{"id":2540,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:19","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2540"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:19","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:19","slug":"39-indian-poetry-in-english-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\/39-indian-poetry-in-english-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","title":{"rendered":"-39_Indian Poetry in English.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n


\nIndian Poetry in English<\/font> <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Writing in a Learned Language <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was surprised last night how
\n\t\t\t<\/span> les mots justes<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/i>
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tsprang ready to the pen’s call. Alas I can’t say the same thing for my English
\npoetry, where I always fumble so. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nOne cannot expect to seize in poetry the finer and more elusive
\ntones, which are so important, in a learned language, however well-learnt, as in one’s native or natural tongue. Unless of course
\none succeeds in making it natural, if not native. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t5 December 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

What do you think of Yeats’ letter to Purohit Swami, in which
\nhe says: “Write in your mother tongues. Choose that smaller audience. You cannot have style and vigour in English. You
\ndid not learn it at your mother’s knee. . . . It is not your fault that you are under a curse. It is the fault of wicked policy.
\nDefeat this policy. Write and speak Marathi, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil. . . . ” <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAll very well for those who can write in some language of India and don’t know English intimately. But what of those who think
\nand write naturally in English? Why didn’t Yeats write in Gaelic? <\/p>\n

17 September 1936
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIt is not true in all cases that one can’t write first-class things
\nin a learned language. Both in French and English people to whom the language was not native have done remarkable work,
\nalthough that is rare. What about Jawaharlal’s autobiography? Many English critics think it first-class in its own kind; of course
\nhe was educated at an English public school, but I suppose he   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-442<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwas not born to the language. Some of Toru Dutt’s poems, Sarojini’s, Harin’s have been highly placed by good English critics,
\nand I don’t think we need be more queasy than Englishmen themselves. Of course there were special circumstances, but in
\nyour case also there are special circumstances; I don’t find that you handle the English language like a foreigner. If first-class
\nexcludes everything inferior to Shakespeare and Milton, that is another matter. I think, as time goes on, people will become
\nmore and more polyglot and these mental barriers will begin to disappear. <\/p>\n

\n 1 October 1943 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n Indo-English Poetry <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

I suppose our oriental way of expression, which is as luxuriant as oriental nature itself, is unappealing to Westerners. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhat you say may be correct, but on the other hand it is possible that the mind of the future will be more international than it is
\nnow. In that case the expression of various temperaments in English poetry will have a chance. <\/p>\n

If our aim is not success and personal fame, but to arrive at the expression of spiritual truth and experience of all kinds in
\npoetry, the English tongue is the most widespread and is capable of profound turns of mystic expression which make it admirably
\nfitted for the purpose; if it could be used for the highest spiritual expression, that is worth trying. <\/p>\n

10 December 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n*<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for Conrad, according to Thompson, he is a Westerner, and surely there is a greater difference in tradition, expression,
\nfeeling between an Easterner and an Englishman than between an Englishman and another European. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIn other words, any Western tradition, expression, feeling ―even Polish or Russian
\n―can be legitimately expressed in
\nEnglish, however unEnglish it may be, but an Eastern spirit, tradition or temper cannot? He differs from Gosse who told
\nSarojini Naidu that she must write Indian poems in English   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-443<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

―poems with an Indian tradition, feeling, way of expression, not reproduce the English mind and turn, if she wanted to do
\nsomething great and original as a poet in the English tongue. <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

I think that however much we try, we shan’t be able to enter
\nthe subtleties of a foreign tongue. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWho is this we? Many Indians write better English than many
\neducated Englishmen. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is there any chance of our being able to express spirituality in
\nEnglish poetry? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI put forward four reasons why the experiment could be made.
\n(1) The expression of spirituality in the English tongue is needed and no one can give the real stuff like Easterners and especially Indians. (2) We are entering an age when the stiff barriers of insular and national mentality are breaking down (Hitler
\nnotwithstanding), the nations are being drawn into a common universality with whatever differences, and in the new age there
\nis no reason why the English should not admit the expression of other minds than the English in their tongue. (3) For ordinary
\nminds it may be difficult to get over the barrier of a foreign tongue, but extraordinary minds (Conrad etc.) can do it. (4) In
\nthis case the experiment is to see whether what extraordinary minds can do, cannot be done by Yoga.
\nSufficit <\/i>―or as Ramchandra eloquently puts it “‘Nuff said!” <\/p>\n

