{"id":2369,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2369"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:11","slug":"21-kalidasa-the-historical-method-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/01-early-cultural-writings\/21-kalidasa-the-historical-method-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","title":{"rendered":"-21_Kalidasa -The Historical Method.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThe Historical Method <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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Of Kalidasa, the man who thus represents one of the greatest
\nperiods in our civilisation and typifies so many sides and facets of it in his writing, we know if possible even less than of Valmekie and Vyasa. It is probable but not certain that he was a native of Malwa born not in the capital Ujjaini, but in one of those villages of which he speaks in the Cloud-Messenger and that he
\nafterwards resorted to the capital and wrote under the patronage of the great Vicramaditya
\nwho founded the era of the Malavas in the middle of the first century before
\nChrist. Of his attainments, his creed, his character we may gather something from
\nhis poetry, but external facts we have none. There is indeed a mass of apocryphal anecdotes about him couching a number of
\nwitticisms & ingenuities mostly ribald, but these may be safely
\ndiscredited. Valmekie, Vyasa and Kalidasa, our three greatest
\nnames, are to us, outside their poetical creation, names merely
\nand nothing more.
\nThis is an exceedingly fortunate circumstance. The natural man within us rebels indeed against such a void; who Kalidasa
\nwas, what was his personal as distinguished from his poetic
\nindividuality, what manner of man was the great King whose
\npatronage he enjoyed, who were his friends, who his rivals and
\nhow he dealt with either or both, whether or not he was a
\nlover of wine & women in practice as well as in imagination,
\nunder what special surroundings he wrote and who were the
\nminds by whom he was most influenced, all this the natural man clamours to know; and yet all these are things we are very fortunate not to know. The historical method is certainly an
\nattractive one and it leads to some distinct advantages, for it
\ndecidedly aids those who are not gifted with fine insight and
\nliterary discrimination, to understand certain sides of a poet’s
\nwork more clearly and intelligently. But while it increases our<\/span><\/p>\n

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knowledge of the workings of the human mind it does not in
\nthe end assist or improve our critical appreciation of poetry; it
\nhelps to an understanding of the man and of those aspects of his
\npoetry which concern his personal individuality but it obstructs
\nour clear and accurate impression of the work and its value.
\nThe supporters of the historical method put the cart before the
\nhorse and placing themselves between the shafts do a great deal of useless though heroic labour in dragging both. They insist on directing that attention to the poet which should be directed to
\nthe poem. After assimilating a man’s literary work and realising its value first to ourselves and then in relation to the eternal
\nnature and scope of poetry, we may and indeed must, -for if
\nnot consciously aimed at, it must have been insensibly formed in
\nthe mind, -attempt to realize to ourselves an idea of his poetic
\nindividuality from the data he himself has provided for us; and
\nthe idea so formed will be the individuality of the man so far as we can assimilate him, the only part of him therefore that is of
\nreal value to us. The individuality of Shakespeare as expressed in his recorded actions & his relations to his contemporaries is a matter of history and has nothing to do with appreciation of
\nhis poetry. It may interest me as a study of human character &
\nintellect but I have no concern with it when I am reading Hamlet or even when I am reading the Sonnets; on the contrary it may
\noften come between me and the genuine revelation of the poet in
\nhis work, for actions seldom reveal more than the outer, bodily
\nand sensational man while his word takes us within to the mind
\nand the reason, the receiving and the selecting parts of him which
\nare his truer self. It may matter to the pedant or the gossip within me whether the sonnets were written to William Herbert or to
\nHenry Wriothesley or to William Himself, whether the dark woman whom Shakespeare loved against his better judgment was Mary Fitton or someone else or nobody at all, whether the language is that of hyperbolical compliment to a patron or that of an actual passionate affection; but to the lover of poetry in me
\nthese things do not matter at all. It may be a historical fact that
\nShakespeare when he sat down to write these poems intended to use the affected language of conventional and fulsome flattery; if  
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so, it does not exalt our idea of his character; but after all it was
