{"id":3773,"date":"2013-07-13T01:51:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3773"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:51:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:51:08","slug":"07-modern-poetry-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\/07-modern-poetry-vol-03-third-series-1949","title":{"rendered":"-07_Modern Poetry.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

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

\n
\nMODERN POETRY <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\nContemporary English Poetry<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

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

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

\nI<\/font> ADMIT <\/b>I have not read as much of "modern"
\n(contemporary) poetry as I should have\u2014but the little I
\nhave is mostly of the same fundamental quality.
\nIt is very carefully written and versified, often
\nrecherch\u00e9<\/i> in thought and expression; it lacks only
\ntwo things, the inspired phrase and inevitable word and the rhythm that keeps a poem
\nfor ever alive. Speech carefully studied and made
\nas perfect as it can be without reaching to inspiration verse as good as verse can be without rising to
\ninspired rhythm\u2014there seem to be an extraordinary number of
\npoets writing like this in England now. …. It is not the irregular verses or rhymes that
\nmatter, one
\ncan make perfection out of irregularity\u2013it is that
\nthey write their poetry from the cultured  striving mind, not from the elemental soul-
\npower within.. Not a principle to accept or a method to
\nimitate! <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 229<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nContemporary English Poetry<\/i>
\n–<\/font> (2) <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nIt is probably modern (contemporary) English
\npoetry of which S is thinking. Here I am no expert; but I understand that the turn there is to suppress
\nemotion, rhetoric, colouring, sentiment and arrive
\nat something very direct, expressive, recording
\neither the thing exactly as it is or some intimate
\nessential truth of the thing without wrapping it
\nUp in ideas and sentiments, superfluous images and
\nepithets. It does not look as if all contemporary
\nEnglish poetry was like that, it is only one strong
\ntrend; but such as it is, it has not as yet produced
\nanything very decisive, great or successful. Much
\nof it seems to be mere flat objectivity or, what is
\n"Worse, an exaggerated emphatic objectivity; emotion
\nseems often to be replaced by an intensified vital-
\nphysical sensation of the object. You will perhaps
\nunderstand what I mean if you read the poem
\nquoted on pages 316-17 of the "Parichaya"\u2014
\n"red pieces of day, hills made of blue and green
\npaper, Satanic and blas\u00e9, a black goat lookingly wanders"\u2014images expressing
\nvividly an impression made on the nerves through the sight of the described objects. Admittedly it is\u2014at least when
\npushed to such a degree\u2014a new way of looking at things in poetry, but not essentially superior to <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 230<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe impressions created on the heart and the
\nmental imagination by the objects. All the same,
\nthere is behind, but still not successfully achieved,
\nthe possibility of a real advance, an attempt to get
\naway from ornate mental constructions about
\nthings to the expression of the intimate truth of the
\nthings themselves as directly seen by a deeper sight
\nwithin us. Only it seems to me a mistake to theorise
\nthat only by this kind of technique and in this
\nparticular way can what is aimed at be done. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nContemporary English Poetry<\/i>
\n–<\/font> (3) <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nSomebody said of modernist poetry that it could
\nbe understood only by the writer himself and
\nappreciated by a few friends who pretended to understand it. That is because the ideas, images, symbols
\ndo not follow the line of the intellect, its logic or
\nits intuitive connections, but are pushed out on the
\nmind from some obscure subliminal depth or mist-
\nhung shallow; they have connections of their own
\nwhich are not those of the surface intelligence.
\nOne has to read them not with the intellect but
\nwith the solar plexus, try not to understand but
\nfeel the meaning. The surrealist poetry is the
\nextreme of this kind\u2014you remember our <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 231<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nSurrealist B’s question: "Why do you want poetry
\nto have a meaning?" Of course you can put an
\nintellectual explanation on the thing, but then
\nyou destroy its poetical appeal. Very great poetry
\ncan be written in that way from the subliminal depths, e.g. Mallarm\u00e9, but it
\nneeds a supreme power of expression, like Blake’s or Mallarm\u00e9’s, to make it truly powerful and convincing, and there
\nmust be sincerity of experience and significant
\nrhythm. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n2-8-1943<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nLatest Trend in English Poetry<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\nTHE latest craze in England is either for intellectual
\nquintessence or sensations of life, while any emotional and ideal element in poetry is considered as
\na
\ndeadly sin. But beautiful poetry remains beautiful poetry even if it is not in the current style. And
\nafter all, Yeats and AE are still there in spite of this
\nnew fashion of the last one or two decades. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 232<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nModern Art and Poetry<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nNOT only are there no boundaries left in some arts
\n(like poetry of the ultra-modem schools or painting) but no foundations and no Art either. I am
\nreferring to the modernist painters and to the extra-
\nordinary verbal jazz which is nowadays often put forward as poetry. .. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nModern Art opines that beauty is functional!
\nthat is, whatever serves its function or serves a true
\npurpose is artistic and beautiful\u2014for instance, if
\na clerk produces a neat copy of an official letter with-
\nout mistakes, the clerk and his copy are both of them
\nworks of art and beautiful!.. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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

