{"id":2507,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2507"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:05","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:05","slug":"14-metrical-experiments-in-bengali-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/27-letters-on-poetry-and-art\/14-metrical-experiments-in-bengali-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","title":{"rendered":"-14_Metrical Experiments in Bengali.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"0\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<b><font size=\"4\">Metrical Experiments in Bengali <\/font><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<b>New Metres in Bengali<br \/>\n<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> Of course, Prabodh Sen is right. I suppose what Buddhadev means is that none of the very great poets invented a metre<br \/>\n\t&#8213;they were all too lazy and preferred stealing other people&#8217;s rhythms and polishing them up to perfection, just as Shakespeare<br \/>\nstole all his plots from wherever he could find any worth stealing. But all the same, if that applies to Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil,<br \/>\nwhat about Alcaeus, Sappho, Catallus, Horace? they did a good deal of inventing or of transferring<br \/>\n\t&#8213;introducing Greek metres<br \/>\ninto Latin, for example. I can&#8217;t spot a precedent in modern European literature, but there must be some. And after all, hang<br \/>\nprecedents! A good thing &#8213;I mean, combining metric invention with perfect poetry<br \/>\n\t&#8213;would be still a good thing to do, even if<br \/>\nno one had had the good sense to do it before.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">4 November 1932<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> It is certainly not true that a good metre must necessarily be an<br \/>\neasy metre &#8213;easy to read or easy to write. In fact even with old established perfectly familiar metres how many of the readers<br \/>\nof poetry have an ear which seizes the true movement and the whole subtlety and beauty of the rhythm<br \/>\n\t&#8213;it is only in the more<br \/>\npopular kind of poems that it gets in their hearing its full value. It is all the more impossible when you bring in not only new<br \/>\nrhythms but a new principle of rhythm &#8213;or at least one that is not very familiar<br \/>\n\t&#8213;to expect it to be easily followed at first by<br \/>\nthe many. It is only if you are already a recognised master that by force of your reputation you can impose whatever you like<br \/>\non your public &#8213;for then even if they do not catch your drift, they will still applaud you and will take some pains to learn<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-145<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> the new principle. If you are imposing a principle not only of rhythm but of scansion to which the ear in spite of past attempts<br \/>\nis not trained so as to seize the basic law of the movement in all its variations, a fair amount of incomprehension, some difficulty<br \/>\nin knowing how to read the verse is very probable. Easier forms of a new rhythm may be caught in their movement,<br \/>\n\t\t\t&#8213;even<br \/>\nif some will not be able to scan it; but other more difficult forms may give trouble. All that is no true objection to the<br \/>\nattempt at something new; novelty is difficult for the human mind &#8213;or ear &#8213;to accept, but novelty is asked for all the same<br \/>\nin all human activities for their growth, amplitude, richer life. As you say, the ear has to be educated<br \/>\n\t\t\t&#8213;once it is trained,<br \/>\nfamiliar with the principle, what was a difficulty becomes easy, the unusual, &#8213;first condemned as abnormal or impossible,<br \/>\n\t\t\t&#8213; becomes a normal and daily movement. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">As for the charge of being cryptic, that is quite another<br \/>\nmatter. Obscurity due to inadequate expression is one thing, but the cryptic may be simply the expression of more than can be<br \/>\nseized at first sight by the ordinary mind. It may be that the ideas are not of a domain in which that mind is accustomed to move<br \/>\nor that there is a new turn of expression other than the kind which it has been trained to follow. Again the ordinary turn of<br \/>\na language, as in French or Bengali, may be lucid, direct, easy: if you bring into it a more intricate and suggestive manner in which<br \/>\nthe connections or transitions of thought are less obvious, that may create a difficulty. A poet can be too easy to read, because<br \/>\nthere is not much in what he writes and it is exhausted at the first glance, &#8213;or too difficult because you have to burrow for the<br \/>\nmeaning. But otherwise it makes no difference to the excellence of the work, if the reader can catch its burden at the first glance<br \/>\nor has to dwell a little on it for the full force of it to come to the surface. The feeling, the way of expression, the combinations of<br \/>\nthought, word or image tend often to be new and unfamiliar, but that can very well be a strength and a merit, not an element<br \/>\nof failure. <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">28 January 1933<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-146<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> I