\nonly the bodily and sensational case of that huge spirit which so
\nintended, -the food-sheath and the life-sheath of him, to use
\nHindu phraseology; but the mind, the soul which was the real
\nShakespeare felt, as he wrote, every phase of the passion he was
\nexpressing to the very utmost, felt precisely those exultations,
\nchills of jealousy and disappointment, noble affections, dark and
\nunholy fires, and because he felt them, he was able so to express
\nthem that the world still listens and is moved. The passion was
\nthere in the soul of the man, -whether as a potential force or an experience from a past life, matters very little, -and it
\nforms therefore part of his poetic individuality. But if we allow
\nthe alleged historical fact to
\ninterfere between us and this individuality, the feelings with which we ought to read the Sonnets,
\nadmiration, delight, sympathy, rapt interest in a soul struggling
\nthrough passion towards self-realisation, will be disturbed by other feelings of disgust and nausea or at the best pity for a man
\nwho with such a soul within him, prostituted its powers to the
\ninterests of his mere bodily covering. Both our realisation of the true Shakespeare & our enjoyment of his poetry will thus be
\ncruelly and uselessly marred. This is the essential defect which
\nvitiates the theory of the man and his milieu. The man in Dr.. Johnson expressed himself in his conversation and therefore his
\nown works are far less important to us than Boswell’s record of
\nhis daily talk; the man in Byron expresses himself in his letters as
\nwell as his poetry and both have therefore to be read. It is only the
\nmost sensational and therefore the lowest natures that express
\nthemselves mainly by their actions. In the case of great poets with
\nwhom expression is an instrument that answers spontaneously
\nand accurately to the touch of the soul, it is in their work that we shall find them, the whole of them and not only that meagre part which struggled out brokenly and imperfectly in the shape of action. It is really this difference that makes the great figures of epic poetry so much less intimately and thoroughly known to us than the great figures of drama. Kalidasa was both an
\nepic poet and a dramatist, yet Sheva and Parvatie are merely grand paintings while Dushyanta, Shacountala, Sharngarava,   <\/font>
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 Priyumvada & Anasuya, Pururavus and
\nUrvasie and Chitraleqha, Dharinie and Iravatie and Agnimitra are living beings who are our friends, whom we know. The difference arises from
\nthe importance of speech in self-revelation and the comparative
\ninadequacy of acts, except as a corroboration or a check. The
\nonly epics which have creations equal to dramatic creation in
\ntheir nearness to us are the Mahabharata and the Ramayan; and the art-form of those far more closely resembles the methods of
\nthe modern novel than those of epic poetry as it is understood in Europe; they combine, that is to say, the dramatic method
\nwith the epic and introduce a minuteness of observant detail
\nwith which European poets would have shrunk from tempting
\nthe patience of the sensational and soon-wearied West.
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The importance of the milieu to criticism has likewise been
\nimmensely exaggerated. It is important as literary history, but
\nhistory is not criticism; a man may have a very wide and curious
\nknowledge of literary history and yet be a very poor critic and
\nthe danger of the present times lies in the immense multiplication of literary historians with their ass’s load of facts and theories
\nand opinions and tendencies and the comparative rarity of really
\nilluminating critics. I do not say that these things are not in a
\nmeasure necessary but they are always the scaffolding and not
\nthe pile. The tendency of the historical method beginning with
\nand insisting on the poet rather than the poem is to infer from
\nhim as a “man” the meaning & value of his poetry, -a vicious
\nprocess for it concentrates the energies on the subordinate and
\nadds the essential as an appendix. It has been said that in a rightly
\nconstituted mind the knowledge of the man and his milieu will
\nhelp to a just appreciation of his poetry; but this knowledge in its
\nnature rather distorts our judgment than helps it, for instead of
\ngiving an honest account to ourselves of the impression naturally made by the poem on us, we are irresistibly led to cut & carve
\nthat impression so as to make it square with our knowledge and
\nthe theories, more or less erroneous & ephemeral, we deduce
\nfrom that knowledge. We proceed from the milieu to the poem,
\ninstead of arguing from the poem to the milieu. Yet the latter is
\nthe only fair method, for it is not the whole of the milieu that   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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affects the man nor every part of it that affects him equally; the
\nextent to which it affects him and the distribution of its various
\ninfluences can only be judged from the poem itself.
