{"id":3772,"date":"2013-07-13T01:51:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3772"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:51:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:51:08","slug":"05-poetic-rhythm-and-technique-vol-03-third-series-1949","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/letters-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-third-series-1949\/05-poetic-rhythm-and-technique-vol-03-third-series-1949","title":{"rendered":"-05_Poetic Rhythm and Technique.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nSECTION THREE <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nPOETIC RHYTHM AND TECHNIQUE <\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nTwo Factors in Poetic Rhythm<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nIF your purpose is to acquire not only metrical
\nskill but the sense and the power of rhythm, to
\nstudy the poets may do something, but not all. There
\nare two factors in poetic rhythm,\u2014there is the technique (the variation of movement without spoiling the
\nfundamental structure of the metre, right management of vowel and consonantal assonances and dissonances, the masterful combination of the musical
\nelement of stress with the less obvious element of
\nquantity, etc.), and there is the secret soul of rhythm
\nwhich uses but exceeds these things. The first you
\ncan learn, if you read with your ear always in a tapasya.<\/i> of vigilant attention to these constituents, but
\nwithout the second what you achieve may be technically faultless and even skilful, but poetically a dead
\nletter. This soul of rhythm can only be found by
\nlistening in to what is behind the music of words
\nand sounds and things. You will get something of
\nit by listening for that subtler element in great poetry,
\nbut mostly it must either grow or suddenly open in
\nyourself. This sudden opening can come if the Power <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 161<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwithin wishes to express itself in that way. I have
\nmore than once seen a sudden flowering of capacities
\nin every kind of activity come by a rapid opening
\nof the consciousness, so that one who laboured long
\nwithout the least success to express himself in rhythm
\nbecomes a master of poetic language and cadences
\nalmost in a day. Poetry is a question of the right
\nconcentrated silence or seeking somewhere in the
\nmind with the right openness to the Word that is
\ntrying to express itself\u2014for the Word is there ready
\nto descend in those inner planes where all artistic
\nforms take birth, but it is the transmitting mind that
\nmust change and become a perfect channel and not
\nan obstacle. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nImportance of Metre and Technique<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\nI DON’T know that Swinburne failed for this reason-before assenting to such a dictum I should like to
\nknow which were these poems he spoiled by too much
\nartistry of technique. So far as I remember, his best
\npoems are those in which he is most perfect in artistry, most curious or skilful, most subtle. I think
\nhis decline began when he felt himself too much at
\nease and poured himself out in an endless waste of
\nmelody without caring for substance and the finer <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 162<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfinenesses of form. Attention to technique harms
\nonly when a writer is so busy with it that he becomes
\nindifferent to substance. But if the substance is
\nadequate, the attention to technique can only give
\nit greater beauty. Even devices like a refrain, internal rhymes, etc. can indeed be great aids to the inspiration and the expression\u2014just as can ordinary
\nrhyme. It is in my view a serious error to regard metre or rhyme as artificial elements, mere external
\nand superfluous equipment restraining the movement
\nand sincerity of poetic form. Metre, on the contrary,.
\nis the most natural mould of expression for certain
\nstates of creative emotion and vision, it is much more
\nnatural and spontaneous than a non-metrical
\nform; the emotion expresses itself best and most
\npowerfully in a balanced rather than in a loose
\nand shapeless rhythm. The search for technique
\nis simply the search for the best and most
\nappropriate form for expressing what has to be
\nsaid and once it is found, the inspiration can flow
\nquite naturally and fluently into it. There can be
\nno harm therefore in close attention to technique
\nso long as there is no inattention to substance.
\nThere are only two conditions about artistry: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n(1) that the artistry does not become so exterior
\nas to be no longer art and (2)that substance (in
\nwhich of course I include bhava)<\/i> is not left behind <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 163<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nin the desert or else art and bhava<\/i> not woven into
\neach other. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nAugust, 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nInspiration and Study of Technique<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\nYou do not need at all to afflict your inspiration by
\nStudying metrical technique\u2014you have all the technique you need, within you. I have never studied
\nprosody myself\u2014in English, at least; what I know E
\nknow by reading and writing and following my ear
\nand using my intelligence. If one is interested in the
\ntechnical study of prosody for its own sake, that is
\n<\/i>another matter\u2014but it is not at all indispensable. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n28-4-1934 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nEnglish Quantitative Verse and Classical Metres-
\n<\/a>
\n<\/i> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nMelody of English and Bengali Languages<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nTHERE have been attempts to write in English.
\nquantitative verse on the Greek and Latin <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 164<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nprinciple with the classical metres, attempts which
\nbegan in the Elizabethan times, but they have not been successful because the method was either
\ntoo slipshod or tried to adhere too rigidly to the
\nrules of quantity natural to Greek and Latin but
\nnot to the English tongue instead of making an
\nadaptation of it for the English ear or, still better,
\ndiscovering directly in English itself the true principle
\nof an English quantitative metre. I believe it is perfectly possible to acclimatise the quantitative principle in English and with great advantage. I have
\nnot seen Bridges’ attempts, but I do not see why
\nhis failure\u2014if it was one\u2014should damn the possibility. I think one day it will be done. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is true that English rhythm falls most naturally
\ninto the iambic movement. But I do not admit the
\nadverse strictures passed on the other (trochaic,
\nanapaestic, dactylic) bases of metre. All depends
\non how you handle them,\u2014if as much pains are
\nbestowed on them, as on the iambic, the fault
\nattributed to them will disappear. Even as it is,
\nthe trochaic metre in the hands of great poets like
\nMilton, Shelley, Keats does not pall\u2014I do not get
\ntired of the melody of the Skylark.<\/i> Swinburne’s
\nanapaestic metres, as in Dolores<\/i> are kept up for
\npages without difficulty with the most royal ease,
\nwithout fatigue either to the writer or the reader. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 165<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nBoth trochee and anapaest are surely quite natural
\nto the language. The dactyl is more difficult )
\ncontinue, but I believe it can be done, even in
\nlong dactylic metre like the hexameter, if intersperse
\nwith spondees (as the metre allows) and supported
\nby subtle modulations of rhythm, variations of pause and caesura. The iambic metre itself was
\nat
\n<\/i>first taxed with monotony in a drumming beat
\nuntil it was used in a more plastic way by Shakespeare and Milton. All depends on the skill which
\none brings to the work and the tool is quarrelled with 
\nonly when the workman does not know how to
\nuse it. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe English language is not naturally melodious I
\nlike the Italian or Bengali\u2014no language with a
\nTeutonic base can be\u2014but it is capable of remarkable harmonic effects and also it can by a skilful
\nhandling be made to give out the most beautiful 
\nmelodies. Bengali and Italian are soft, easy and 
\nmellifluous languages\u2014English is difficult and has
\nto be struggled with in order to produce its best
\neffects, but out of that very difficulty has arisen
\nan astonishing plasticity, depth and manifold subtlety
\nof rhythm. These qualities do not repose on metrical
\nhandling alone but much more on the less analysable elements of the entire rhythmic structure. The
\nmetrical basis itself is a peculiar and subtle combination <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 166<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\non which English rhythm depends without
\nexplicitly avowing it,\u2014a skilful and most extraordinarily variable combination of three elements
\n\u2014the numeric foot dependent on the number of
\nsyllables, the use of the stress foot and a play of
\nstresses, and a recognisable but free and plastic use
\nof quantitative play (not quantitative feet), all
\nthree running into each other. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nI am afraid your estimate here is marred by the
\npersonal or national habit. One is always inclined
\nto make this claim for one’s own language because
\none can catch every shade and element of it while
\nin another language, however well-learned, the
\near is not so clair-audient. I cannot agree that the
\nexamples you give of Bengali melody beat hollow
\nthe melody of the greatest English lyrists. Shakespeare, Swinburne’s best work in Atalanta<\/i> and
\nelsewhere, Shelley at his finest and some others
\nattain a melody that cannot be surpassed. It is a
\ndifferent kind of melody but not inferior. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBengali has a more melodious basis, it can accomplish melody more easily than English, it has a
\nfreer variety of melodies now, for formerly as English
\npoetry is mostly iambic, Bengali poetry used to be
\nmostly aksharvritta.<\/i> (I remember how my brother
\nManmohan would annoy me by denouncing the
\nabsence of melody, the featureless monotony of <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 167<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nBengali rhythm and tell me how Tagore ought to be
\nread to be truly melodious\u2014like English in Stress, with ludicrous effects. That
\nhowever is by ‘the way.) What I mean is that variety of melodic ".bases was not
\nconspicuous at that time in Bengali poetry. Nowadays this variety is there and
\nun-doubtedly opens possibilities such as perhaps do
\nnot exist in other languages. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n I do not see, however, how the metrical aspect by itself can really be taken apart from other more
\nsubtle elements; I do not mean the spirit and feeling or the sense of the language only, though
\nwithout depth or adequacy there metrical melody is only a melodious corpse, but
\nthe spirit and feeling or subtle (not intellectual) elements of rhythm and it is
\non these that English depends for the greater power and plasticity of its
\nharmonic and even to a less extent of its melodic effects. In a word, there is
\ntruth in what you say but it cannot be pushed so far as you push it. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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