am, as you know quite in agreement with you as regards the principle. At the same time there is a greater difficulty in Bengali<br \/>\nthan in Hindi and Gujerati. For in these languages the stylisation is a long-accepted fact and the ear of the writer and reader are<br \/>\ntrained to appreciate it, but in Bengali the trend has been on the contrary to more and more naturalism in metre and such<br \/>\nstylisation as there was was not quantitative. Now the writer has the double difficulty of finding out how to stylise successfully in<br \/>\ndetail and of getting the ear of the public to train itself also. . . . <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<b>Quantitative Metre in Bengali<br \/>\n<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> This question of quantity is one in which I find it difficult to arrive at a conclusion. You can prove that it can be done and<br \/>\nhas been successfully done in Bengali, and you can prove and have proved it yourself over again by writing these poems and<br \/>\nbringing in the rhythm, the ,<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali.jpg\" width=\"45\" height=\"13\" align=\"middle\"><br \/>\n\twhich is absent in Satyen<br \/>\nDatta. It is quite true also that stylisation is permissible and a recognised form of art<br \/>\n\t&#8213;I mean professed and overt stylisation<br \/>\nand not that which hides itself under a contrary profession of naturalness or faithful following of external nature. The only<br \/>\nquestion is how much of it Bengali poetry can bear. I do not think the distinction between song and poem goes at all to the<br \/>\nroot of the matter. The question is whether it is possible to have ease of movement in this kind of quantitative metre. For a few<br \/>\nlines it can be very beautiful or for a short poem or a song; that much cannot be doubted. But can it be made a spontaneous&nbsp; movement of Bengali poetry like the ordinary <i><br \/>\n\tm&#257;tr&#257;-vr&#61470;tta<br \/>\n<\/i>or the<br \/>\nothers, in which one can walk or run at will without looking at one&#8217;s steps to see that one does not stumble and without<br \/>\nconcentrating the reader&#8217;s mind too much on the technique so<br \/>\nthat his attention is diverted from the sense and <i>bh&#257;va<\/i>? If you can achieve some large and free structure in which quantity<br \/>\ntakes a recognised place as part of the foundation, &#8213;it need not be reproduction of a Sanskrit metre,<br \/>\n\t&#8213;that would solve the<br \/>\nproblem in the affirmative.   &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">31 May 1932<br \/>\n \t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-147<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<b>Quantity in Classical and Modern Languages <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tI can&#8217;t agree with your statement about Sanskrit<br \/>\n\t\t\t&#2310;, &#2319;, &#2323;<font size=\"2\">,<\/font> that they are long by stylisation only! In fact, I don&#8217;t quite understand<br \/>\nwhat this can mean; for in Sanskrit &#2310;<br \/>\n\t\t\tat least is the corresponding long to the short vowel &nbsp;&#2309;<br \/>\n\t\t\tand is naturally as long as the devil &#8213;and the other two are in fact no better. The difference between<br \/>\n\t\t\t&#2319;<font size=\"2\"> <\/font>and &nbsp;&#2320;<br \/>\n\t\t\tand &#2323;<br \/>\n\t\t\tand <font size=\"2\">&#2324;<\/font>&nbsp;<br \/>\n\t\t\tis the difference between long and ultra-long,<br \/>\n\t\t\tnot between short and long. Take for instance the Sanskrit phrase ; &#2351;&#2375;&#2344; &#2340;&#2375;&#2344; &#2346;&#2381;&#2352;&#2325;&#2366;&#2352;&#2375;&#2339;<font size=\"2\">;<\/font> &nbsp;I can&#8217;t for the life of me see<br \/>\n\t\t\thow anyone can say that the &#2351;&#2375; &#2340;&#2375;<font size=\"2\">&nbsp; <\/font><br \/>\n\t\t\t&#2352;&#2375;<br \/>\n\t\t\t&nbsp;or<br \/>\n\t\t\tthe &#2325;&#2366; there are naturally short to the ear, but long by stylisation.<br \/>\n\t\t\tThe classical languages (Sanskrit, Greek, Latin) are perfectly<br \/>\n\t\t\tlogical, coherent and consistent in the matter of quantity; they had<br \/>\n\t\t\tto be because quantity was the very life of their rhythm and they<br \/>\n\t\t\tcould not treat longs as shorts and shorts as longs as it is done,<br \/>\n\t\t\tat every step, in English. Modern languages can do that because<br \/>\n\t\t\ttheir rhythm rests on intonation and stress, quantity is only a<br \/>\n\t\t\tsubordinate element, a luxury, not the very basis of the rhythmic<br \/>\n\t\t\tstructure. In English you can write<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%201.jpg\" width=\"125\" height=\"17\" align=\"texttop\">pretending that &#8220;road&#8221; is<br \/>\n\t\t\tshort and &quot;runs&quot; is long, or<br \/>\n\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%202.jpg\" width=\"84\" height=\"18\" align=\"middle\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2014<\/font>where<br \/>\n\t\t\tthe sound&nbsp;<br \/>\ncorresponding to Sanskrit &#2319;<br \/>\n\t\t\t(<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%203.jpg\" width=\"59\" height=\"14\" align=\"baseline\">)<br \/>\n\t\t\tor that<br \/>\n\t\t\tcorresponding to Sanskrit &#2323; (<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%204.jpg\" width=\"49\" height=\"16\" align=\"baseline\">) is made short or long at pleasure; but to Sanskrit<br \/>\nto the Sanskrit, Greek or Latin ear it would have sounded like a defiance of the laws of Nature. Bengali is a modern language, so<br \/>\nthere this kind of stylisation is possible, for there<br \/>\n\t\t\t&nbsp;&#2319; &nbsp;can be long, short or doubtful. