a curious imagination, too difficult and complex to
\nrealise, but it came on me strongly, so I put it down on
\npaper.                                             <\/p>\n

I have written two more stanzas of the stress-scansion poem so as to
\ncomplete it and send them to you. In this scansion as I conceive it, the lines
\nmay be analysed into feet, as you say all good rhythm can, but in that case the
\nfoot measures must be regarded as a quite subsidiary element without any fixed
\nregularity \u2014just as the (true) quantitative element is treated in ordinary
\nverse. The whole indispensable structure of the lines depends upon stress and
\nthey must be read on a different principle from the current view \u2014 full value
\nmust be given to the true stresses and no fictitious stresses, no weight laid
\non naturally unstressed syllables should be allowed \u2014 that is the most
\nimportant point. Thus:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIN
\nHORIS AETERNUM<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A far sail
\non the unchangeable monotone of<\/i><\/p>\n

a slow slumbering sea, <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A world of power hushed into symbols of
\nhue,<\/i><\/p>\n

silent
\nunendingly;<\/i><\/p>\n

Over its head
\nlike a gold ball the sun tossed<\/i><\/p>\n

by the gods in their play <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Follows its curve, \u2014 a blazing eye of
\nTime<\/i><\/p>\n

watching
\nthe motionless day,<\/i><\/p>\n

Here or
\notherwhere, \u2014poised on the unreachable<\/i><\/p>\n

abrupt snow-solitary ascent <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Earth aspiring lifts to the illimitable
\nLight,<\/i><\/p>\n

then ceases broken and spent, <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Or in the glowing expanse, arid, fiery
\nand<\/i><\/p>\n

austere, of the deserts hungry soul,\u2014 <\/i><\/p>\n

Page
\n– 415<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

A breath, a
\ncry, a glimmer from Eternity’s<\/i><\/p>\n

face, in a
\nfragment the mystic Whole.<\/i><\/p>\n

Moment-mere,
\nyet with all eternity packed,<\/i><\/p>\n

lone, fixed, intense, <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Out of the ring of these hours that
\ndance and<\/i><\/p>\n

      \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>die, caught by the
\nspirit in sense, <\/i><\/p>\n

In the
\ngreatness of a man, in music’s outspread<\/i><\/p>\n

wings, in a touch, in a smile, in a sound, <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Something that waits, something that
\nwanders and settles <\/i><\/p>\n

not, a once Nothing that was all and is found.<\/i><\/p>\n

It is an experiment and I shall have to do more before I can be sure that
\nI have caught the whole spirit or sense of this movement; nor do I mean to say
\nthat stress-scansion cannot be built on any other principle, \u2014 say, on one with
\nmore concessions to the old music or with less, breaking more away in the
\ndirection of free verse; but the essential, I think, is there.<\/p>\n

19.4.1932<\/p>\n

P.S.<\/b> It is with some hesitation that I write "a once
\nNothing", because I am far from sure that the "once" does not
\noverweight the rhythm and make the expression too difficult and compact; but on
\nthe other hand without it the sense appears ambiguous and incomplete,\u2014for
\n"a Nothing that was all" might be taken in a too metaphysical light
\nand my object is not to thrust in a metaphysical subtlety but to express the
\nburden of an experience. In the final form I shall probably risk the ambiguity
\nand reject the intruding "once". <\/p>\n

5<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/b><\/p>\n

I certainly think feet longer than the three syllable maximum can be
\nbrought in and ought to be. I do not see for instance why a foot like this ˇ
\nˇ ˇ \u2014<\/i> should not be as legitimate as the anapaest. Only, of
\ncourse, if frequently used, they would mean the institution of another
\nprinciple of harmony not provided for <\/p>\n

Page – 416<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

by
\nthe essentially melodic basis of English prosody in the past; as<\/span><\/p>\n