\nPage – 168<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nComments on Milford\u2019s Views on Quantity
\n<\/a>
\n<\/i> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nin English Verse<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nMILFORD accepts the rule that two consonants after
\na short vowel make the short vowel long, even if they
\nare outside the word and come in another word
\nfollowing it. To my mind that is an absurdity. I
\nshall go on pronouncing the y<\/i> of frosty<\/i> as short
\nwhether it has two consonants after it or only one or
\nnone; it remains frosty<\/i> whether it is a frosty scalp<\/i> or
\nfrosty top<\/i> or a frosty anything. In no case have I pronounced it or could I consent to pronounce it
\nas frostee.
\n<\/i>My hexameters are intended to be read naturally as
\none would read any English sentence. But if you admit
\na short syllable to be long whenever there are two
\nconsonants after it, then Bridges’ scansions are perfectly
\njustified. Milford does not accept that conclusion; he
\nsays Bridges’ scansions are an absurdity. But he bases
\nthis on his idea that quantitative length does not count
\nin English verse. It is intonation that makes the metre,
\nhe says, high tones or low tones\u2014not longs and shorts,
\nand stress is there of the greatest importance. On
\nthat ground he refuses to discuss my idea of weight
\nor dwelling of the voice or admit quantity or anything else but tone as determinative of the metre
\nand declares that there is no such thing as metrical
\nlength. Perhaps also that is the reason why he counts <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 169<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfrosty<\/i> as a spondee before scalp,<\/i> he
\nthinks that it causes! it to be intoned in a different way. I don’t see how it does that; for my part, I intone it just the same before top<\/i> as before scalp.<\/i> The ordinary theory is,
\nI believe, that the sc<\/i> of scalp<\/i> acts as a sort of stile
\n(because of the two consonants) which you take time
\nto cross, so that ty<\/i> must be considered as long because
\nof this delay of the voice, while the t<\/i> of top<\/i> is merely
\na line across the path which gives no trouble. I don’t
\nsee it like that; at most, scalp<\/i> is a slightly longer
\nword than top<\/i> and that affects perhaps the rhythm
\nof the line but not the metre; it cannot lengthen the
\npreceding syllable so as to turn a trochee into a
\nspondee. Sanskrit quantitation is irrelevant here
\n(it is the same as Latin or Greek in this respect) for
\nboth Milford and I agree that the classical quantitative conventions are not reproducible in English; we both spew out Bridges’ eccentric rhythms. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis answers also your question as to what Milford means by "fundamental confusion" regarding
\naridity.<\/i> He refuses to accept the idea of metrical length.
\nBut I am concerned with metrical as well as natural
\nvowel quantities. My theory is that natural length
\nin English depends, or can depend, on the dwelling
\nof the voice giving metrical value or weight to the
\nsyllable; in quantitative verse one has to take account
\nof all such dwelling or weight of the voice, both <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 170<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nweight by ictus (stress) and weight by prolongation
\nof the voice (ordinary syllabic length); the two are
\ndifferent, but for metrical purposes in a quantitative
\nverse can rank as of equal value. I do not say that
\nstress turns a short vowel into a long one. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nMilford does not take the trouble to understand
\nmy theory\u2014he ignores the importance I give to.
\nmodulations and treats cretics and antibacchii and
\nmolossi as if they were dactyls, whereas they are only
\nsubstitutes for dactyls; he ignores my objection to
\nstressing short insignificant words like and, with, but,
\nthe\u2014<\/i>and thinks that I do that everywhere, which would be to ignore my theory. In fact I have scrupulously applied my theory in every detail of my practice. Take, for instance,
\n(Ahana,<\/i> p. 141) <\/font><\/p>\n