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The milieu of Shakespeare or of Homer or of Kalidasa so
\nfar as it is important to an appreciation of their poetry, can be
\ngathered from their poetry itself, and a knowledge of the history of the times would only litter the mind with facts which are of no real value as they mislead and embarrass the judgment
\ninstead of assisting it. This is at least the case with all poets who
\nrepresent their age in some or most of its phases and with those
\nwho do not do this, the milieu is of very small importance. We
\nknow from literary history that Marlowe and Kyd and other writers exercised no little influence on Shakespeare in his young
\nand callow days; and it may be said in passing that all poets of the first order & even many of the second are profoundly
\ninfluenced by the inferior and sometimes almost worthless work
\nwhich was in vogue at the time of their early efforts, but they
\nhave the high secret of mental alchemy which can convert not
\nmerely inferior metal but even refuse into gold. It is only poets of a onesided or minor genius who can afford to be aggressively original. Now as literary history, as psychology, as part of the
\nknowledge of intellectual origins this is a highly important and
\nnoteworthy fact. But in the task of criticism what do we gain by it? We have simply brought the phantoms of Marlowe &
\nKyd between ourselves and what we are assimilating and so
\ndisturbed & blurred the true picture of it that was falling on our
\nsouls; and if we know our business, the first thing we shall do is to banish those intruding shadows and bring ourselves once
\nmore face to face with Shakespeare.
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The historical method leads besides to much confusion and is sometimes a veil for a bastard impressionism and sometimes a source of literary insincerity or at the best anaemic catholicity. As often as not a critic studies, say, the Elizabethan age because he has a previous sympathy with the scattered grandeurs, the hasty and vehement inequalities, the profuse mixture of flawed
\nstones, noble gems and imitation jewellery with which that school overwhelms us. In that case the profession with which he   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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starts is insincere, for he professes to base his appreciation on
\nstudy, whereas his study begins from, continues with and ends in appreciation. Often on the contrary he studies as a duty and
\npraises in order to elevate his study; because he has perused all
\nand understood all, he must sympathise with all, or where is the proof of his having understood? Perfect intelligence of a man’s
\ncharacter and work implies a certain measure of sympathy and
\nliking; antipathy has only half sight and indifference is blind.
\nHence much false criticism misleading the public intelligence and
\ncausing a confusion in critical
\nweights & measures, a depreciation of the literary currency from which in the case of the frank
\nimpressionist we are safe. In mere truth the historical method is
\nuseful only with inferior writers who not having had full powers of expression are more interesting than their work; but even here it has led to that excessive and often absurd laudation of numberless small names in literature, many of them “discoveries”,
\nwhich is the curse of latterday criticism. The historical method is in fact the cloven foot of science attempting to insinuate itself into the fair garden of Poetry. By this I mean no disrespect to
\nScience. The devil is a gentleman, & Shakespeare himself has
\nguaranteed his respectability; but he is more than that, he is a highly useful and even indispensable personage. So also is Science not only a respectable branch of intellectual activity, -when
\nit does not indulge its highly civilized propensity for cutting up live animals, -but it is also a useful and indispensable
\nbranch. But the devil had no business in Paradise and Science has no business in the sphere of Poetry. The work of Science is to collect facts and generalize from them; the smallest and
\nmeanest thing is as important to it as the highest, the weed no less than the flower and the bug that crawls & stinks no less than man who is a little lower than the angels. By introducing this
\nmethod into criticism, we are overloading ourselves with facts
\nand stifling the literary field with the host of all the mediocrities
\nmore or less “historically” important but at any rate deadly dull & uninspiring, who at one time or another had the misfortune to
\ntake themselves for literary geniuses. And just as scientific history
\ntends to lose individual genius in movements, so the historical  
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method tends to lose the individual poem in tendencies. The
\nresult is that modern poets instead of holding up before them as their ideal the expression of the great universal feelings and
\nthoughts which sway humanity, tend more and more to express
\ntendencies, problems, realisms, romanticisms, mysticisms and
\nall the other local & ephemeral aberrations with which poetry has no business whatever. It is the sign of a decadent & morbid age which is pushing itself by the mass of its own undigested
\nlearning into Alexandrianism and scholasticism, cutting itself off from the fountainheads of creation and wilfully preparing its own decline and sterility. The age of which Callimachus & Apollonius of Rhodes were the Simonides & the Homer and the age of which Tennyson is the Shakespeare & Rudyard Kipling the Milton present an ominous resemblance.<\/font>  <\/span><\/p>\n

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