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">All this, not to write more about stylisation, but only as a protest against forcing modern ideas of language sound on an<br \/>\nancient language. Bengali can go on its way very freely without that, Sanskritising when it likes, refusing to Sanskritise when it<br \/>\ndoesn&#8217;t like.<\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">2 June 1932<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<b>&nbsp;<i>Aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>and <i>M<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">I have read your account of the <i>tridh<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>r<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font> <\/i>and my mind is now<br \/>\nclear about it; I have not yet read Anilbaran&#8217;s contentions, so<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-148<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 0pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tthere I am still in the dark. But here are certain points that I<br \/>\nwant to make clear. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">(1) Prabodh Sen&#8217;s rule of the <i><br \/>\n\tyaugika-vr&#61470;tta <\/i>does not agree<br \/>\n<i>.<\/i> with what I was taught about the <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i>. When I first heard<br \/>\nof Bengali metre in England, my informant was quite at sea. He confidently described Michael&#8217;s blank verse as a 14 syllable line<br \/>\n(8 + 6), but when asked to give examples we found that the lines as pronounced were of 12, 13, 14 or more syllables and when<br \/>\nmy brother Manmohan asked him to explain this discrepancy, he could merely gape<br \/>\n\t&#8213;no explanation was forthcoming! How<br \/>\never, when I took up seriously the study of the literature, it was explained to me by competent people, themselves poets and<br \/>\n\t<i>litterateurs <\/i>&#8213;thus <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&#8220;The line is strictly a line of 14 syllables, no more, no less (i.e. it is a true<br \/>\n<i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i>), but the <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara <\/i>or syllable here<br \/>\nis not the sonant Bengali syllable as it is actually pronounced,<br \/>\nbut the syllable as it is understood on the Sanskrit principle. In Sanskrit each consonant letter (<i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara<\/i>) is supposed to make<br \/>\na separate sound (syllable), either with the aid of other vowels<br \/>\nor by force of the short <i>a <\/i>sound inherent in it &#8213;except in two cases. First, if there is a conjunct consonant, e.g.<br \/>\n<i>gandha<\/i>, the <i>n<\/i><br \/>\nis not sonant, not separate, but <i>yukta <\/i>to the <i>dh<\/i>, and therefore does not stand for a separate syllable; secondly, if there is a<br \/>\n<i>vir<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>ma-cihna <\/i>as in <i>daib<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>t<\/i>, then also it loses its sonant force, there is no third syllable<br \/>\n&#8213;it is a dissyllable, not a trisyllable.<br \/>\nBengali has applied this rule, dropping only the last part of it, in disregard of the actual pronunciation. Thus &nbsp;<span style=\"font-family: Vrinda\">&#2470;&#2494;&#2472;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;font-family: Vrinda\"><br \/>\n<\/span>or <span style=\"font-family: Vrinda\">&#2471;&#2472;<font size=\"2\"> &nbsp;<\/font><\/span>is<br \/>\nin Sanskrit (as in Oriya) a dissyllable, in Bengali also it is treated as such<br \/>\nin poetry, although in fact it is a monosyllable to the ear. Externally this<br \/>\nsounds artificial and false to fact, but rhythmically it is unexceptionable, the<br \/>\ncadence of the voice supplying a double metre there.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%205.jpg\" width=\"40\" height=\"16\" align=\"middle\">will be a dissyllable as in Sanskrit, because <i>ndh <\/i>is a <i>yukt<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>ks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara<\/i>. On the other hand<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%207.jpg\" width=\"45\" height=\"18\" align=\"texttop\">will be<br \/>\na trisyllable because there is no distinction made of a <i>vir<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>ma<\/i>&#8211;<i>cihna<\/i>,<br \/>\nno distinction therefore between<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%206.jpg\" width=\"36\" height=\"18\" align=\"texttop\">and&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"en-gb\" style=\"font-family: Vrinda\">&#2495;&#2472;&#2471;&#2472;<\/span><span lang=\"en-gb\">, each is a trisyllable.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">According to this explanation and the rule it supplies, it is <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-149<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">true that a <i>yugma-dhvani <\/i>at the close of a word has always two<br \/>\n<i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>s<\/i>, but the other part of Prabodh Sen&#8217;s rule is not always true, viz. that in the middle of a word it counts only as one.