\nArt thou not heaven-bound even as I with the
\nearth? Hast thou ended. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nHere art<\/i> is long by natural quantity though unstressed, which disproves Milford’s
\ncriticism that in practice I never put an unstressed long as the first syllable
\nof a dactylic foot or spondee, as I should do by my theory. I don’t do it often
\nbecause normally in English rhythm stress bears the foot\u2014a
\nfact to which I have given full emphasis in my theory,
\nThat is the reason why I condemn the Bridgean. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 171<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ndisregard of stress in the rhythm,\u2014still I do it occasionally whenever it can come in quite naturally*.
\nMy quantitative system, as I have shown at great
\nlength, is based on the natural movement of the
\nEnglish tongue, the same in prose and poetry, not
\non any artificial theory. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n24.12-1942 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n* e.g. Opening tribrachs are very frequent in my
\nhexameter. \u0152
\nAhana<\/i> p. 142: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIs he the first? was there none then before him? shall none come after?
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut Milford thinks I have stressed the first short syllable to make them into dactyls\u2014a thing I abhor.
\n\u0152 also Ahana,<\/i> p.153 (initial
\nanapaest); <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nPage – 172<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nQuantitative Metre in Bengali Poetry<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHIS question of quantity is one in which I find it
\ndifficult to arrive at a conclusion. You can prove
\nthat it can be done and has been successfully done
\nin Bengali, and you can prove and -have proved it
\nyourself over again by writing these poems and
\nbringing in the rhythm, the Kallole, which is absent in
\nS. It is quite true also that stylisation is permissible
\nand a recognised form of art\u20141 mean professed and
\novert stylisation and not that which hides itself under
\na contrary profession of naturalness or faithful following of external nature. The only question is how
\nmuch of it Bengali poetry can bear. I do not think
\nthe distinction between song and poem goes at all
\nto the root of the matter. The question is whether
\nit is possible to have ease of movement in this kind of
\nquantitative metre. For a few lines it can be very
\nbeautiful or for a short poem or a song\u2014that much
\ncannot be doubted. But can it be made a spontaneous movement of Bengali poetry like the ordinary
\nMatrabrittas<\/i> or the others, in which one can walk or
\nrun at will without looking at one’s steps to see that
\none does not stumble and without concentrating the
\nreader’s mind too much on the technique so that
\nhis attention is diverted from the sense and bhava?
\n<\/i>If you can achieve some large and free structure in. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 173<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhich quantity takes a recognised place as part of
\nthe foundation,\u2014it need not be reproduction of a
\nSanskrit metre,\u2014that would solve the problem in the
\naffirmative. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n31-5-1932 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nFailure of Early English Hexameter<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nFORMER poets failed in the attempt at hexameter
\nbecause they did not find the right basic line and
\nmeasure; they forgot that stress and quantity must
\nboth be considered in English., Even though in
\ntheory the stress alone makes the quantity, there
\nis another kind of true quantity which must be
\ngiven a subordinate but very necessary recognition; besides, even in stress there are kinds, true and fictitious, major and minor. In analysing the movement of an English line, one could make three
\nindependent schemes according to these three bases and the combination would give the value of the rhythm. You can ignore all this in an established metre and go safely by the force of instinct
\nand habit; but for making so difficult an innovation
\nas the hexameter, instinct and habit were not <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 174<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nenough, a clear eye upon all these constituents was
\nneeded and it was not there. Longfellow, even
\ndough, went on the theory of accentual quantity
\nalone and in spite of their talent as versifiers made
\na mess\u2014producing something that discredited the
\nvery idea of the creation of an English hexameter.
\nOther poets made no serious or sustained endeavour.
\nArnold was interesting so long as he theorised about
\nit, but his practical specimens were disastrous. I
\nhave not time to make my point clearer for the
\nmoment; I may return to it hereafter. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nAccent in English Rhythm<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nIs it true that the laghu-guru<\/i> is to the Bengali ear
\nas impossible as would be to the English ear the
\nline made up by Tagore: "Autumn flaunteth in
\nhis bushy bowers"? In English such a violence
\ncould not be entertained for a moment. It was
\nbecause Spenser and others tried to base their
\nhexameters and pentameters on this flagrant violation of the first law of English rhythm that the
\nfirst attempt to introduce quantitative metres in
\nEnglish proved a failure. Accent cannot be ignored
\nin English rhythm\u2014it is why in my attempts at <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 175<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nquantitative metre I always count a strongly
\naccentuated syllable, even if the vowel is short, as
\na long one\u2014for the stress does really make it long
\nfor metrical purposes. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n21-7-1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Alexandrine<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nI SUPPOSE the Alexandrine has been condemned
\nbecause no one has ever been able to make effective
\nuse of it as a staple metre. The difficulty, I suppose,
\nis its normal tendency to fall into two monotonously
\nequal halves while the possible variations on that
\nmonotony seem to stumble often into awkward
\ninequalities. The Alexandrine is an admirable
\ninstrument in French verse because of the more
\nplastic character of the movement, not bound to its
\nStresses but only to an equality of metric syllables.
\ncapable of a sufficient variety in the rhythm. In
\nEnglish it does not work so well; a single Alexandrine or an occasional Alexandrine couplet can
\nhave a great dignity and amplitude of sweep in
\nEnglish, but a succession fails or has most often failed
\nto impose itself on the ear. All this, however, may <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 176<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nbe simply because the secret of the right handling
\nhas not been found: it is at least my impression
\nthat a very good rhythmist with the Alexandrine
\nmovement secretly born somewhere in him and
\nwaiting to be brought out could succeed in rehabilitating  the metre. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nOctosyllabic Metre<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE regular octosyllabic metre is at once the easiest
\nto write and the most difficult to justify by a strong
\nand original rhythmic treatment; it may be that it
\nis only by filling it with very original thought substance and image and the
\ndeeper tones and sound- significances which these would bring that it could
\nbe saved from its besetting obviousness. On the
\nother hand, the melody to which it lends itself, if
\nraised to a certain intensity, can be fraught with a
\nseizing charm that makes us forget the obviousness of the metre. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n4-2-1932 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 177<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nCombination of Iambics and Anapaests<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nIAMBICS and anapaests can be combined in English
\nverse at any time, provided one does not set out
\nto write a purely iambic or a purely anapaestic
\nmetre. Mixed anapaest and iamb make a most
\nbeautifully flexible lyric rhythm. It has no more
\nconnection with free verse than the constellation
\nof the Great Bear has to do with a cat’s tail. "Free"
\nverse indicates verse free from the shackles of rhyme
\nand metre, but rhythmic (or trying to be rhythmic)
\nin one way or another. If you put rhymes, that will
\nbe considered a shackle and the "free" will kick at
\nthe chain…. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Problem of Free Verse<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE problem of free verse is to keep the rhythm and
\nafflatus of poetry while asserting one’s liberty as
\nin prose to vary the rhythm and movement at will
\ninstead of being tied down to metre and to a single
\nunchangeable form throughout the whole length
\nof a poem. But most writers in this kind achieve
\nprose cut up into lines or something that is half
\nand half and therefore unsatisfying. I think few
\nhave escaped this kind of shipwreck. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 178<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nImperfect Rhymes<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