Ǐnĕerspērsed<\/i> \/ ĭn thĕ\u00a0 <\/span>ĭmmēnse<\/i> \/ ănd ǔnăvaī
\n׀<\/span> <\/span>lĭng<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>voīd, I wīngĭng
\nthĕir<\/i> \/ līght throǔgh thĕ<\/i> \/ <\/p>\n

dārknĕss ĭn ׀<\/span> āne.<\/i> \/<\/p>\n

Or,<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Ǐntĕrspērsed<\/i>
\n\/ ĭn thĕ ĭmmēnse<\/i> \/ ănd ǔnăvaī
\n׀<\/span> <\/span>ling<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>voīd, I scāttĕrĭng I thĕir
\nlīght thrŏugh<\/i> \/ thĕ <\/i><\/p>\n

dārknĕss<\/i> \/ ĭnāne.<\/i> \/<\/p>\n

I
\nagree that this freedom would be more pressingly needed in longer metres than
\nin short ones, but they need not be excluded from the short ones either.<\/p>\n

6<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I
\nhave to admit that I am beaten by your metre. I have written something, but I
\nam afraid it is a fake. I will first produce the fake:<\/p>\n

A gold moon
\n׀<\/span>-raft floats<\/i> \/ and swings \/ slowly <\/i><\/p>\n

And it
\ncasts<\/i> \/ a fire<\/i> \/ of pale<\/i> \/ holy<\/i> \/ blue light <\/i><\/p>\n

On<\/span> the dra ׀<\/span> <\/span>gon tail<\/i> \/ aglow<\/i> \/ of the I
\nfaint night<\/i><\/p>\n

That glim \/ mers far, \u2014 \/ swimming, <\/i><\/p>\n

The
\nillu\/mined shoals \/ of stars \/ skimming,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Overspread l ing earth<\/i> \/ and drown \/ ing
\nthe<\/i> \/ heart in sight <\/i><\/p>\n

With the ׀<\/span> ocean-depths<\/i> \/ and breadths \/ of
\nthe \/ Infinite.<\/i><\/p>\n

That is the official scansion, and except in the last foot of the two
\nlast lines it professes to follow very closely the metre of N\u2019s poem. But in
\nfact it is full of sins and the appearance is a counterfeit. In the first line
\nthe first foot is really an anti-bacchius: "A gold moon\/-raft
\nfloats…", and quantitatively, though not accentually, the second is a
\nspondee which also disturbs the true rhythmic movement. "Slowly" and
\n"holy" are in truth trochees disguised <\/p>\n

Page
\n– 417<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

as
\npyrrhics, and if "slowly" can pass off the deceit a little,
\n"holy" is quite unholy in the brazenness of its pretences. If I could
\nhave got a compound adjective like "god-holy", it would have been all
\nright and saved the situation, but I could find none that was appropriate. The
\nnext three lines are, I think, on the true model and have an honest metre. But
\nthe closing cretic of my last two lines is nothing but a cowardly flight from
\nthe difficulty of the spondee. I console myself by remembering that even Hector
\nran when he found himself in difficulties with Achilles and that the Bhagavat
\nlays down palāyanam<\/i> (flight) as one of the ordinary occupations of
\nthe Avatar. But the evasion is a fact and I am afraid it spoils the
\ncorrespondence of the metres. I have some idea of adding a second stanza, \u2014
\nthis one will look less guilty perhaps if it has a companion in sin, \u2014 but if
\nyou wish to use this, you need not wait for the other as it may never take
\nbirth at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MOON OF TWO HEMISPHERES<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A gold
\nmoon-raft floats and swings slowly<\/i><\/p>\n

And it
\ncasts a fire of pale holy blue light <\/i><\/p>\n

On the
\ndragon tail aglow of the faint night<\/i><\/p>\n

That glimmers far, \u2014 swimming, <\/i><\/p>\n

The
\nillumined shoals of stars skimming,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Overspreading earth and drowning the heart in
\nsight <\/i><\/p>\n

