{"id":521,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=521"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:35","slug":"15-the-poet-and-the-critic-vol-26-on-himself-volume-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/26-on-himself-volume-26\/15-the-poet-and-the-critic-vol-26-on-himself-volume-26","title":{"rendered":"-15_The Poet and the Critic.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nSection
\nSix<\/b><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

THE POET
\nAND THE CRITIC<\/b><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

READING AND POETIC
\nCREATION AND YOGA<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/b> literary man is one who loves literature
\nand literary activities for their own separate sake. A Yogi who writes is not a
\nliterary man for he writes only what the inner Will and Word wants him to
\nexpress. He is a channel and instrument of something greater than his own
\nliterary personality. Of course, the literary man and the intellectual love
\nreading \u2014 books are their mind’s food. But writing is another matter. There are
\nplenty of people who never write a word in the literary way but are enormous
\nreaders. One reads for ideas, for knowledge, for the stimulation of the mind by
\nall that the world has thought or is thinking. I never read in order to create.
\nAs the Yoga increased, I read very little \u2014 for when all the ideas in the world
\ncome crowding in from within or from above, there is not much need for
\ngathering mental food from outside sources; at most a utility for keeping oneself
\ninformed of what is happening in the world, \u2014 but not as material for building
\nup one’s vision of the world and Truth and things. One becomes an independent
\nmind in communion with the cosmic Thinker.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poetry,
\neven perhaps all perfect expression of whatever kind, comes by inspiration, not
\nby reading. Reading helps only <\/b>to <\/b>acquire
\nfor the instrument the full possession of a language or to get the technique of
\nliterary expression. Afterwards one develops one’s own use of the language,
\none’s own style, one’s own technique. It is a decade or two that I have stopped
\nall but the most casual reading, but my power of poetic and perfect expression
\nhas increased tenfold. What I wrote with some difficulty, often with great
\ndifficulty, I now write with ease. I am supposed to be a philosopher, but I
\nnever studied philosophy \u2014 everything I wrote came from Yogic experience,
\nknowledge and inspiration. So too my greater power over poetry and perfect
\nexpression was acquired in these last days not by reading and seeing how other
\npeople wrote, but from the heightening of my consciousness and the greater
\ninspiration that came from the heightening. <\/span><\/p>\n

 Page \u2013 221<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Reading and
\npainstaking labour are good for the literary man but even for him they are not
\nthe cause of his good writing, only an aid to it. The cause is within himself.
\nAs to "natural", I don’t know. Sometimes when the talent is inborn
\nand ready for expression, they can call it natural. Sometimes it awakes from
\nwithin afterwards from a till then hidden nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n11-9-1934<\/span><\/p>\n


\nNATURAL GROWTH OF INBORN INTELLIGENCE<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/b> How did your intellect become so powerful even before you started
\nYoga?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> It was not any
\nsuch thing before I started the Yoga. I started the Yoga in 1904 and all my
\nwork except some poetry was done afterwards. Moreover, my intelligence was
\ninborn and so far as it grew before the Yoga, it was not by training but by a
\nwide haphazard activity developing ideas from all things read, seen or
\nexperienced. That is not training, it is natural growth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n13-11-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Can it be that in course of
\nthe Sadhana, one may have certain intellectual or other training by the direct
\npower of Yoga? How did your own wide development come?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nA:<\/span><\/b> It came not by "training", but by the spontaneous opening
\nand widening and perfecting of the consciousness in the Sadhana. <\/span><\/p>\n

4-11-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDEVELOPMENT OF STYLE BY YOGIC FORCE<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> For an effective style, reading is very necessary. In order to
\nmanufacture your style, which is incomparable, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 222<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nyour enormous reading must have helped a lot, I am sure.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> Excuse me! I
\nnever manufactured my style; style with any life in it cannot be manufactured.
\nIt is born and grows like any other living thing. <\/b> Of course, it was fed on my reading which was not enormous \u2014 I have
\nread comparatively little \u2014 (there are people in India who have read fifty
\ntimes or a hundred times as much as I have), only I have made much out of that
\nlittle. For the rest it is Yoga that has developed my style by the development of
\nconsciousness, fineness and accuracy of thought and vision, increasing
\ninspiration and an increasing intuitive discrimination (self-critical) of right
\nthought, word-form, just image and figure.<\/span><\/p>\n