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

\nOne cannot expect to seize in poetry the finer and
\nmore elusive tones, which are so important, in a
\nlearned language, however well-learnt, as in one’s
\nnative and natural tongue\u2014unless of course
\n<\/b>one
\n<\/b>succeeds in making it natural, if not native. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nBengali Gadya-Chhanda<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nI CAN’T say that I have studied or even read Bengali
\n-gadya-chhanda, so<\/i> I am unable to pronounce. In fact
\n"what is gadya-chhanda<\/i> Is it the equivalent of European free verse? But there the essence of the thing
\nis that you model each line freely as you like\u2014<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 179<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nregularity of any kind is out of court there. Is it
\nthe aim to create a kind of rhymed prose metre?
\nOn what principle? N seems to want a movement
\nwhich will give more volume, strength and sonority
\nthan Bengali verse can succeed in creating, but
\nwhich is yet poetry, not prose arranged in lines and
\nnot even, at the best, poetic prose cut into lines
\nof different lengths. All things can be tried\u2014the
\ntest is success, true poetic excellence. N has sent
\nme some of his gadya-chhanda<\/i> before. It seemed to
\nme to have much flow and energy, but there is something hanging on to it which weighs, almost drags\u2014is it the ghost of prose? But that is only a personal
\nimpression; as I have said, on this subject I am
\nnot a qualified judge. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nInvention of New Metres<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nOF course, X is right about the desirability of
\ninventing new chhandas<\/i> and metres. Your friend
\nwho combats this view probably means that the very
\ngreatest poets seldom invented a metre. I suppose
\nthey were too royally lazy to give themselves the
\ntrouble and preferred stealing other people’s rhythms and polishing them up <\/b> to perfection,\u2014just as Shakespeare<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 180<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nstole bodily all his plots from wherever he could
\nfind any worth the lifting. But if that applies to
\nShakespeare or Virgil, still there are others whose
\nachievements made a consummate metrical invention
\na companion of a high poetic genius\u2014Alcaeus,
\nSappho, Catullus, Horace. These poets did a
\ngreat thing in inventing or transferring from other
\ntongues metres new to the language or introducing
\nGreek metrical forms into Latin or perfecting them’
\nin the direction of a more careful balance or a more
\nflawless elegance. But, apart from such illustrious
\nprecedents, a good thing such as the combination
\nof metrical invention with perfect poetry would still
\nbe worth doing even if no one had had the good
\nsense to do it before. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nUnpopularity of New Metres\u2014Cryptic Poetry<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\nIT is certainly not true that a good metre must
\nnecessarily be an easy metre\u2014easy to read or easy
\nto write. In fact, even with old-established perfectly
\nfamiliar metres, how many of the readers of poetry
\nhave an ear which seizes the true movement and the
\nwhole subtlety and beauty of the rhythm? It is
\nonly in the more popular kind of poems that it gets <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 181<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nin their hearing its full value. It is all the more
\nimpossible when you bring in not only new rhythms but a new principle of
\nrhythm\u2014or at least one that is not very familiar\u2014to expect it to be easily
\nfollowed at first by the many. It is only if you are already a recognised master that by force of your reputation.
\nyou can impose whatever you like on your public,
\nfor then even if they do not catch your drift, they
\nwill still applaud you and will take some pains to
\nlearn the new principle. If you are imposing a principle not only of rhythm but of scansion to which
\nthe ear in spite of past attempts is not trained so as
\nto seize the basic law of the movements in all its
\nvariations, a fair amount of incomprehension, some
\ndifficulty in knowing how to read the verse is very
\nprobable. Easier forms of a new rhythm may be
\ncaught in their movements, even if some will not be
\nable to scan it; but other difficult forms may give
\ntrouble. All that is no true objection to the attempt
\nat something new: novelty is difficult for the human
\nmind\u2014or’ear\u2014to accept, but novelty is asked for all
\nthe same in all human activities for their growth,
\namplitude, richer life. As you say the ear has to be
\neducated\u2014once it is trained, familiar with the
\nprinciple, what was a difficulty becomes easy,
\nthe unusual, first condemned as abnormal or impossible, becomes a normal and daily movement. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 182<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nAs for the charge of being cryptic, that is quite
\nanother matter. On what does it base itself? Obscurity due to inadequate expression is one thing, but
\nthe cryptic may be simply the expression of more
\nthan can be seized at first sight by the ordinary mind.
\nIt may be that the ideas are not of .a domain in which
\nthat mind is accustomed to move or that there is a
\nnew turn of expression other than the kind which
\nit has been trained to follow. Again the ordinary
\nturn of Bengali writing is lucid, direct, easy (in
\nthat it resembles French); if you bring into it
\na more intricate and suggestive manner in which
\nthe connections or transitions of thought are less
\nobvious, that may create a difficulty. To which of
\nthese causes is the accusation of being cryptic due?
\nCertainly not the first, since you are accused of having
\ntoo adequate and not too inadequate a vocabulary.
\nIf it is any of the others, then the objection has no
\ngreat force. A poet can be too easy to read, because
\nthere is not much in what he writes and it is exhausted’
\nat the first glance, or too difficult because you
\nhave to-burrow for the meaning. But otherwise it
\nmakes no difference to the excellence of the work, if
\nthe reader can catch its burden at the first glance or
\nhas to dwell a little on it for the full force of it to come
\nto the surface. One has perhaps sometimes to do
\nthe latter in your poems, but I do not find anything <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 183<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nunduly cryptic\u2014certainly there is nothing that can
\nbe really called obscure. The feeling, the way of
\nexpression, the combinations of thought, word
\nor image tend often to be new and unfamiliar, but
\nthat can be very well a strength and a merit, not an
\nelement of failure. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n28-1-1933 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nComments on Some Experiments in Metre<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n(1)<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n*THESE are things decided by the habit or training
\nof the ear. The intervention of a dactylic (or, if you
\nlike, anapaestic) line followed by an Alexandrine <\/font><\/p>\n