With the
\nocean depths and breadths of the Infinite.<\/i><\/p>\n

A gold
\nmoon-ship sails or drifts ever<\/i><\/p>\n

In our spirits
\nskies and halts never, blue-keeled,<\/i><\/p>\n

And it throws
\nits white-blue fire on this grey field,<\/i><\/p>\n

Nights dragon loop, \u2014 speeding, <\/i><\/p>\n

The
\nillumined star-thought sloops leading <\/i><\/p>\n

To the
\nDawn, their harbour home, to the Light unsealed, <\/i><\/p>\n

To the sun-face Infinite, the Untimed revealed.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/i> <\/b><\/p>\n

Lines from Ilion<\/i>,<\/i> an unfinished poem
\nin English hexameter (quantitative):<\/p>\n

Page
\n\u2013 418<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Īdă I rōse wĭth hěr \/ gōd-haūntěd
\n\/ peāks \\\\ĭintŏ \/<\/i><\/p>\n

dīămŏnd \/ lūstrěs, \/ <\/i><\/p>\n

Īdă, I fīrst ŏf thě<\/i> \/ hīlls, \\\\ wĭth
\nthě<\/i> \/ rāngěs \/ sīlěnt<\/i><\/p>\n

bě\/yōnd hěr \/ <\/i><\/p>\n

Wātchĭng thě<\/i> \/ dāwn ĭn thěir<\/i>
\n\/ gīănt<\/i> \/ cōmpăniěs,<\/i> \/ ||<\/p>\n

ās sĭnce thě \/ āgěs \/ <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Fīrst bě\/gān thěy hăd
\n\/ wātched hěr,<\/i> || ŭp\/bēarĭng \/<\/i><\/p>\n

Tīme ŏn thěir \/ sūmmĭts. \/<\/i><\/p>\n

Triumph
\nand agony changing hands in a desperate measure <\/i><\/p>\n

Faced
\nand turned as a man and a maiden trampling the grasses <\/i><\/p>\n

Face
\nand turn and they laugh for their joy in the dance and each other. <\/i><\/p>\n

These
\nwere gods and they trampled lives. But though Time is immortal, <\/i><\/p>\n

Mortal
\nhis works are and ways and the anguish ends like the rapture. <\/i><\/p>\n

Artisans
\nsatisfied now with their works in the plan of the transience,<\/i><\/p>\n

Beautiful,
\nwordless, august, the Olympians turned from the carnage.<\/i><\/p>\n

Vast and
\nunmoved they rose up mighty as eagles ascending, <\/i><\/p>\n

Fanning the
\nworld with their wings. In the bliss of a sorrowless ether <\/i><\/p>\n

Calm they
\nreposed from their deeds and their hearts were inclined to the Stillness. <\/i><\/p>\n

Less now the
\nburden laid on our race by their star-white presence, <\/i><\/p>\n

There was a
\nrespite from height; the winds breathed freer, delivered. <\/i><\/p>\n

But their
\nimmortal content from the struggle titanic departed. <\/i><\/p>\n

Vacant the
\nnoise of the battle roared like a sea on the shingles;<\/i><\/p>\n

Wearily
\nhunted the spears their quarry, strength was disheartened;<\/i><\/p>\n

Silence
\nincreased with the march of the months on the tents of the leaguer 1<\/span><\/sup><\/i><\/p>\n

The principle is a line of six feet, preponderantly dactylic,
\nbut anywhere the dactyl can be replaced by a spondee; but in English hexameter
\na trochee can be substituted, as the spondee<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n‘
\nFrom an early version.<\/span><\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

Page
\n– 419<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

comes
\nin rarely in English rhythm. The line is divided by a caesura, and the
\nvariations of the caesura are essential to the harmony of the verse.<\/p>\n

An example of Alcaics from the Jivanmukta<\/span><\/i> (Alcaics
\nis a Greek<\/span> metre invented by
\nthe poet Alcaeus):<\/p>\n