\n
\nSurrealist Poetry<\/i>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

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

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

\nI REALLY can’t tell you what surrealism is, because
\nit is something\u2014at least the word is\u2014quite new and
\nI have neither read the reliable theorists of the
\nschool nor much of their poetry. What I picked up <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 233<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\non the way was through reviews and quotations,
\nthe upshot being that it is a poetry based on the
\ndream-consciousness, but I don’t know if this is
\ncorrect or merely an English critic’s idea of it. The
\ninclusion of Baudelaire and Val\u00e9ry seems to indicate something wider than that. But the word is.
\nof quite recent origin and nobody spoke formerly
\nof Baudelaire as a surrealist or even of Mallarm\u00e9.
\nMallarm\u00e9 was supposed to be the founder of a new
\ntrend of poetry, impressionist and symbolist, followed
\nin varying degrees and not by any means in the
\nsame way by Verlaine and Rimbaud, both of them
\npoets of great fame. Verlaine is certainly a great
\npoet and people now say Rimbaud also, but I have
\nnever come across his poetry except in extracts.
\nThis strain has developed in Val\u00e9ry and other noted writers of today. It seems
\nthat all these are now claimed as part of or the origin of the surrealist
\nmovement. But I cannot say what are the exact boundaries or who comes in where.
\nIn any case,. surrealism is part of an increasing attempt of the European mind
\nto escape from the surface consciousness (in poetry as well as in painting and in
\nthought) and grope after a deeper truth of things
\nwhich is not on the surface. The dream-conscious-
\nness as it is called\u2014meaning not merely what we
\nSee in dreams, but the inner consciousness in which <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 234<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwe get into contact with deeper worlds which
\nunderlie, influence and to some extent explain much
\nin our lives, what the psychologists call the subliminal or the subconscient (the latter a very ambiguous phrase)\u2014offers the first road of escape and
\nthe surrealists seem to be trying to force it. My
\nimpression is that there is much fumbling and that
\nmore often it is certain obscure and not always very
\nsafe layers that are tapped. That accounts for the
\nnote of diabolism that comes in in Baudelaire, in
\nRimbaud also, I believe, and in certain ugly elements in English surrealist poetry and painting.
\nBut this is only an impression. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nN’s poetry (what he writes now) is from the
\ndream-consciousness, no doubt about that. My
\nlabelling him as surrealist is partly\u2014though not
\naltogether\u2014a joke. How far it applies depends on.
\nwhat the real aim and theory of the surrealist
\nschool may be. Obscurity and unintelligibility are
\nnot the essence of any poetry and\u2014except for
\nunconscious or semi-conscious humorists like
\nDadaists\u2014cannot be its aim or principle. True dream-
\npoetry (let us call it so for the nonce) has and must
\nalways have a meaning and a coherence. But it
\nmay very well be obscure or seem meaningless to
\nthose who take their stand on the surface or
\n"waking" mind and accept only its links and logic- <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 235<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nDream-poetry is usually full of images, visions,
\nsymbols that seek to strike at things too deep for the
\nordinary means of expression. N does not deliberately make his poems obscure; he writes what comes
\nthrough from the source he has tapped and does
\nnot interfere with its flow by his own mental volition.
\nIn many modernist poets there may be labour and
\na deliberate posturing, but it is not so in his case.
\nI interpret his poems because he wants me to do it,
\nbut I have always told him that an intellectual
\nrendering narrows the meaning\u2014it has to be seen
\nand felt, not thought out. Thinking it out may
\ngive a satisfaction and an appearance of mental
\nlogicality, but the deeper sense and sequence can
\nonly be apprehended by an inner sense. I myself
\ndo not try to find out the meaning of his poems, I
\ntry to feel what they mean in vision and experience
\nand then render into mental terms. This is a special
\nland of poetry and has to be dealt with according to
\nits kind and nature. There is a sequence, a logic,
\na design in them, but not one that can satisfy the
\nmore rigid law of the logical intelligence. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAbout Housman’s theory: it is not merely an
\nappeal to emotion that he posits as the test of pure
\npoetry; he deliberately says that pure poetry does
\nnot bother about intellectual meaning at all, it is
\nto the intellect nonsense. He says that the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 236<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ninterpretations of Blake’s famous poems rather spoil
\nthem\u2014they appeal better without being dissected
\nin that way. His theory is questionable, but that
\nis what it comes to; he is wrong in using the word
\n"nonsense" and perhaps in speaking of pure and
\nimpure poetry. All the same, to Blake and to writers
\nof the dream-consciousness, his rejection of
\n<\/b>the
\n<\/b>intellectual standard is quite applicable. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n12-2-1937 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\nSurrealist Poetry – (2) <\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