28 February 1936 <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe doctrine that no one who is not a born and bred Englishman,
\nespecially no Oriental, should try to write or can really write English poetry because the traditions, sentiments, expressions
\nof the English language ―or of any language ―are so different from others and so peculiar to itself that a foreigner cannot
\nacquire them, is no new discovery; it is a statement that has been often made. But it fails at one point
\n―birth does not matter. A
\npure Italian by blood like Rossetti or his sister Christina, a Pole like Conrad, a Spaniard like Santayana (I am speaking of prose
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-444<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nalso, however,) can do as well in English as born English writers. It is said however that this applies only to Europeans,
\n―for their
\nnative tradition, sentiments, expressions are not entirely alien to those of the English tongue and by education or adaptation they
\ncan acquire, but the Indian mind is of too alien a character, too far off and cut away by a gulf from the English to be able to write
\nin that language. It may be said also that an Indian may succeed in writing correct English, but can never write great English
\nprose, still less perfect or enduring poetry. I doubt whether this is true ―I remember having read some extracts from letters by
\nSarojini Naidu in her youth that seemed to be very perfect and beautiful English prose. But let us keep to poetry which has
\nno doubt a special language or a special spirit and turn in its language and it is true of it that no one who cannot acquire that
\nspirit and turn can succeed in writing English poetry. But in the first place I do not see why an Indian bred in England or an
\nIndian to whom English has become his natural tongue should be any more disqualified [incomplete<\/i>]1<\/font><\/sup> <\/p>\n

\n 28 February 1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n On Some Indian Writers of English <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

I should very much value your <\/i>assurance that, scant though my stock is, I need not feel inferior to the other Indian poets who have written in English ―Manmohan Ghose and Harindranath and Sarojini. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI don’t altogether appreciate your request for being declared by me “not inferior” to other “Indo-English” poets. What have
\nyou to do with what others have achieved? If you write poetry, it should be from the stand-point that you have something of
\nyour own which has not yet found full expression, a power within which you can place at the service of the Divine and
\nwhich can help you to grow ―you have to get rid of all in it that is merely mental or merely vital, to develop what is true
\nand fine in it and leave the rest until you can write from a higher <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1 Sri Aurobindo wrote this passage on the back of a typed copy of the letter of 28<\/i>
\nFebruary 1936 printed above. It appears to be the draft of a letter that was not completed<\/i>
\nor sent. ―Ed.<\/i>
\n  
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-445<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

level of consciousness things that come from the deepest self and \u00b4<\/i>
\nthe highest spiritual levels. Your question is that of a litterateur<\/i> and not in the right spirit. Besides, even from a mental point
\nof view, such comparisons are quite idle. Sarojini Naidu has at best a strange power of brilliant colour and exquisite melody
\nwhich you are not likely ever to have; on the other hand she is narrowly limited by her gift. Harindranath has an unfailing
\nsense of beauty and rhythm (or had before he became a Bolshevik and Gandhist) ―while your writing is very unequal
\n―but I do
\nnot suppose he will ever do much better than he has done or produce anything that will put him in the first rank of poets,
\nunless he changes greatly in the future. As for my brother, I do not know enough of his poetry to judge; I knew he had a
\nbetter knowledge of technique than any of these poets, but my impression was that life and enduring quality were not there.
\nHow am I to compare you in these things with them? You have another turn and gift and you have in the resources of Yoga a
\nchance of constant progression and growth and of throwing all imperfections behind you. Measure what you do by the standard
\nof your own possible perfection; what is the use of measuring it by the achievement of others? <\/p>\n

\n

1931<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n

*<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe idea that Indians cannot succeed in English poetry is very much in the air just now but it cannot be taken as absolutely
\nvalid. Toru Dutt and Romesh of the same ilk prove nothing; Toru Dutt was an accomplished verse-builder with a delicate talent
\nand some outbreaks of genius and she wrote things that were attractive and sometimes something that had a strong energy of
\nlanguage and a rhythmic force. Romesh was a smart imitator of English poetry of the second or third rank. What he wrote, if
\nwritten by an Englishman, might not have had even a temporary success. Sarojini is different. Her work has a real beauty, but it
\nhas for the most part only one highly lyrical note and a vein of riches that has been soon exhausted. Some of her lyrical work
\nis likely, I think, to survive among the lasting things in English literature and by these, even if they are fine rather than great, she
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-446<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmay take her rank among the immortals. I know no other Indian poets who have published in English anything that is really alive
\nand strong and original.2<\/font><\/sup> The test will be when something is done that is of real power and scope and gets its due chance.
\nTagore’s Gitanjali <\/i>is not in verse, but the place it has taken has some significance. For the obstacles from the other side are
\nthat the English mind is apt to look on poetry by an Indian as a curiosity, something exotic (whether it really is or not, the
\nsuggestion will be there), and to stress the distance at which the English temperament stands from the Indian temperament.
\nBut Tagore’s Gitanjali <\/i>is most un-English, yet it overcame this obstacle. For the poetry of spiritual experience, even if it has
\ntrue poetic value, the difficulty might lie in the remoteness of the subject. But nowadays this difficulty is lessening with the
\nincreasing interest in the spiritual and the mystic. It is an age in which Donne, once condemned as a talented but fantastic
\nweaver of extraordinary conceits, is being hailed as a great poet, and Blake lifted to a high eminence; even small poets with the
\nmystic turn are being pulled out of their obscurity and held up to the light. At present many are turning to India for its sources
\nof spirituality, but the eye has been directed only towards yoga and philosophy, not to the poetical expression of it. When the
\nfull day comes, however, it may well be that this too will be discovered, and then an Indian who is at once a mystic and a
\ntrue poet and able to write in English as if in his mother-tongue (that is essential) would have his full chance. Many barriers
\nare breaking; moreover both in French and English there are instances of foreigners who have taken their place whether as
\nprose-writers or poets. <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n P.S. About decadence: a language becomes decadent when the
\nrace decays, when life and soul go out and only the dry intellect and the tired senses remain. Europe is in imminent peril
\nof decadence and all its literatures are attacked by this malady, though it is only beginning and energy is still there which may <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n 2 This was written some years ago and does not apply to more recent work in English by Indian poets.
\n   <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-447<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