Thēre ĭs \/ ă sīi\/lěnce \/ grēatěr thăn
\n\/ ānў \/ knōwn \/ <\/i><\/p>\n

Tŏ<\/span> eārth’s \/
\ndūmb spī\/rĭt, \/ mōtĭonlěss { ĭn thě \/ sōul
\n\/ <\/i><\/p>\n

Thăt hās \/ běcōme‌‌
\n‌‌\/ ‌ ětērlnīty’s fōōt\/hŏld,<\/i><\/p>\n

Tōuched
\nbў thě \/ ĭnfīnĭ\/tūdes fŏr<\/i> \/ ēvěr
\n\/ .<\/i><\/p>\n

In the Latin it is:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But
\nin English, variations (modulations) are allowed, only one has to keep to the
\ngeneral plan.<\/p>\n

Swinburne’s Sapphics are to be scanned thus:<\/p>\n

Āll thě \u00a0<\/span>\/ nīght
\nslěep \/ cāme nŏt ŭ\/pōn mў j ēyelĭd<\/i>
\n\/, <\/p>\n

Shēd nŏt<\/i> \/ dēw, nŏr \/ shōok nŏr ŭnl
\nclōsed ă<\/i> \/ fēathěr<\/i> \/, <\/p>\n

Yēt wĭth I līps shŭt<\/i> \/ clōse ănd
\nwĭth<\/i> \/ ēyes ŏf I īrŏn <\/i><\/p>\n

Stōod ănd bělhēld mě \/ . <\/i><\/p>\n

Two
\ntrochees at the beginning, two trochees at the end, a dactyl separating the two
\ntrochaic parts of the line \u2014 that is the Sapphics in its first three lines,
\nthen a fourth line composed of a dactyl and a trochee.<\/p>\n

May,
\n1934<\/p>\n

REGULAR AND IRREGULAR SONNET RHYMES<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The two regular sonnet rhyme-sequences are (1) the Shakespearean ab ab cd
\ncd ef ef gg \u2014 that is, three quatrains with alternate rhymes with a closing
\ncouplet and (2) the Miltonic with an <\/p>\n

Page
\n– 420<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

octet
\nabba abba (as in your second and third quatrains) and a sestet of three rhymes
\narranged according to choice. The Shakespearean is closer to the natural lyric
\nrhythm, the Miltonic to the ode movement \u2014 i.e. something large and grave. The
\nMiltonic is very difficult, for it needs either a strong armoured structure of
\nthe thought or a carefully developed unity of the building which all poets
\ncan’t manage. However there have been attempts at an irregular sonnet rhyme
\nsequence. Keats tried his hand at one a century ago and I vaguely believe (but
\nthat may be only an illusion or Maya) that modern poets have played loose
\nfantastic tricks of their own invention; but I don’t have much first-hand
\nknowledge of modern (contemporary) poetry. Anyhow I have myself written a
\nseries of sonnets with the most heterodox rhyme arrangements, so I couldn’t
\nvery well go for you when you did the same. One who has committed many murders
\ncan’t very well rate another for having done a few. All the same this sequence
\nis rather \u2014 a Miltonic octet with a Shakespearean close would be more possible.
\nI think I have done something of the kind with not too bad an effect, but I
\nhave no time to consult my poetry file and am not sure. In the sonnet too it
\nmight be well for you to do the regular thing first, soberly and well, and
\nafter-wards when you are sure of your steps, frisk and dance.<\/p>\n

22.2.1936<\/p>\n

NURSERY RHYMES AND POPULAR SONGS<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The question you have put, as you put it, can admit of only one answer. I
\ncannot agree that nursery rhymes or folk songs are entitled to take an
\nimportant place or any place at all in the history of the prosody of the
\nEnglish language or that one should start the study of English metre by a
\ncareful examination of the rhythm of "Humpty Dumpty", "Mary,
\nMary, quite contrary" or the tale of the old woman who lived in a shoe.
\nThere are many queer theories abroad nowadays in all the arts, but I doubt whether
\nany English or French critic or prosodist would go so far as to dub "Who
\nkilled Cock Robin?" the true movement of Eng-ligh rhythm, putting aside Chaucer,
\nSpenser, Pope or Shelley as <\/p>\n