&nbsp; That would be invariably true of an indubitable&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%208.jpg\" width=\"52\" height=\"20\" align=\"middle\">,<br \/>\n\t\t\tas in<br \/>\n\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%205.jpg\" width=\"40\" height=\"16\" align=\"middle\">but not otherwise. On this principle there is no difficulty at all about&nbsp;&#2478;&#2489;&#2494;&#2477;&#2494;&#2480;&#2503;&#2468;&#2480; &#2453;&#2469;&#2494;, the line is of 14 syllables and cannot be reckoned in <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>as anything else. There is no difficulty<br \/>\n\t\t\tabout such lines as Michael&#8217;s<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:25pt\">\n\t<img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%209.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">10 <i>svaras<\/i>, but 14 <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>aras<\/i>,<br \/>\n\t&#8213;because the &#2503;&#2478;&#2456;<br \/>\n, though in the middle of a word, must be two <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>s<\/i>, since the <i>ghn<br \/>\n<\/i>in Meghnad is not a compound consonant, but two separate <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>aras<\/i>.<br \/>\nThere <i>is <\/i>a difficulty about<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2010.jpg\" width=\"56\" height=\"24\" align=\"texttop\"> and<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2011.jpg\" width=\"48\" height=\"20\" align=\"texttop\">, but that is because one is undecided whether to treat it as a compound<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2012.jpg\" width=\"27\" height=\"19\" align=\"texttop\"> and a compound<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2013.jpg\" width=\"27\" height=\"20\" align=\"texttop\">or as two separate words joined together,<br \/>\n\t&#2495;&#2470;&#2453;&#2509;<font size=\"2\"> <\/font>,<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2014.jpg\" width=\"21\" height=\"20\" align=\"middle\"><br \/>\nbeing kept apart as with the <i>t<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%206.jpg\" width=\"36\" height=\"18\" align=\"texttop\"><\/i>of or the <i>k <\/i>of<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2015.jpg\" width=\"25\" height=\"19\" align=\"middle\">. In the latter case<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2014.jpg\" width=\"21\" height=\"20\" align=\"middle\">and<br \/>\n\t&#2495;&#2470;&#2453;&#2509; are dissyllables, in the former, trisyllables.<br \/>\nAnd so on, as regards other doubtful points like &#2458;&#2494;&#2451;&#2527;&#2494;. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">This, I say, was what I was taught and it is according to this rule that I have hitherto scanned the<br \/>\n<i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta. <\/i>I am quite<br \/>\nprepared to adopt a new principle if it is more scientific, but I think that<br \/>\n<i>historically <\/i>this explanation is not unsound, that it<br \/>\nrepresents the idea Michael and Nabin Sen and the rest had of the basis of their verse and shows why it was considered as of a<br \/>\nsyllabic character. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">(2) I did not think or hear that Tagore invented the <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font><\/i>&#8211;<i>vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>&#8213;I could not, because I never heard of the <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i><br \/>\nat that time. What I understood was that the <i>svara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>was <i>.<\/i><br \/>\nnot recognised as a serious or poetic metre before Tagore, &#8213;it was used only for nursery rhymes etc. or in some kinds of<br \/>\nloose popular verse. Tagore did not invent, but he popularised the <i>svara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<br \/>\n<\/i>as a vehicle for serious poetry &#8213;it was at least professedly under his banner that a violent attack was made<br \/>\non the supremacy of the <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i>. I remember reading articles even in which it was reviled as a nonsensical conventional<br \/>\nfiction: Oriya Bengali. &#8220;If you want to keep it&#8221; thundered the <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-150<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">polemist, &#8220;let us all learn to read like Oriyas, `Rabana swasura mama, Meghanada swami&#8217;, but let us rather be Bengalis and<br \/>\ndrop this absurd convention of a pseudo-Sanskritic past.&#8221; The article amused me so much by its violence in spite of my prepossession for the <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>that I remember it as if I had read it yesterday<br \/>\n\t\t\t&#8213;and it was only one of a numerous type. At any<br \/>\nrate as a result of this campaign, <i>svara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>fixed itself on an&nbsp;<br \/>\nequal throne by the side of <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta. <\/i>I mention it only as a point of literary history of which I was a contemporary witness.<br \/>\nI suppose, as usually happens, Tagore&#8217;s share in the revolution was exaggerated and there were others who played a large part<br \/>\nin its success. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">(3) <i><br \/>\nM<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr&#257;-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>is therefore to me a new development, not as an invention perhaps, but as a clearly understood distinct principle of metre. But it exists, if I have understood your explanation, by a thorough extension of the principle which the<br \/>\n<i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>applied only with restrictions. As the Sanskrit limitation about<br \/>\nthe <i>vir<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>ma-cihna <\/i>was swept away in the <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i>, so now<br \/>\nin the <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>the limitation about conjuncts like<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2016.jpg\" width=\"14\" height=\"13\" align=\"middle\">&nbsp;is swept<br \/>\n<i>&nbsp;<\/i><br \/>\naway and all <i>yugma-dhvanis <\/i>are reckoned as two <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>s<\/i>. In that sense Anilbaran&#8217;s description of it as<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2017.jpg\" width=\"42\" height=\"17\" align=\"middle\"> of the <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i> would have some meaning, but at the same time it would not<br \/>\ndiminish the validity of your contention that it is a new opening with endless possibilities in a new principle of metrical rhythm.<br \/>\nTwo men may be cousins or brothers or near relatives, but one a conservative, the other a revolutionary creating a new world<br \/>\nand a new order. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">All this is no part of my final formed opinion in the matter. I<br \/>\nhave not yet gone through either Anilbaran&#8217;s writing or Prabodh Sen&#8217;s letter. It is only to put down my present understanding of<br \/>\nthe situation and explain what I meant in my letter.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t<b><br \/>\n\t<i>M<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">I am quite convinced of the possibilities of the <i><br \/>\n\tm&#257;tr&#257;-vr&#61470;tta <\/i><br \/>\n\t&#8213;which would exist even if Anilbaran is right in insisting that it<br \/>\nis the<br \/>\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2017.jpg\" width=\"42\" height=\"17\" align=\"middle\"> of the <i>aks<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>ara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<\/i>. Two people may be cousins and<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-151<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">yet have different characters, possibilities and destinies<br \/>\n\t\t\t&#8213;and so may two metres.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">9 September 1932<br \/>\n\t<\/font> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t*<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nI shall go through Prabodh Sen&#8217;s letter, but it may take me some time. What is the exact scope of the discussion with Anilbaran,<br \/>\nis it that he does not recognise the reality of the <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta<br \/>\n<\/i>as<br \/>\na separate principle of Bengali metre? That I suppose was the position before. Originally, indeed, there was only one stream<br \/>\nrecognised, &#8213;that I remember very well, for it was the time when I was learning and assiduously reading Bengali literature;<br \/>\nat that time what you now call <i>svara-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>was regarded as mere <i>.<\/i><br \/>\npopular verse or an old irregular verse-form. Afterwards with the advent and development of Tagore&#8217;s poetry, one began to hear of<br \/>\ntwo recognised principles of Bengali metre, Swara (I was going to say Kshara) and Akshara. Is it Anilbaran&#8217;s contention that only<br \/>\nthese two are real and legitimate? Whatever it be Anilbaran is <i>\u00af<\/i><br \/>\na born fighter and if you tell him that all the <i>Mah<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>ratha<\/i>s are against him and his squashing defeat a foregone conclusion, he<br \/>\nwill only gallop faster towards the battle. My own difficulty is that I have not yet grasped the principle of the <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta&#8213;<\/i><br \/>\n<i>what <\/i>is it that determines the long or the short <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font> <\/i>in Bengali?<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t<b><br \/>\n\t<i>M<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>and <i>Laghu-guru<\/i><br \/>\n\t<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 200%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nI return you the former letter from Prabodh Sen which I managed<br \/>\nto find time to read only today. He has a most acute, ingenious and orderly mind, and what he says is always thought-provoking<br \/>\nand interesting; but I am not persuaded that the form of Bengali <i>m<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>tr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#257;<\/font>-vr<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#61477;<\/font>tta <\/i>and Sanskrit <i>laghu-guru <\/i>is <i>really and intrinsically<br \/>\n<\/i>the same. Equivalent, no