\n * This is in reply <\/b> to the questions put by Arjava (J. A. Chadwick)
\nin the following letter: <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe wind hush comes, the varied colours westward <\/b> stream: Were they joy-tinted coral, or song-light seen-heard in a shell fitfully,
\nDrifted ashore by the hours as a waif from the day-wide sea
\nOf Loveliness that smites awake our sorrow-dream? <\/font><\/p>\n

\n("Sundown") <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIs there some way of keeping the loose swinging gait of anapaests
\nwithin bounds? If one has used them freely in one or more lines, does
\nit sound too abrupt to close with a strict iambic line\u2014as in the final
\nAlexandrine of the above? <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 184<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwould to the ear of a former generation have sounded
\nabrupt and inadmissible. But, I suppose, it would
\nnot to an ear accustomed to the greater liberty\u2014or
\neven license\u2014of latter-day movements. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nThe canter of anapaests can, I suppose, be only
\nrelieved by variation or alternation with another
\nmetre, as you have done here\u2014or by a very powerful
\nmusic which would turn the canter into a torrent
\nrush or an oceanic sweep or surge. But the proper
\nmedium for the latter up till now has been a large
\ndactylic movement like the Greek or Latin hexameter; Swinburne has tried to get it into the anapaest, but with only occasional success because of <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n____________________________________________________________________<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is perhaps a pity that the rhythm of the first three lines runs in
\nsuch well-worn familiar channels. Is this intensified by the sing-song
\nof the second line, which slipped into the Saturnian metre lengthened
\nout by anapaests? <\/font><\/p>\n