Page
\n– 421<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

too
\ncultivated and accomplished or too much under foreign influence or to seek for
\nhis models in popular songs or the products of the caf\u00e9 chantant <\/i>in <\/span>preference to Hugo or Musset or
\nVerlaine.<\/p>\n

But perhaps something else is meant \u2014 is it that one gets the crude
\nindispensable elements of metre better from primitive, just-shaped or unshaped
\nstuff than from more perfect work in which these are overlaid by artistic
\ndevelopments and subtle devices; an embryo or a skeleton is more instructive
\nfor the , study of men than the developed flesh-and-blood structure ? That may
\nhave a certain truth in some lines of scientific research, but it cannot stand
\nin studying the technique of an art. At that rate one could be asked to go for
\nthe basic principles of musical sound to the jazz or even to the hurdy-gurdy
\nand for the indispensable rules of line and colour to the pavement-artist or to
\nthe. sign-board painter. Or perhaps the suggestion is that here one gets the
\nprimary unsophisticated rhythms native to the language and free from the
\nartificial movements of mere literature. Still, I can hardly fancy that the
\ntrue native spirit or bent of metre is to be sought or can be discovered in<\/p>\n

Humpty
\nDumpty sat on a wall, <\/i><\/p>\n

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;<\/i><\/p>\n

and is lost in<\/p>\n

Rarely,
\nrarely, comest thou, <\/i><\/p>\n

Spirit of Delight!<\/i><\/p>\n

Popular verse catches the child ear or the common ear much more easily
\nthan the music of developed poetry because it relies on a crude jingle or
\ninfantile lilt\u2014not because it enshrines in its movements the true native spirit
\nof the chant. I hold it to be a fallacy to think that the real spirit and
\nnative movement of a language can be caught only in crude and primitive forms
\nand that it is disguised in the more perfect work in which it has developed its
\nown possibilities to their full pitch, variety and scope. It is as if one
\nmaintained that the true note and fundamental nature of the evolving soul were
\nto be sought in the earthworm or<\/p>\n

Page
\n– 422<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

the
\nscarabaeus and not in the developed human being \u2014 or in the divinised man or
\nJivanmukta.<\/p>\n

As for foreign influences, most of the elements of English prosody,
\nrhyme, foot-scansion, line-lengths, stanza-forms and many others have come in
\nfrom outside and have altered out of all recognition the original mould, but
\nthe spirit of the language found itself as much in these developments as in the
\nfirst free alliterative verse \u2014 as much and more. The spirit of a language
\nought to be strong enough to assimilate any amount of imported elements or
\nchanges of structure and measure.<\/p>\n

23.2.1933<\/p>\n


\nDIFFERENCE BETWEEN A
\nSONG AND A POEM<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, a song is not a kind of poem \u2014 or, at least, need not be. There are
\nsome very good songs which are not poems at all. In Europe,
\nsong-writers as such or the writers of the librettos of the great operas are
\nnot classed among poets. In Asia the attempt to combine
\nsong-quality with poetic value has been more common; in ancient Greece
\nalso lyric poetry was often composed with a view to being set to music. But
\nstill poetry and song-writing, though they can be combined, are two different
\narts, because the aim and the principle of their building is not the same.<\/p>\n