29-10-1935<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Methinks you are making just a little too much of Yogic Force. Its
\npotency as regards matters spiritual is undeniable, but for artistic or
\nintellectual things one can’t be so sure about its effectiveness. Take X’s
\ncase; one could very
\nwell say: "Why give credit to the Force? Had he been as assiduous, sincere
\netc. elsewhere, he would have done just the same."<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> Will you
\nexplain to me how X who could not write a single good poem and had no power
\nover rhythm and metre before he came here, suddenly, not after long
\n"assiduous efforts" blossomed into a poet, rhythmist and metrist
\nafter he came here? Why was Tagore dumbfounded by a "lame man throwing
\naway his crutches" and running freely and surely on the paths of rhythm?
\nWhy was it that I who never understood or cared for painting, suddenly in a
\nsingle hour by an opening of vision got the eye to see and the mind of
\nunderstanding about colour, line and design ? How was it that I who was unable
\nto understand and follow a metaphysical argument and whom a page of Kant or
\nHegel or Hume or even Berkeley left either dazed and uncomprehending and
\nfatigued or totally uninterested because I could not fathom or<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 223<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

follow, suddenly began writing pages of the
\nstuff as soon as I started the Arya<\/i> and am now reputed to be a great
\nphilosopher? How is it that at a time when I felt it difficult to produce more
\nthan a paragraph of prose from time to time and more than a mere poem, short
\nand laboured, perhaps one in two months, suddenly after concentrating and
\npractising prān<\/i><\/span>̣<\/span>āyāma<\/span><\/i>
\ndaily began to write pages and pages in a single day and kept sufficient
\nfaculty to edit a big daily paper and afterwards to write 60 pages of
\nphilosophy every month? Kindly reflect a little and don’t talk facile nonsense.
\nEven if a thing can be done in a moment or a few days by Yoga which would
\nordinarily take a long, "assiduous, sincere and earnest"
\ncultivation, that would of itself show the power of the Yoga-force. But a
\nfaculty that did not exist appears quickly and spontaneously or impotence changes
\ninto highest potency or an obstructed talent changes with equal rapidity into
\nfluent and facile sovereignty. If you deny that evidence, no evidence will
\nconvince you because you are determined to think otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n1-11-1935 <\/span><\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> So about your style too, it is difficult to understand how much the
\nForce has contributed towards its perfection.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> It may be difficult for you to
\nunderstand, but it is not difficult for me, since I have followed my own
\nevolution from stage to stage with a perfect vigilance and following up of the
\nprocess. I have made no endeavour in writing. I have simply left the higher
\nPower to work and when it did not work, I made no efforts at all. It was in the
\nold intellectual days that I sometimes tried to force things and not after I
\nstarted the development of poetry and prose by Yoga. Let me remind you also
\nthat when I was writing the Arya<\/i> and also since whenever I write these
\nletters or replies, I never think or seek for expressions or try to write in
\ngood style; it is out of a silent mind that I write whatever comes ready-shaped
\nfrom above. Even when I correct, it is because the correction comes in the same
\nway. Where then is the place for<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 224<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

even
\na slight endeavour or any room at all for "my great endeavours"?
\nWell?<\/span><\/p>\n

By
\nthe way, please try to understand that the supra-intellectual (not the
\nsupramental only) is the field of a spontaneous automatic action. To get it or
\nto get yourself open to it needs effort, but once it acts there is no effort.
\nYour grey matter does not easily open; it closes up also too easily, so each
\ntime an effort has to be made, perhaps too much effort \u2014 if your grey matter
\nwould sensibly accommodate itself to the automatic flow there would not be the
\ndifficulty and the need of "assiduous, sincere and earnest endeavour"
\neach time, methinks. Well?<\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nchallenge your assertion that the Force is more easily potent to produce
\nspiritual results than mental (literary) results. It seems to me the other way
\nround. In my own case the first time I started Yoga, prān<\/i><\/span>̣ā<\/span>yāma,<\/span><\/i> etc., I laboured five hours a day for a long time and concentrated
\nand struggled for five years without any least spiritual result, (when the
\nspiritual experiences did come, they were as unaccountable and automatic as \u2014
\nas blazes), but poetry came like a river and prose like a flood and other
\nthings too that were mental, vital or physical, not spiritual richnesses or
\nopenings. I have seen in many cases an activity of the mind in various
\ndirections as the first or at least early result. Why? Because there is less
\nresistance, more co-operation from the confounded lower members for these
\nthings than for a psychic or a spiritual change. That is easy to understand at
\nleast. Well?<\/span><\/p>\n