\nI was<\/font> intending the third line to scan
\n<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nBut I see it could also be taken as four dactyls followed by the
\nspondee "day-wide" and the monosyllabic foot "sea". Which is
\nthe scansion which you would prefer? And would the four dactyls make
\nthe earlier part of a passable hexameter, or would at least one spondee
\nbe needed to break up the monotony and too-obvious lilt? <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 185<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhis excessive facility and looseness, which makes
\nthe sound empty owing to want of spiritual substance.
\nBut this third line seems to be naturally dactylic and
\nnot anapaestic. Can one speak of catalectic and
\nacatalectic hexameters? If so, this is a very beautiful catalectic hexameter. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nI may say that the four lines seem to be in their
\nvariation very remarkably appropriate and effective,
\neach exactly expressing by the rhythm the spirit and
\nmovement of the thing inwardly seen. I am speaking
\nof each line by itself; the only objection that could
\nbe made is to the coming together of so many variations in so brief a whole (if it had been longer, I imagine it would not have mattered) as disturbing
\nto the habit of the ear; but I am inclined to think
\nthat this objection would rest less on a reality than
\n‘a prejudice. The habit of the ear is not fundamental,
\nit can change. What is fundamental in the inner hearing is not, I think,
\ndisturbed by the swiftness of the change from the controlled flow of the first
\nline to the wave dance and shimmer of the second, the rapid drift of the third
\nand then the deliberate subtlety of the last line. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIs there in recent poetry an unconscious push
\ntowards a new metrical basis altogether for English
\npoetry\u2014shown by the outbreak of free verse, which
\nfails because it is most often not verse at all\u2014and the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 186<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nseeking sometimes for irregularity, sometimes for
\ngreater plasticity of verse-movement? Originally,.
\nAnglo-Saxon verse depended, if I remember right,
\non alliteration and rhythm, not on measured feet; Greece and Rome through France and Italy
\nimposed the foot measure on English; perhaps the
\nhidden seeking for freedom, for elbow-room, for the
\npossibility of a varied rhythmic expression necessitated by the complexity of the inner consciousness
\nmight find some vent in a measure which would
\ndepend not on feet but on lengths and stresses. I
\nhave sometimes thought that and it recurred to me
\nwhile looking at your second line, for on that
\nprinciple it might be read <\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nOne could imagine a measure made of lines in a
\ngiven number of lengths like that and each length
\nallowed a given number of stresses; there would b&
\nmany combinations and variations possible. For
\nexample (not of good poetry, but of the form), <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA far sail on the unchangeable monotone of
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\na slow slumbering sea, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 187<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nA world of power hushed into symbols of hue,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nsilent unendingly, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOver its head, like a gold ball the sun tossed<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nFollows its curve,\u2014a blazing eye of Time
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nwatching the motionless day. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPerhaps it is only a curious imagination, too difficult
\nand complex to realise, but it came on me strongly,
\nso I put it down on paper. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI have written two more stanzas of the stress-
\nscansion poem so as to complete it and send them to
\nyou. In this scansion as I conceive it, the lines may be analysed into feet, as you say all good rhythm can,
\nbut in that case the foot measures must be regarded
\nas a quite subsidiary element without any fixed
\nregularity\u2014just as the (true) quantitative element is treated in ordinary verse. The whole indispensable structure of the lines depends upon stress
\nand they must be read on a different principle from
\nthe current view\u2014full value must be given to
\nthe true stresses and no fictitious stresses, no
\nweight laid on naturally unstressed syllables <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 188<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nshould be allowed\u2013that is the most important point,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThus: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nIN HORIS AETERNUM <\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nA far sail on the unchangeable monotone of a
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nslow slumbering sea,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nA world of power hushed into symbols of hue,: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nsilent unendingly; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOver its head like a gold ball the sun tossed <\/font><\/p>\n

\nby the gods in their play<\/font><\/p>\n

\n Follows its curve,\u2014a blazing eye of Time <\/font><\/p>\n

\nwatching the motionless day. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHere or otherwhere,\u2014poised on the un<\/font><\/p>\n

\nreachable abrupt snow-solitary ascent
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nEarth aspiring lifts to the illimitable Light, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nthen ceases broken and spent,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOr in the glowing expanse, arid, fiery and <\/font><\/p>\n

\naustere, of the desert’s hungry soul,\u2014
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nA breath, a cry, a glimmer from Eternity’s <\/font><\/p>\n

\nface, in a fragment the mystic Whole. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nMoment-mere, yet with all eternity packed, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nlone, fixed, intense, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOut of the ring of these hours that dance and<\/font><\/p>\n

\n die, caught by the spirit in sense, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 189<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIn the greatness of a man, in music’s outspread. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nwings, in a touch, in a smile, in a sound,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSomething that waits, something that wanders <\/font><\/p>\n

\nand settles not, a once Nothing that was
\nall and is found. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is an experiment and I shall have to do more
\nbefore I can be sure that I have caught the whole
\nspirit or sense of this movement; nor do I mean
\nto say that stress-scansion cannot be built on
\nany other principle,\u2014say, on one with more concessions to the old music or with less, breaking more
\naway in the direction of free verse; but the essential,
\nI think, is there. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n19-4-1932 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nP.S. It is with some hesitation that I write
\n"a once Nothing", because I am far from sure that
\nthe "once" does not overweight the rhythm and
\nmake the expression too difficult and compact; but
\non the other hand without it the sense appears
\nambiguous and incomplete,\u2014for "a Nothing that
\nwas all" might be taken in a too metaphysical light
\nand my object is not to thrust in a metaphysical
\nsubtlety but to express the burden of an experience. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 190<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIn the final form I shall probably risk the ambiguity
\nand reject the intruding "once". <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n Comments On Some
\nExperiments in Metre <\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n (2) <\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nI certainly think feet longer than the three
\nsyllable maximum can be brought in and ought to be. I do not see for instance
\nwhy a foot like this
\nshould not be as legitimate as the anapaest.
\nOnly, of course, if frequently used, they would mean
\nthe institution of another principle of harmony not
\nprovided for by the essentially melodic basis of
\nEnglish prosody in the past; as <\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nor<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nI agree that this freedom would be more pressingly
\nneeded in longer metres than in short ones, bat they
\nneed not be excluded from the short ones either. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 191<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n Comments On Some Experiments in
\nMetre <\/font><\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font>(3) <\/font>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