The difference is not that poetry has to be understood and music or
\nsinging has to be felt (anubhūti);<\/i> that one has to reach the soul
\nthrough the precise written sense and the other through the suggestion of sound
\nand its appeal to some inner chord within us. If you only understand the
\nintellectual content of a poem, its words and ideas, you have not really
\nappreciated the poem at all, and a poem which contains only that and nothing
\nelse, is not true poetry. A true poem contains something more which has to be
\nfelt just as you feel music and that is its more important and essential part.
\nPoetry has a rhythm, just as music has, though of a different kind, and it is
\nthe rhythm that helps this something else to come out through the medium of the
\nwords. The words by themselves do not carry it or cannot bring it out
\naltogether, and this is shown by the fact that the same words written in a <\/p>\n

Page
\n– 423<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

different
\norder and without rhythm or without the proper rhythm would not at all move or
\nimpress you in the same way. This something else is an inner content or
\nsuggestion, a soul-feeling or soul-experience, a life-feeling or
\nlife-experience, a mental emotion, vision or experience (not merely an idea),
\nand it is only when you can catch this and reproduce some vibration of the
\nexperience \u2014 if not the experience itself \u2014 in you that you have got what the
\npoem can give you, not otherwise.<\/p>\n

The real difference between a poem and a song is that a song is written
\nwith a view to be set to musical rhythm and a poem is written with the ear
\nlistening for the needed poetic rhythm or word-music. These two rhythms are
\nquite different. That is why a poem cannot be set to music unless it has either
\nbeen written with an eye to both kinds of rhythm or else happens to have
\n(without especially intending it) a movement which makes it easy or at least
\npossible to set it to music. This happens often with lyrical poetry, less often
\nwith other kinds. There is also this usual character of a song that it is
\nsatisfied to be very simple in its content, just bringing out an idea or
\nfeeling, and leaving it to the music .to develop its unspoken values. Still
\nthis reticence is not always observed; the word claims for itself sometimes a
\nlarger importance.<\/p>\n

4.7.1931<\/p>\n


\nSONNET AND SATIRE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a sonnet, thought should be set to thought, line added to line in a
\nsort of architectural sequence, or else there should be a progression like the
\npressing of waves to the shore, with the finality of arrival swift in a closing
\ncouplet or deliberate as in the Miltonic form.<\/p>\n

As to your other proposition, I am not sure that satiric verse and the
\nmetaphysical lyrical can rightly be put together. Naturally, a great poetic
\ngenius could or might do it with success; but genius can do anything. Satire is
\nmore often than not a kind of half-poetry, because its inspiration comes
\nprimarily from the critical mind and a not very high part of it, not from the
\ncreative <\/p>\n

Page
\n– 424<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

vision
\nor moved intensity of poetic feeling. Creative vision or the moved intensity
\ncan come in to lift this motive but, except rarely, it does, not lift it very
\nhigh.<\/p>\n

It
\nis Dryden and Juvenal who have oftenest made something like genuine poetry out
\nof satire, the first because he often chanages satire into a vision of
\ncharacter and the play of psycho-logical forces, the other because he writes
\nnot from a sense of the incongruous but from an emotion, from a strong poetic
\n"indignation" against the things he sees around him. Aristophanes is a
\ncosmic creator \u2014 like Shakespeare when he turns in that direction \u2014 the satire
\nis only a strong line in his creation; that is a different kind of inspiration,
\nnot the ordinary satire. Pope attempted something creative in his Rape of
\nthe Lock,<\/i> but the success, if brilliant, is thin because the deeper
\ncreative founts and the kindlier sources of vision are not there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nCOMMENTS
\nON A DRAMA<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 1<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/b><\/p>\n

I have just
\nfinished hearing the Second Act of your drama on Sri Chaitanya; there is much
\nfine poetry in it and the dramatic interest of the dialogue and of the
\npresentation of character seems to me considerable. <\/b>We<\/span> have not had time yet to read the last
\nAct; we shall do that tomorrow and then I can write about your drama with more
\nfinality. As for the historical question, I do not consider that any objections
\nwhich might be raised from that standpoint would have much value. Poetry,
\ndrama, fiction also are not bound to be historically accurate; they cannot
\nindeed develop themselves successfully unless they deal freely with any
\nhistorical material they may choose to include or take for their subject. One
\ncan be faithful to history if one likes but even then one has to expand and
\ndeal creatively with characters and events, otherwise the work will come to
\nnothing or little. In many of his dramas Shakespeare takes names from history or
\nlocal tradition, but uses them as he chooses; he places his characters in known
\ncountries and surroundings but their <\/p>\n