1-11-1935 <\/span><\/p>\n

Q: <\/span><\/b>I can quite understand that
\nthe inner knowledge comes with the growth and heightening of consciousness. But
\nwhat about the outer knowledge \u2014 what we ordinarily call knowledge?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/span><\/b> The capacity for it can come with
\nthe inner knowledge. <\/b>E.g. I understood
\nnothing about painting before I did Yoga. A moment’s illumination in Alipore
\njail opened my vision and since then I have understood with the intuitive
\nperception and vision. I do not know the technique, of course, but I can catch<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 225<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

it at
\nonce if anybody with knowledge speaks of it. That would have been impossible to
\nme before.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n29-12-1934<\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Suppose you had not studied
\nEnglish literature;  would it be still possible for you to say something about it by
\nYogic experience?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> Only by cultivating a special Siddhi,
\nwhich would be much too bothersome to go after. But I suppose if I had got the
\nYogic knowledge (in your hypothetical case) it would be quite easy to add the
\nouter one.<\/span><\/p>\n

29-12-1934 <\/span><\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> When one hears that you had to plod through a lot, one wonders
\nwhether the story of Valmik’s sudden opening of poetic faculties is true \u2014
\nwhether such a miracle is really possible.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA:<\/span> Plod about what? For some
\nthings I had to plod\u2014other things came in a moment or in two or three days like
\nNirvana or the power to appreciate painting. The "latent" philosopher
\nfailed to come out at the first shot (when I was in Calcutta) \u2014 after some
\nyears of incubation (?) it burst out like a volcano as soon as I started
\nwriting the Arya.<\/i> There is no damned single rule for these things.
\nValmiki’s poetic faculty might open suddenly like a champagne bottle, but it
\ndoes not follow that everybody’s will do like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

1-4-1935<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOPENING OF THE ARTISTIC EYE<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Don’t be desperate about your incapacity as
\na connoisseur of painting. I was far worse in this respect: knew something
\nabout sculpture, but blind to painting. Suddenly one day in the<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 226<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Alipore jail while meditating I saw some
\npictures on the walls of the cell and lo and behold! the artistic eye in me
\nopened and I knew all about painting except of course the more material side of
\nthe technique. I don’t always know how to express though, because I lack the
\nknowledge of the proper expressions, but that does not stand in the way of a
\nkeen and understanding appreciation. So, there you are: all things are possible
\nin Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nDIFFICULTY
\nOF COMMANDING INSPIRATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Inspiration is always a very uncertain
\nthing; it comes when it chooses, stops suddenly before it has finished its
\nwork, refuses to descend when it is called. This is a well-known affliction,
\nperhaps of all artists, but certainly of poets. There are some who can command
\nit at will; those who, I think, are more full of an abundant poetic energy than
\ncareful for perfection; others who oblige it to come whenever they put pen to
\npaper but with these the inspiration is either not of a high order or quite
\nunequal in its levels. Again there are some who try to give it a habit of coming
\nby always writing at the same time; Virgil with his nine lines first written,
\nthen perfected every morning, Milton with his fifty epic lines a day, are said
\nto have succeeded in regularising their inspiration. It is, I suppose, the same
\nprinciple which makes Gurus in India prescribe for their disciples a meditation
\nat the same fixed hour every day. It succeeds partially of course, for some
\nentirely, but not for everybody. For myself, when the inspiration did not come
\nwith a rush or in a stream, \u2014 for then there is no difficulty, \u2014 I had only one
\nway, to allow a certain kind of incubation in which a large form of the thing
\nto be done threw itself on the mind and then wait for the white heat in which
\nthe entire transcription could rapidly take place. But I think each poet has
\nhis own way of working and finds his own issue out of inspiration’s incertitudes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

X used to write
\nten or twelve poems in a day or any number more.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 227<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nIt takes me usually a day or two days to
\nwrite and perfect one or three days even, or if very inspired I get two short
\nones out, and have thereafter to revise the next day. Another poet will be like
\nVirgil writing nine lines a day and spending all the rest of his time polishing
\nand polishing. A fourth will be like Y, as I knew him, setting down half lines
\nand fragments and taking 2 weeks or 2 months to put them into shape. The time
\ndoes not matter, getting it done and the quality alone matter. So forge ahead
\nand don’t be discouraged by the prodigious rapidity of X.<\/span><\/p>\n

8-12-1935<\/span><\/p>\n

Considering that
\nthe Supramental Avatar himself is quite inca\u00adpable of doing what X or Y do,
\ni.e. producing a poem or several poems a day, why do you bring him in? In
\nEngland indeed I could write a lot every day but most of that has gone to the
\nWaste Paper Basket.<\/span><\/p>\n