<\/i><\/p>\n

\nAbout your points regarding surrealism: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n(1) If the surrealist dream-experiences are flat\u00bb
\npointless or ugly, it must be because they penetrate
\nonly as far as the "subconscious" physical and
\n"subconscious" vital dream layers which are the
\nstrata nearest to the surface. Dream-consciousness
\nis a vast world in which there are a multitude of
\nprovinces and kingdoms, but ordinary dreamers
\nfor the most part penetrate consciously only to
\nthese first layers which belong to what may properly
\nbe called the subconscious belt. When they pass.
\ninto deeper sleep regions, their recording surface
\ndream-mind becomes unconscious and no longer <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 237<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ngives any transcript of what is seen and experienced
\nthere; or else in coming back these experiences of
\nthe deeper strata fade away and are quite forgotten
\nbefore one reaches the waking state. But when
\nthere is a stronger dream-capacity, or the dream-
\nstate becomes more conscious, then one is aware of
\nthese deeper experiences and can bring back a
\ntranscript which <\/b> is sometimes a clear record, sometimes a hieroglyph, but in either case possessed of
\na considerable interest and significance. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n(2) It is only the subconscious belt that is chaotic
\nin its dream sequences; for its transcriptions are
\nfantastic and often mixed, combining a jumble of
\ndifferent elements: some play with impressions from
\nthe past, some translate outward touches pressing
\nOn the sleep-mind; most are fragments from successive
\ndream experiences that are not really part of
\none connected experience\u2014as if a gramophone
\nrecord were to be made up of snatches of different
\nsongs all jumbled together. The vital dreams even
\nin the subconscious range are often coherent in
\nthemselves and only seem incoherent to the waking
\nintelligence because the logic and law of their
\nsequences is different from the logic and law which
\nthe physical reason imposes on the incoherences of
\nphysical life. But if one gets the guiding clue and
\nif one has some dream-experience and dream-insight, <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 238<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthen it is possible to seize the links of the sequences and make out the significance, often very
\nprofound or very striking, both of the detail and of
\nthe whole. Deeper in, we come to perfectly coherent
\ndreams recording the experience of the inner vital
\nand inner mental planes; there are also true psychic
\ndreams\u2014the latter usually are of a great beauty.
\nSome of these mental or vital plane dream-experiences, however, are symbolic, very many in fact,
\nand can only be understood if one is familiar with
\nor gets the clue to the symbols. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n(3) It depends on the nature of the dream. If
\nthey are of the right kind, they need no aid of
\nimagination to be converted into poetry. If they are
\nsignificant, imagination in the sense of a free use of
\nmental invention might injure their truth and
\nmeaning\u2014unless of course the imagination is of the
\nnature of an inspired vision coming from the same
\nplane and filling out or reconstructing the recorded
\nexperience so as to bring out the Truth held in it
\nmore fully than the dream transcript could do; for
\na dream record is usually compressed and often hastily selective. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n(4) The word ‘psyche’ is used by most people to
\nmean anything belonging to the inner mind, vital
\nor physical, though the true psyche is different from
\nthese things. Poetry does come from these sources <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 239<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nor even from the superconscient sometimes; but
\n<\/b>it
\n<\/b>does not come usually through the form of dreams; it comes either through word-vision or through
\nconscious vision and imagery whether in a fully
\nwaking or an inward drawn state: the latter may
\ngo so far as to be a state of samadhi\u2014swapna samadhi.<\/i> In all these cases it is vision rather than
\ndream that is the imaging power. Dreams also can
\nbe made a material for poetry; but everyone who
\ndreams or has visions or has a flow of images can
\nnot by that fact be a poet. To say that a predisposition and discipline are
\nneeded to bring them to light in the form of written words is merely a way of
\nsaying that it is not enough to be a dreamer, one must have the poetic faculty
\nand some training\u2014unless the surrealists mean by this statement
\nsomething else than what the words naturally
\nsignify. What is possible, however, is that by going
\ninto the inner (what is usually called the subliminal)
\nconsciousness\u2014this is not really subconscious but
\na veiled or occult consciousness\u2014or getting some-
\nhow into contact with it, one not originally a poet
\ncan awake to poetic inspiration and power. No
\npoetry can be written without access to some source
\nof inspiration. Mere recording of dreams or images or even visions could never be sufficient, unless it
\nis a poetic inspiration that records them with the <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 240<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nright use of words and rhythm bringing out their
\npoetic substance. On the other hand, I am bound
\nto admit that among the records of dream-experiences even from people unpractised in writing,
\nI have met with a good many that read like a brilliant and colourful poetry which does hit\u2014satisfying
\nHousman’s test\u2014the solar plexus. So much I can
\nconcede to the surrealist theory; but if they say on
\nthat basis that all can with a little training turn
\nthemselves into poets\u2014well, one needs a little more
\nproof before one can accept so wide a statement. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n13-2-1937 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 241<\/font><\/p>\n

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

SECTION FIVE MODERN POETRY Contemporary English Poetry (1) I ADMIT I have not read as much of "modern" (contemporary) poetry as I should have\u2014but the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-third-series-1949","wpcat-100-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773","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=3773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}