bring renewal. But the English language has still several strings to its bow and is not confined to an aged worn-out England.
\nMoreover, there are two tendencies active in the modern mind, the over-intellectualised, over-sensualised decadent that makes
\nfor death, and the spiritual which may bring rebirth. At present the decadent tendency may be stronger, but the other is also
\nthere. <\/p>\n

\n

24 January 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Manmohan Ghose <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

I have not read much of my brother’s poetry except what he
\nwrote in England and in the early years in India before we ceased to meet. That was very cultured poetry and good in form, but it
\nseemed to me to lack the inner force and elemental drive which makes for successful creation. I don’t know whether his later
\nwork had it. My brother was very intimate with Oscar Wilde, but, if I remember right, none of the singing birds except Phillips
\nand Binyon went very far. But I think Manmohan published very little in his lifetime
\n―nothing ever came my way. <\/p>\n

\n

25 January 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

*<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

You write in your note to Harin [of 24 January 1935<\/i>] about Toru Dutt and “Romesh of the same ilk” and Sarojini Naidu
\nthat you know of no other Indian than Sarojini to have published in English anything that is really alive and strong and
\noriginal. I can understand your forgetting your own work, but how is it that you have omitted Harin himself? Surely he has
\npublished things that are bound to remain? Also, how was it that Oscar Wilde and Laurence Binyon could give praise
\nto Manmohan Ghose? Has he done nothing that could touch Sarojini’s level, though in another way? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI did not speak of Harin because that was a separate question altogether ―besides, whether in criticising or in paying compliments, present company is always supposed to be excepted unless they are specially mentioned, and for this purpose Harin
\nand myself are present company. About Manmohan I said that I knew very little of his later work. As for his earlier work <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-448<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

it had qualities which evoked the praise of Wilde. I do not
\nknow what Binyon has written, but he is a fine poet and an admirable critic, not likely to praise work that has not quality.
\n(Wilde and Binyon were both intimate friends of my brother, ―at a time Manmohan was almost Wilde’s disciple. If I were
\ninclined to be Wildely malicious I might say that even Oscar’s worst enemies never accused him of sincerity of speech, so if he
\nliked someone very much he would not scruple to overpraise his poetry; but I think he considered my brother’s poems to carry
\nin them a fine promise. Binyon and Manmohan had almost the relations of Wordsworth and Southey in the first days, strongly
\nadmiring and stimulating each other.) Let me say then that my opinion was a personal one, perhaps born of brotherly intimacy
\n\t\t\t―for if familiarity breeds contempt, fraternity may easily breed criticism
\n\t\t\t―and based on insufficient data. I liked Manmohan’s
\npoetry well enough, but I never thought it to be great. He was a conscientious artist of word and rhyme almost painfully careful
\nabout technique. Virgil wrote nine lines every day and spent the whole morning rewriting and rerewriting them out of all
\nrecognition. Manmohan did better. He would write five or six half lines and quarter lines and spend the week filling them up. I
\nremember the sacred wonder with which I regarded this process ―something like this: <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

The morn … red … sleepless eyes<\/p>\n

\n

 ………lilac ……………rest. <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Perhaps I exaggerate, but it was very much like that! That seemed to me to indicate an inspiration not very much on fire
\nor in flood. But I suppose he became more fluent afterwards and I am ready to change my opinion if I have materials for
\ndoing so. I made no comparison with Sarojini. The two poets are poles asunder in their inspiration and manner. Sarojini has a
\ntrue originality whatever its limits; even if she does not live for ever, she deserves to live. My brother was perhaps a finer artist,
\nbut has Manmohan’s poetry similarly an unique and original power? <\/p>\n