5-8-1936 <\/span><\/p>\n

Poetry seems to
\nhave intervals in its visits to you very often. I rather think the malady is
\nfairly common. X and Y who can write whenever they feel inclined are rare
\nbirds. I don’t know about "the direction of consciousness". My own
\nmethod is not to quiet the mind, for it is eternally quiet, but to turn upward
\nand inward. You, I suppose, would have to quiet it first, which is not always
\neasy. Have you tried it?<\/span><\/p>\n

1935<\/span><\/p>\n

I myself have
\nmore than once abstained for some time from writing because I did not wish to
\nproduce anything except as an expression from a higher plane of consciousness
\nbut to do that you must be sure of your poetic gift, that it will not rust by
\ntoo long a disuse.<\/span><\/p>\n

4-9-1931<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 228<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

REWRITING POETRY<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: We have been
\nwondering why you should have to write and rewrite your poetry \u2014for instance,
\n^Savitri" ten or twelve times \u2014 when you have all the inspiration at your
\ncommand and do not have to receive it with the difficulty that faces budding
\nYogis like us.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> That is very
\nsimple. I used Savitri<\/i> as a means of ascension. I began with it on a
\ncertain mental level, each time I could reach a higher level I rewrote from
\nthat level. Moreover I was particular \u2014 if part seemed to me to come from any
\nlower levels I was not satisfied to leave it because it was good poetry. All
\nhad to be as far as possible of the same mint. In fact Savitri<\/i> has not
\nbeen regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a field of
\nexperimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one’s own Yogic
\nconsciousness and how that could be made creative. I did not rewrite Rose of
\nGod<\/i> or the sonnets except for two or three verbal alterations made at the
\nmoment.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQ:<\/b> If X could receive his inspiration
\nwithout any necessity for rewriting, why not you?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> So could I if I
\nwrote every day and had nothing else to do and did not care what the level of
\ninspiration was so long as I produced something exciting.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQ: <\/span><\/b>Do you have to rewrite because
\nof some obstruction in the way of the inspiration?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> The only
\nobstruction is that I have no time to put myself constantly into the poetic
\ncreative posture and if I write at all have to get out something in the
\nintervals of quite another concentration.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 229<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> With your silent consciousness
\nit should be possible to draw from the highest planes with the least concentration.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> The highest
\nplanes are not so accommodating as all that. If they were so, why should it be
\nso difficult to bring down and organise the Supermind in the physical
\nconsciousness? What happy-go-lucky fancy-web-spinning ignoramuses you all are!
\nYou speak of silence, consciousness, overmental, supramental, etc., as if they
\nwere so many electric buttons you have only to press and there you are. It may
\nbe one day but meanwhile I have to discover everything about the working of all
\npossible modes of electricity, all the laws, possibilities, perils etc.,
\nconstruct modes of connection and communication, make the whole far-wiring
\nsystem, try to find out how it can be made foolproof and all that in the course
\nof a single lifetime. And I have to do it while my blessed disciples are firing
\noff their gay or gloomy a priori <\/i>reasonings at me from a position of
\nentire irresponsibility and expecting me to divulge everything to them not in
\nhints but at length. Lord God in omnibus!<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n29-3-1936 <\/span><\/p>\n

Q: <\/span><\/b>A great bother and an
\nuninteresting business, this chiselling, I find. But perhaps it is very
\npleasant to you, as you cast and recast<\/span><\/i> ad
\ninfinitum, we hear, poetry or prose.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/span><\/b> Poetry only, not
\nprose. And in poetry only one poem Savitri.<\/i> My own other poems are written
\noff at once and if any changes are to be made it is done the same day or the
\nnext day and very rapidly done.<\/span><\/p>\n