\nA gold moon \/ -raft floats \/ and swings \/ slowly
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd it casts \/ a fire \/ of pale \/ holy \/ blue light
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn the dra \/ gon tail \/ aglow \/ of the \/ faint night <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat glim \/ mers far,\u2014\/ swimming, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe illu \/ mined shoals \/ of stars \/ skimming, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOverspread \/ ing earth \/ and drown \/ ing the\/
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nheart in sight <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWith the \/ ocean-depths \/ and breadths \/ of the
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nInfinite. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat is the official scansion, and except in the
\nlast foot of the two last lines it professes to follow
\nvery closely the metre of N’s poem. But in fact it
\nis full of sins and the appearance is a counterfeit.
\nIn the first line the first foot is really an anti-bacchius: "A gold moon\/-raft floats \/ ….", and quantitatively, though not accentually, the second is a
\nspondee which also disturbs the true rhythmic
\nmovement. "Slowly" and "holy" are in truth
\ntrochees disguised as pyrrhics, and if "slowly" can pass
\noff the deceit a little, "holy" is quite unholy in the
\nbrazenness of its pretences. If I could have got a <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 192<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncompound adjective like "god-holy", it would have
\nbeen all right and saved the situation, but I could
\nfind none that was appropriate. The next three
\nlines are, I think, on the true model and have an
\nhonest metre. But the closing cretic of my last two
\nlines is nothing but a cowardly flight from the
\ndifficulty of the spondee. I console myself by
\nremembering that even Hector ran when he found
\nhimself in difficulties with Achilles and that the
\nBhagavat lays down palayanam<\/i> (flight) as one of the
\nordinary occupations of the Avatar. But the evasion
\nis a fact and I am afraid it spoils the correspondence
\nof the metres. I have some idea of adding a second stanza,\u2014this one will look less guilty perhaps if it
\nhas a companion in sin\u2014but if you wish to use this,
\nyou need not wait for the other as it may never take
\nbirth at all. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nMOON OF TWO HEMISPHERES
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nA gold moon-raft floats and swings slowly
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd it casts a fire of pale holy blue light
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn the dragon tail aglow of the faint night <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat glimmers far, swimming,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe illumined shoals of stars skimming,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOverspreading earth and drowning the heart in <\/font><\/p>\n

\nsight
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWith the ocean-depths and breadths of the Infinite. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 193<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nA gold moon-ship sails or drifts <\/b> ever <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn our spirit’s skies and halts never, blue-keeled, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd it throws its white-blue fire on this grey field, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nNight’s dragon loop,\u2014speeding,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe illumined star-thought sloops leading
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTo the Dawn, their harbour home, to the Light <\/font><\/p>\n

\nunsealed,
\nTo the sun-face Infinite, the Untimed revealed. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n Comments On Some
\nExperiments in Metre <\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n (4) <\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nLines from "Ilion", an unfinished poem in
\nEnglish hexameter (quantitative): <\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nPage – 194<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nTriumph and agony changing hands in a desperate <\/font><\/p>\n

\nmeasure <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPaced and turned, as a man and a maiden <\/font><\/p>\n

\n trampling the grasses <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFace and turn and they laugh for their joy in the <\/font><\/p>\n

\ndance and each other. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThese were gods and they trampled lives. But
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nthough Time is immortal, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nMortal his works <\/b> are and ways and the anguish
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nends like the rapture. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nArtisans satisfied now with their works in the
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nplan of the transience, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBeautiful, wordless, august, the Olympians turned <\/font><\/p>\n

\nfrom the carnage. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nVast and unmoved they rose up mighty as eagles
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nascending, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFanning <\/b> the world with their wings. In the bliss
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nof a sorrowless ether <\/font><\/p>\n

\nCalm they reposed from their deeds and their
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nhearts were inclined to the Stillness. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nLess now the burden laid on our race by their
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nstar-white presence, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere was a respite from height; the winds
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nbreathed freer, delivered. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut their immortal content from the struggle
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\ntitanic departed. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nVacant the noise of the battle roared like a sea
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\non the shingles; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 195<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nWearily hunted the spears their quarry, strength
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nwas disheartened; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSilence <\/b> increased with the march of the months
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\non the tents of the leaguer. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe principle is a line of six feet, preponderantly
\ndactylic, but anywhere the dactyl can be replaced
\nby a spondee; but in English hexameter a trochee
\ncan be substituted, as the spondee comes in rarely
\nin English rhythm. The line is divided by a caesura,
\nand the variations of the caesura are essential to
\nthe harmony of the verse. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAn example of Alcaics from the "Jivanmukta"
\n(Alcaics is a Greek, metre invented by the poet
\nAlcaeus): <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage – 196<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nBut in English, variations (modulations) are allowed,
\nonly one has to keep to the general plan. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nTwo trochees at the beginning, two trochees at the
\nend, a dactyl separating the two trochaic parts of the
\nline\u2014that is the Sapphics in its first three lines, then
\na fourth line composed of a dactyl and a trochaic. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nNursery Rhymes and Popular Songs<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE question you have put, as you put it, can admit
\nof only one answer. I cannot agree that nursery rhymes or folk songs are entitled to take an important
\nplace or any place at all in the history of the prosody
\nof the English language or that one should start the
\nstudy of English metre by a careful examination <\/b> of <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 197<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe rhythm of "Humpty Dumpty", "Mary, Mary,.
\nquite contrary" or the tale of the old woman who
\nlived in a shoe. There are many queer theories.
\nabroad nowadays in all the arts, but I doubt whether
\nany English or French critic or prosodist would go so far as to dub "Who killed
\nCock Robin?" the true movement of English rhythm, putting aside Chaucer,
\nSpenser, Pope or Shelley as too cultivated and accomplished or too much under
\nforeign influence or to seek for his models in popular song or the products of the caf\u00e9 chantant<\/i> in preference
\nto Hugo or Musset or Verlaine. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut perhaps something else is meant\u2014is it that one
\ngets the crude indispensable elements of metre better
\nfrom primitive, just-shaped or unshaped stuff than
\nfrom more perfect work in which these are overlaid by
\nartistic developments and subtle devices; an embryo
\nor a skeleton is more instructive for the study of men
\nthan the developed flesh-and-blood structure? That
\nmay have a certain truth in some lines of scientific
\nresearch, but it cannot stand in studying the technique of an art. At that rate one could be asked to
\ngo for the basic principles of musical sound to the
\njazz or even to the hurdy-gurdy and for the indispensable rules of line and colour to the pavement-artist or to the sign-board painter. Or perhaps the
\nsuggestion is that here one gets the primary unsophisticated<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 198<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n rhythms native to the language and free
\nfrom the artificial movements of mere literature.
\nStill, I can hardly fancy that the true native spirit
\nor bent of English metre is to be sought or can be
\ndiscovered in<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHumpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHumpty Dumpty had a great fall <\/font><\/p>\n