doubt, in a way, &#8213;if we substitute Bengali<br \/>\nmetre for Sanskrit quantity; but not the same because Bengali metre and Sanskrit quantity are two quite different things. It is<br \/>\nsomething like the equivoque by which one pretends that an English iambic metre or any other with a Greek name is the same as<br \/>\na Latin or Greek metre with that name &#8213;an equivoque based on the fiction that a stressed and an unstressed English syllable are <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-152<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nquantitatively long and short. There is a certain kind of general equivalence, but a fundamental difference<br \/>\n&#8213;as those who have<br \/>\ntried to find an equivalent in the English stress system to the quantitative Latin or Greek hexameter, alcaic or sapphic metres<br \/>\nhave discovered &#8213;they could not be transplanted, because it is only in true quantity that they can live. <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<font size=\"2\">23 September 1932 <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<b><i>Laghu-guru<\/i> <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nIf you can establish <i>laghu-guru <\/i>as a recognised metrical principle in Bengali, you will fulfil one of my two previsions for the future<br \/>\nwith regard to the language. When I was first introduced to Bengali prosody, I was told that Madhusudan&#8217;s blank verse was<br \/>\none of fourteen syllables, but to my astonishment found that sometimes ten syllables even counted as fourteen<br \/>\n&#8213;e.g. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:25pt\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2018.jpg\" width=\"175\" height=\"18\"><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nOf course, it was afterwards explained to me that the syllables were counted on the Sanskrit system, and I got the real run of<br \/>\nthe rhythmic movement; but I always thought: why not have an alternative system with a true sonant syllabic basis<br \/>\n&#8213;and,<br \/>\nfinally, I saw the birth (I mean as a recognised serious metre) of the <i><br \/>\nsvara-vr&#61470;tta<\/i>. Afterwards I came across Hemchandra&#8217;s experiments in bringing in a quantitative element and fell in love<br \/>\nwith the idea and hoped somebody would try it on a larger scale. But up till now this attempt to influence the future did<br \/>\nnot materialise. Now perhaps in your hands it will &#8213;even apart from songs. <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<font size=\"2\">20 October 1932 <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n*<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nIt [<i>a song composed by a disciple<\/i>] is good. But there is a tendency to run into a conventional model. Originality, plasticity, vigour,<br \/>\na new utterance and a new music are needed to give the <i>laghu&#8213;<\/i> <i>guru<br \/>\n<\/i>an undisputed standing equal to that of the other rhythms. <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<font size=\"2\">4 June 1934 &nbsp;<br \/>\n<\/font> <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-153<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p><b> <\/p>\n<p><i>Gadya-chanda<\/i><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>I can&#8217;t say that I have studied or even read Bengali&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2019.jpg\" width=\"44\" height=\"17\" align=\"middle\">, so I am unable to pronounce. In fact what is<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2019.jpg\" width=\"44\" height=\"17\" align=\"middle\">? Is it the equivalent of European free verse? But there the essence of the thing is<br \/>\nthat you model each line freely as you like &#8213;regularity of any kind is out of court there. Is it Nishikanta&#8217;s aim to create a<br \/>\nkind of rhymed prose metre? On what principle? He seems to want a movement which will give more volume, strength and<br \/>\nsonority than Bengali verse can succeed in creating but which is yet poetry, not prose arranged in lines and not even, at the best,<br \/>\npoetic prose cut into lines of different lengths. All things can be tried &#8213;the test is success, true poetic excellence. Nishikanta has<br \/>\nsent me some of his<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"\/elibrarytest\/-01 Works of Sri Aurobindo\/-03_CWSA\/-27_Letters on Poetry And Art\/-images\/-14_Metrical%20Experiments%20in%20Bengali%20-%2019.jpg\" width=\"44\" height=\"17\" align=\"middle\"> before. It seemed to me to have much<br \/>\nflow and energy, but there is something hanging on to it which weighs, almost drags<br \/>\n&#8213;is it the ghost of prose? But that is only<br \/>\na personal impression; as I have said, on this subject I am not a qualified judge.  <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p><font size=\"2\">29 September 1936 &nbsp;<br \/>\n<\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-154<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Metrical Experiments in Bengali &nbsp; New Metres in Bengali &nbsp; Of course, Prabodh Sen is right. I suppose what Buddhadev means is that none of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","wpcat-51-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507","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=2507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}