\nPage – 425<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

stories
\nare either his own inventions or the idea only is borrowed from facts and the
\nrest is his own making: or else he indulges in pure fantasy and cares nothing
\neven for geographical accuracy or historical possibility. It is true that
\nsometimes he follows closely the authorities he had at his disposal, such as
\nHolinshed or another and in plays like Julius Caesar he<\/i> sticks to the
\nmain events and keeps many of the details, but not so as to fetter the play of
\nhis imagination. So I don’t think you need worry at all about either historians
\nor biographers, even if Chaitanya Charitamrita<\/i> could be regarded as a
\nbiography. That is all, I think, for the present. I shall write again after
\nhearing the Third Act of your drama.<\/p>\n

21.1.1950<\/p>\n

2<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We<\/span> have finished reading your Chaitanya.<\/i>
\nThe Third Act which is the most remarkable of the three confirms the impression
\nalready made by the other two of a very fine and successful play outstanding in
\nits dramatic interest and its thought substance. The Third Act is original in
\nits design and structure, especially its idea, admirably conceived and worked
\nout, of a whole scene of action with many persons and much movement shown in
\nthe vision of a single character sitting alone in her room; it was difficult to
\nwork out but it has fitted in extremely well. It has also at the same time a
\nremarkable combination of the three unities of the Greek drama into which this
\ndistant scene, though not too distant, manages to dovetail very well, \u2014 the
\nunity of one place, sometimes one spot in the Greek play or a small restricted
\narea, one time, one developing action completed in that one time and spot, an
\naction rigorously developed and unified in its interest. Indeed, the play as a
\nwhole has this unity of action in a high degree.<\/p>\n

Advocates of the old style drama might object to the great length of the
\ndiscussions as detrimental to compactness and vividness of dramatic interest
\nand dramatic action and they might object too that the action (though this does
\nnot apply to the Jagai Madhai episode) is more subjective and psychological <\/p>\n

Page
\n– 426<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

than
\nthe external objective succession of happenings or inter-changes represented on
\na stage would seem to demand; this was<\/p>\n

the objection to
\nShaw’s most characteristic and important play. But where the dramatic interest
\nis itself of a subjective and psychological character involving more
\nelaboration of thought and speech than of rapid or intensive happening and
\nactivities, this kind of objection is obviously invalid; what matters is how the
\nsubjective interest, the play or development of ideas, or if high ideals are
\ninvolved that call to the soul how their appeal is presented and made
\neffective. Here it is great spiritual ideals and their action on the mind and
\nlives of human beings that are put before us and all that matters is how they
\nare presented and<\/p>\n

made living in
\ntheir appeal. Here there is, I think, full success and that entirely justifies
\nthe method of the drama.<\/p>\n

For the rest I have only heard once rapidly read the play in three acts
\nand it is not possible with that short reading to pass judgment on details of a
\npurely literary character, so on that I can only give my personal impression. A
\ndrama has to accommodate itself to different levels and intensities of
\nexpression proper to the circumstances and different characters, moods and events:
\nbut here too, I think, the handling is quite successful. I believe the verdict
\nmust be, from every point of view, an admirable Chaitanya.<\/i><\/p>\n

23.l.1950<\/p>\n

Page – 427<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SECTION\u00a0 THREE  Poetic Rhythm and Technique   TWO FACTORS IN POETIC RHYTHM \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1              If your purpose is to acquire not only metrical skill but…<\/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-1298","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\/1298","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=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}