9-5-1937<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEFFORT
\nAND INSPIRATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/b> As regards poetry, inspiration exists, so also effort.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 230<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nThe first leaves one sometimes and one goes on beating and beating,
\nhammering and hammering, but it comes not!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/span><\/b> Exactly. When any real effect
\nis produced, it is not because of the beating and the hammering, but because an
\ninspiration slips down between the raising of the hammer and the falling and
\ngets in under cover of the beastly noise. It is when there is no need of effort
\nthat the best comes. Effort is all right, but only as an excuse for inducing
\nthe Inspiration to come. If it wants to come, it comes, if it doesn’t, it
\ndoesn’t and one is obliged to give up after producing nothing or an inferior
\nmind-made something. I have had that experience often enough myself. I have
\nseen X also often producing something good but not perfect, beating the air and
\nhammering it with proposed versions each as bad as the other; for it is only a
\nnew inspiration that can really improve a defect in the transcription of the
\nfirst one. Still one makes efforts, but it is not the effort that produces the
\nresult but the inspiration that comes in answer to it. You knock at the door to
\nmake the fellow inside answer. He may or he may not; if
\nhe lies mum, you have only to walk off, swearing. That’s effort and
\ninspiration.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n6-3-1936<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Do you mean that this method
\n<\/i>(to "sit in vacant meditation and see what comes from the intuitive Gods<\/i>)
\ncan really do something? I understand that you wrote many things in that way,
\nbut people also say that Gods \u2014 no. Goddesses used to come and tell you the
\nmeaning of Vedas.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> It was a joke.
\nBut all the same that is the way things are supposed to come. When the mind
\nbecomes decently quiet, an intuition perfect or imperfect is supposed to come
\nhopping along and jump in and look round the place. Of course, it is not the
\nonly way. People tell a stupendous amount of rubbish. I wrote everything I have
\nwritten since 1909 in that way, i.e. out of or<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 231<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

rather through a silent mind, and not only
\na silent mind but a silent consciousness. But Gods and Goddesses had nothing to
\ndo with the matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

22-10-1935<\/span><\/p>\n

PRESSURE
\nOF CREATIVE FORMATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I know very well
\nthis pressure of a creative formation to express itself and be fulfilled. When
\nit presses like that there is nothing to do but to let it have its way, so as
\nto leave the mind unoccupied and clear; otherwise it will be pushed two ways
\nand would not be in the condition of ease necessary for concentration.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPOETIC INSPIRATION AND PROSE-WORK<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ: <\/span><\/b>I am at present too much
\ncaught in the prose-work. No wonder poetry is impossible. I suppose the prose
\nhas to run its course before the poetic inspiration gets a chance to return?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/span><\/b> Why the deuce should your
\npoetic inspiration wait for the results of the prose canter? The ground being
\nstill cumbered ought to be no obstacle to an aerial flight.<\/span><\/p>\n

16-3-1935<\/span><\/p>\n

\n           MANIA OF SELF-DEPRECIATORY CRITICISM<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You seem to
\nsuffer from a mania of self-depreciatory criticism. Many artists and poets have
\nthat; as soon as they look at their work they find it awfully poor and bad. (I
\nhad that myself often varied with the opposite feeling. X also has it); but to
\nhave it while writing is its most excruciating degree of intensity. Better get
\nrid of it if you want to write freely.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n14-12-1936<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t Page \u2013 232<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

             NEED
\nTO LIMIT FIELDS FOR SUCCESS IN WRITING<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nQ: <\/b>I<\/span> have such a push to write poetry, stories, all
\nkinds of things, in Bengali!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b>
\nAmbitions of that kind are too vague to succeed. You have to limit your fields
\nand concentrate in order to succeed in them. I don’t make any attempt to be a
\nscientist or painter or general. I have certain things to do and have done
\nthem, so long as the Divine wanted; others have opened in me from above or
\nwithin by Yoga. I have done as much of them as the Divine wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> To try to be a literary man
\nand yet not to know what big literary people have contributed would be
\ninexcusable.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> Why is it
\ninexcusable? I don’t know what the Japanese or the
\nSoviet Russian writers have contributed, but I feel quite happy and moral in my
\nignorance. As for reading Dickens in order to be a literary man that’s a
\nstrange idea. He was the most unliterary bloke that ever succeeded in
\nliterature and his style is a howling desert.<\/span><\/p>\n

19-9-1936 <\/span><\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> What about planning to read
\nMeredith, Hardy, Shelley, Keats and the Continental and Russian writers?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA:<\/b> Lord, sir, I wish I had time to follow
\nout a programme as massive as yours. I have none even to dilate upon yours.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nGAPS IN CULTURE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/b> You have
\nnowhere said anything about Firdausi, the epic poet of Persia, author of
\nShahnameh? Would<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 233<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nyou rank him
\nwith the other epic poets whom you consider absolutely first-rate \u2014 Homer, Valmiki,
\nVyasa? How is it that you who have made your own culture so wide by means of
\nlearning so many languages have allowed a serious gap in it by not knowing
\nPersian?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> I read Firdausi in a translation long ago but it gave me no idea at all of the poetic
\nqualities of the original. As for gaps in the culture \u2014 well, I don’t know
\nRussian or Finnish (missing the Kalevala)<\/i> and haven’t read the Nibelungenlied<\/i>
\nin the original, nor for that matter Pentaur’s poem on the conquests of Rameses
\nin ancient Egyptian or at least the fragment that survives. I don’t know Arabic
\neither, but I don’t mind that, having read Burton’s translation of the Arabian
\nNights which is as much a classic as the original. Anyhow, the gaps are vast
\nand many.<\/span><\/p>\n