\n

26 January 1935 <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-449<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

I suppose you have read this poem of Manmohan’s: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Augustest! dearest! whom no thought can trace, <\/p>\n

Name, murmuring out of birth’s infinity, <\/p>\n

Mother! like heaven’s great face is thy sweet face, <\/p>\n

Stupendous with the mystery of me. <\/p>\n

Eyes, elder than the light; cheek, that no flower <\/p>\n

Remembers; brow, at which my infant care <\/p>\n

Gazed weeping up and saw the skies enshower <\/p>\n

With tender rain of vast mysterious hair! <\/p>\n

Thou at whose breast the sunbeams sucked, whose arms <\/p>\n

Cradled the lisping ocean, art thou she, <\/p>\n

Goddess, at whose dim heart the world’s deep charms, <\/p>\n

Tears, terrors, sobbing things, were yet to be? <\/p>\n

She, from whose tearing pangs in glory first <\/p>\n

I and the infinite wide heavens burst? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each line is wonderfully inspired; but is there in the total
\neffect a sense of construction rather than creation, a splendid confusion instead of a supreme luminosity? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe poem has a considerable elevation of thought, diction and rhythm. It is certainly a fine production and, if all had been equal
\nto the first three lines which are pure and perfect in inspiration, the sonnet might have stood among the finest things in the English language. But somehow it fails as a whole. The reason is that the intellectual mind took up the work of transcription and
\na Miltonic rhetorical note comes in, all begins to be thought rather than seen or felt; the poet seems to be writing what he
\nthinks he ought to write on such a subject and doing it very well ―one admires,
\n\tthe mind is moved and the vital stirred, but the deeper satisfying spiritual
\n\tthrill which the first lines set out to give is no longer there. Already in
\n\tthe fourth line there is the touch of poetic rhetoric. The original afflatus
\n\tcontinues to persist behind, but can no longer speak itself out in its
\n\tnative language, there is a mental translation. It tries indeed to get back
\n\t―<\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tEyes, elder than the light; cheek, that no flower <\/p>\n

\n\tRemembers ―  <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-450<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthen loses hold almost altogether ―what follows is purely mental. Another effort brings the eighth line which is undoubtedly
\nvery fine and has sight behind it. Then there is a compromise; the spiritual seeing mind seems to say to the thinking poetic
\nintellect, “All right, have it your own way ―I will try at least to keep you up at your best”, and we have the three lines that
\nfollow those two others that are forcible and vivid poetic (very poetic) rhetoric
\n\t―finally a close that goes back to the level of the
\nstupendous mystery. No, it is not a “splendid confusion” ―the poem is well-constructed from the point of view of arrangement
\nof the thought, so there can be no confusion. It is the work of a poet who got into touch with some high level of spiritual sight,
\na living vision of some spirit Truth, but, that not being his native domain, could not keep its perfect voice throughout and mixed
\nhis inspiration ―that seems to me the true estimate. A very fine poem, all the same. <\/p>\n

\n 5 November 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n Remarks on Minor Indian Writers
\n<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n I don’t remember [Jehangir] Vakil’s poems very well, but they gave me the impression, I think, of much talent not amounting
\nto genius, considerable achievement in language and rhythm but nothing that will stand out and endure. But how many can do
\nmore in a foreign language? Here the poem certainly attempts and almost achieves something fine
\n\t―there are admirable lines
\nand images ―but the whole gives an impression of something constructed by the mind, a work built up by a very skilful and
\nwell-endowed intelligence. <\/p>\n

\n 12 September 1931 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n *<\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\nThe poetry of your friend is rather irritating, because it is always
\njust missing what it ought to achieve, ―one feels a considerable poetic possibility which does not produce work of some permanence because it is not scrupulous enough or has not a true technique. The reasons for the failure can be felt, but are not
\neasy to analyse. Among them there is evidently the misfortune of having passed strongly under the influence of poets who are quite
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-451<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

out of date and learned a poetic style and language full of turns that smell of the schoolroom and the bookworm’s closet. Such
\nawful things as “unsoughten”, “a-journeying”, “a-knocking”,
\n“strayed gift” and the constant abuse of the auxiliary verb “to do” would be enough to damn even the best poem. If he would
\nrigorously modernise his language, one obstacle to real poetic success would perhaps disappear,
\n\t―provided he does not, on
\nthe contrary, colloquialise it too much ―e.g. “my dear”, etc. But the other grave defect is that he is constantly composing out
\nof his brain, while one feels that a pressure from a deeper source is there and might break through; if only he would let it. Of
\ncourse, it is a foreign language he is writing and very few can do their poetic best in a learned medium; but still the defect is
\nthere. <\/p>\n

\n

22 June 1931
\n  
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-452<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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