\nand is lost in <\/font><\/p>\n

\nRarely, rarely
\n<\/b>comest thou, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSpirit of Delight. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPopular verse catches the child ear or the common
\near much more easily than the music of developed
\npoetry because it relies on a crude jingle or infantile
\nlilt\u2014not because it enshrines in its movements the
\ntrue native spirit of the chant. I hold it to be a
\nfallacy to think that the real spirit and native movement of a language can be caught only in crude and
\nprimitive forms and that it is disguised in the more
\nperfect work in which it has developed its own possibilities to their full pitch, variety and scope. It is
\nas if one maintained that the true note and fundamental nature of the evolving soul were to be
\nsought in the earthworm or the scarabaeus and not <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 199<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nin the developed human being\u2014or in the divinised man or Jivanmukta. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAs for foreign influences, most of the elements of
\nEnglish prosody, rhyme, foot-scansion, line-lengths,
\nstanza-forms and many others have come in from
\noutside and have altered out of all recognition the
\noriginal mould, but the spirit of the language
\nfound itself as much in these developments as in the
\nfirst free alliterative verse\u2014as much and more.
\nThe spirit of a language ought to be strong enough
\nto assimilate any amount of imported elements
\n<\/b>or
\n<\/b>changes of structure and measure. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n23-2-1933 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nDifference between a Song and a Poem<\/b><\/i>
\n<\/b> <\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nNo, a song is not a kind of poem\u2014or at least
\n<\/b>need
\n<\/b>not be. There are some very good songs which are
\nnot poems at all. In Europe, song-writers as such
\n<\/b>or
\n<\/b>the writers of the librettos of the great operas are not
\nclassed among poets. In Asia the attempt to combine
\nsong-quality with poetic value has been more common; in ancient Greece also lyric poetry was often
\ncomposed with a view to being set to music.
\n<\/b>But
\n<\/b>still poetry and song-writing, though they <\/b> can be <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 200<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncombined, are two different arts, because the aim
\nand the principle of their building is not the same. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe difference is not that poetry has to be understood and music or singing has to be felt
\n(anubhuti);<\/i> that one has to reach the soul through the precise written sense and the other through the suggestion of sound and its appeal to some inner chord within
\nus. If you only understand the intellectual content
\nof a poem, its words and ideas, you have not really
\nappreciated the poem at all, and a poem which contains only that and nothing else, is not true poetry.
\nA true poem contains something more which has
\nto be felt just as you feel music and that is its more
\nimportant and essential part. Poetry has a rhythm,
\njust as music has, though of a different kind, and it
\nis the rhythm that helps this something else to come
\nout through the medium of the words. The words
\nby themselves do not carry it or cannot bring it out
\naltogether and this is shown by the fact that the same
\nwords written in a different order and without
\nrhythm or without the proper rhythm would not at
\nall move or impress you in the same way. This
\nsomething else is an inner content or suggestion,
\na soul-feeling or soul-experience, a life-feeling or life experience, a mental emotion, vision or experience
\n(not merely an idea), and it is only when you can
\ncatch this and reproduce some vibration of the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 201<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nexperience\u2014if not the experience itself\u2014in you that
\nyou have got what the poem <\/b> can give you, not
\notherwise. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe real difference between a poem and a song is
\nthat a song is written with a view to be set to musical
\nrhythm and a poem is written with the ear listening
\nfor the needed poetic rhythm or word-music. These
\ntwo rhythms are quite different. That is why a poem
\ncannot be set to music unless it has either been
\nwritten with an eye to both kinds of rhythm or else
\nhappens to have (without especially intending it)
\na movement which makes it easy or at least possible
\nto set it to music. This happens often with lyrical
\npoetry, less often with other kinds. There is also
\nthis usual character of a song that it is satisfied to be
\nvery simple in its content, just bringing out an
\nidea or feeling, and leaving it to the music to develop
\nits unspoken values. Still this reticence is not always
\nobserved; the word claims for itself sometimes a
\nlarger importance. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n4-7.1931 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nSonnet and Satire<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nIN a sonnet, thought should be set to thought, line
\nadded to line in a sort of architectural sequence, or <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 202<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nelse there should be a progression like the pressing
\nof waves to the shore, with the finality of arrival swift
\nin a closing couplet or deliberate as in the Miltonic
\nform. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAs to your other proposition, I am not sure that
\nsatiric verse and the metaphysical lyrical can rightly
\nbe put together. Naturally, a great poetic genius
\ncould or might do it with success; but genius can do
\nanything. Satire is more often than not a kind of half poetry, because its inspiration comes primarily from.
\nthe critical mind and a not very high part of it, not
\nfrom the creative vision or moved intensity of poetic
\nfeeling. Creative vision or the moved intensity can
\ncome in to lift this motive but, except rarely, it does
\nnot lift it very high. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is Dryden and Juvenal who have oftenest made
\nsomething like genuine poetry out of satire, the
\nfirst because he often changes satire into a vision of
\ncharacter and the play of psychological forces, the
\nother because he writes not from a sense of the incongruous but from an emotion, from a strong poetic
\n"indignation" against the things he sees around him.
\nAristophanes is a comic creator\u2014like Shakespeare
\nwhen he turns in that direction\u2014the satire is only
\na strong line in his creation; that is a different kind
\nof inspiration, not the ordinary satire. Pope attempted something creative in his Rape of the Lock,<\/i> but <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 203<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe success, if brilliant, is thin because the deeper
\ncreative founts and the kindlier sources <\/b> of vision are not there.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 204<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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