13-7-1937<\/span><\/p>\n

\nINSPIRATION AND TECHNIQUE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You do not need at all to afflict your
\ninspiration by studying metrical technique \u2014 you have all the technique you
\nneed, within you. I have never<\/i> studied prosody myself\u2014 in English, at
\nleast; what I know I know
\nby reading and writing and following my ear and using my intelligence. If one
\nis interested in the technical study of prosody for its own sake, that is
\nanother matter \u2014 but it is not at all indispensable.<\/span><\/p>\n

28-4-1934<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLITERALNESS IN TRANSLATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The proper rule about literalness in translation,
\nI suppose, is that one should keep as close as possible to the original
\nprovided the result does not read like a translation but like an original poem
\nin Bengali, and, as far as possible, as if it were the original poem originally
\nwritten in Bengali. <\/span><\/p>\n

I admit that I
\nhave not practised what I preached, \u2014 when-<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 234<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

ever I translated I was careless of the
\nhurt feelings of the original text and transmogrified it without mercy into whatever
\nmy fancy chose. But that is a high and mighty criminality which one ought not
\nto imitate. Latterly I have tried to be more moral in my ways, I don’t know
\nwith what success. But anyhow it is a case of <\/b>"Do <\/b>what I preach and avoid what I practise."<\/span><\/p>\n

\n10-10-1934<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTRANSLATION OF PROSE INTO POETRY<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think it is
\nquite legitimate to translate poetic prose into poetry; I have done it
\nmyself when I translated The Hero and the Nymph <\/i>on the ground that the
\nbeauty of Kalidasa’s prose is best rendered by poetry in English, or, at least,
\nthat I found myself best able to render it in that way. Your critic’s rule
\nseems to me rather too positive; like all rules it may stand in principle in a
\nmajority of cases, but in the minority (which is the best part, for the less is
\noften greater than (he more) it need not stand at all. Pushed too far, it would
\nmean that Homer and Virgil can be translated only in hexameters. Again, what of
\nthe reverse cases \u2014 the many fine prose translations of poets so much better
\nand more akin to the spirit of the original than any poetic version of them yet
\nmade? One need not go farther than Tagore’s English version of his Gitanjali.
\nIf poetry can be translated so admirably (and therefore legitimately) into
\nprose, why should not prose be translated legitimately (and admirably) into
\npoetry? After all, rules are made more for the convenience of critics than as a
\nbinding law for creators.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TRANSLATIONS OF
\n"VIKRAMORVASIE" AND "MEGHADUT"<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ: It is curious how you repeatedly forget that you have so wonderfully
\nEnglished Kalidasa’s<\/span><\/i> \u201cVikramorvasie" or
\n"The Hero and the Nymph". Once before also I had to remind you of it.
\nSurely it cannot be that you want<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 235<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nit to be
\nrejected? By the way, you are supposed also to have translated Kalidasa’s
\n"’Meghadut" or "The Cloud-Messenger’" \u2014 in<\/span><\/i> terza rima.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> No, I do not
\nreject The Hero and the Nymph.<\/i> I had merely forgotten all about it…. I
\ndid translate the Meghadut,<\/i> but it was lost by the man with whom I kept
\nit.<\/span><\/p>\n

5-7-1933<\/span><\/p>\n

\nREWRITING SHELLEY<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b>
\nIn Shelley’s "Skylark" my heart does not easily melt towards one
\nsimile \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nLike a high-born maiden<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nIn a palace-tower, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nSoothing her
\nlove-laden<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018Soul in secret hour <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nWith music sweet as
\nlove, which overflows her bower.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometimes I am inclined even to feel this is an atrocity. Then I
\nwonder whether the sentimental stuff shouldn’t be cut out and replaced by
\nsomething deeper although in Shelley’s style as much as possible \u2014 something
\nlike:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nLike a child who wanders<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In an ancient wood
\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nWhere the strange glow squanders<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

All its secret mood
\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nUpon her lilting soul lost in that solitude.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b>
\nThe attempt to rewrite Shelley better than Shelley himself is a rash and
\nhopeless endeavour. Your proposed stanza is twentieth century mysticism quite
\nout of place in the Skylark <\/i>and has not the simple felicity and magic
\nand music of Shelley’s verse. I fail to see why the high-born maiden is an
\natrocity \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 236<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

it expresses the romantic attitude towards
\nlove which was sentimental and emotional, attempting to lift it out of the
\ncoarseness of life into a mental-vital idealism which was an attempt to
\nresuscitate the attitude of chivalry and the troubadours. Romantic and unreal,
\nif you like, but not atrocious.<\/span><\/p>\n

8-11-1934<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCOMMENTS ON CRITICISMS1<\/sup><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The…letter was to be, as I suggested,
\n"between ourselves"; there is too much that is private and personal
\nin it for publicity. It is something that can be shown to those who can
\nappreciate and understand, but to an ordinary reader I might seem to be standing
\non my defence rather than attacking and demolishing a criticism which might
\ndamage the appreciation of it in readers who are not sure of their own critical
\nstandard and reliability of their taste and so might be shaken by well-phrased
\njudgments and plausible reasonings such as X’s: they might make the same
\nconfusion as X himself between an apology and an apologia. An idea might rise
\nthat I am not sure of the value of my own poetry especially the earlier poetry
\nand accept his valuation of it. The humility you speak of is very largely a
\nSocratic humility, the element of irony in it is considerable; but readers not
\naccustomed to fineness of shades might take it literally and conclude wrongly
\nthat I accepted the strictures passed by an unfavourable criticism. A poet who
\nputs no value or a very low value on his own writing has no business to write
\npoetry or to publish it or keep it in publication; if I allowed the publication
\nof the Collected Poems<\/i> it is because I judged them worth publishing. Y’s
\nobjection has therefore some value. On the other hand in<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> In a long letter dated 4-5-1947 Sri
\nAurobindo gave his comments on certain criticisms made against his poetry by a
\nfriend of a Sadhak-poet apropos of a book by him on Sri Aurobindo’s poetry. The
\nSadhak-poet had asked Sri Aurobindo’s permission to show this letter to his
\nfriend, but in a second letter dated 7-7-1947 Sri Aurobindo had explained the
\nreasons why he did not favour the idea of making it public. Since, however, any
\npossibility of the first long letter being misconstrued is removed if it is
\nread along with the second explanatory letter, it has been thought fit to
\npublish it, especially as it contains extremely valuable data relating to Sri
\nAurobindo’s own literary development. The letter dated 7-7-1947 is placed here
\nfirst followed by the long letter dated 4-5-1947.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 237<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

defending I may seem to be eulogising my
\nown work, which is not a thing that can be done in public even if a poet’s
\nestimate of his achievement is as self-assured as that of Horace, Exegi
\nmonumentum aere perennius,<\/i> or as magnificent as Victor Hugo’s. Similarly,
\nthe reply was not meant for X himself and I do not think the whole can be shown
\nto him without omissions or some editing, but if you wish and if you think that
\nhe will not resent any strictures I have made you can show to him the passages
\nrelevant to his criticisms.<\/span><\/p>\n

7-7-1947 <\/span><\/p>\n

You
\nhave asked me to comment on your friend X’s comments on my poetry and
\nespecially on Savitri.<\/i> But, first of all, it is not usual for a poet to
\ncriticise the criticisms of his critics though a few perhaps have done so; the
\npoet writes for his own satisfaction, his own delight in poetical creation or
\nto express himself and he leaves his work for the world, and rather for
\nposterity than for the contemporary world, to recognise or to ignore, to judge
\nand value according to its perception or its pleasure. As for the contemporary
\nworld he might be said rather to throw his poem in its face and leave it to
\nresent this treatment as an unpleasant slap, as a contemporary world treated
\nthe early poems of Wordsworth and Keats, or to accept it as an abrupt but gratifying
\nattention, which was ordinarily the good fortune of the great poets in ancient
\nAthens and Rome and of poets like Shakespeare and Tennyson in modern times.
\nPosterity does not always confirm the contemporary verdict, very often it
\nreverses it, forgets or depreciates the writer enthroned by contemporary fame,
\nor raises up to a great height work little appreciated or quite ignored in its
\nown time. The only safety for the poet is to go his own way careless of the
\nblows and caresses of the critics; it is not his business to answer them. Then
\nyou ask me to right the wrong turn your friend’s critical mind has taken; but
\nhow is it to be determined what is the right and what is the wrong turn, since
\na critical judgment depends usually on a personal reaction determined by the
\ncritic’s temperament or the aesthetic trend in him or by values, rules or
\ncanons which are settled for his intellect and<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 238<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

agree with the
\nviewpoint from which his mind receives whatever comes to him for judgment; it
\nis that which is right for him though it may seem wrong to a different
\ntemperament, aesthetic intellectuality or mental viewpoint. Your friend’s
\njudgments, according to his own account of them, seem to be determined by a
\nsensitive temperament finely balanced in its own poise but limited in its
\nappreciations, clear and open to some kinds of poetic creation, reserved
\ntowards others, against yet others closed and cold or excessively depreciative.
\nThis sufficiently explains his very different reactions to the two poems, Descent<\/i>
\nand Flame-Wind,1 <\/sup><\/i>which he unreservedly admires and to Savitri.<\/i>
\nHowever, since you have asked me, I will answer, as between ourselves, in some
\ndetail and put forward my own comments on his comments and my own judgments on
\nhis judgments. It may be rather long; for
\nif such things are done, they may as well be clearly and thoroughly done. I may
\nalso have something to say about the nature and intention of my poem and the
\ntechnique necessitated by the novelty of the intention and nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me deal first with some of the details he stresses so as to get
\nthem out of the way. His detailed intellectual reasons for his judgments seem
\nto me to be often arbitrary and fastidious, sometimes based on a
\nmisunderstanding and therefore invalid or else valid perhaps in other fields
\nbut here inapplicable. Take, for instance, his attack upon my use of the
\nprepositional phrase. Here, it seems to me, he has fallen victim to a
\ngrammatical obsession and lumped together under the head of the prepositional
\ntwist a number of different turns some of which do not belong to that category
\nat all. In the line,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nLone on my summits of calm I have brooded
\nwith voices around me,2<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

there is no such
\ntwist; for I did not mean at all "on my calm summits", but intended straightforwardly
\nto convey the natural, simple meaning of the word. If I write "the fields
\nof beauty" or "walking on the paths of truth" I do not expect to
\nbe supposed to mean "in beautiful fields" or "in truthful paths";
\nit is the<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> Collected
\nPoems<\/i> (Centenary Edition, 1972), pp. 563 and 559.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00b2Not in Savitri<\/i> but in Trance of
\nWaiting.<\/i> See ibid., p.<\/i> 558.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 239<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

same with "summits of calm", I
\nmean "summits of calm" and nothing else; it is a phrase like "He
\nrose to high peaks of vision" or "He took his station on the highest
\nsummits of knowledge". The calm is the calm of the highest spiritual
\nconsciousness to which the soul has ascended, making those summits its own and
\nlooking down from their highest heights on all below: in spiritual experience,
\nin the occult vision or feeling that accompanies it, this calm is not felt as
\nan abstract quality or a mental condition but as something concrete and
\nmassive, a self-existent reality to which one reaches, so that the soul
\nstanding on its peak is rather a tangible fact of experience than a poetical
\nimage. Then there is the phrase "A face of rapturous calm"1<\/sup>:
\nhe seems to think it is a mere trick of language, a substitution of a
\nprepositional phrase for an epithet, as if I had intended to say "a
\nrapturously calm face" and I said instead "a face of rapturous
\ncalm" in order to get an illegitimate and meaningless rhetorical effect. I
\nmeant nothing of the kind, nothing so tame and poor and scanty in sense: I
\nmeant a face which was an expression or rather a living image of the rapturous
\ncalm of the supreme and infinite consciousness, \u2014 it is indeed so that it can
\nwell be "Infinity’s centre". The face of the liberated Buddha as
\npresented to us by Indian art is such an expression or image of the calm of
\nNirvana and could, I think, be quite legitimately described as a face of Nirvanic calm, and that would be an apt and live phrase and not an ugly
\nartifice or twist of rhetoric. It should be remembered that the calm of Nirvana
\nor the calm of the supreme Consciousness is to spiritual experience something
\nself-existent, impersonal and eternal and not dependent on the person \u2014 or the
\nface \u2014 which manifests it. In these two passages I take then the liberty to
\nregard X’s criticism as erroneous at its base and therefore invalid and
\ninadmissible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen there are the lines from the Songs of the Sea:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe rains of deluge flee, a storm-tossed shade, <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOver thy breast of gloom…2<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> Savitri<\/span><\/font><\/i> (Centenary
\nEdition, 1972), p. 4.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nInfinity’s centre, a
\nFace of rapturous calm <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nParted the eternal lids that open heaven.<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\n2<\/font><\/span><\/sup> <\/span>Translations<\/span><\/i><\/font> (Centenary Edition, 1972), p. 366.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 Page \u2013 240<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

"Thy breast of gloom" is not used
\nhere as a mere rhetorical and meaningless variation of "thy gloomy
\nbreast"; it might have been more easily taken as that if it had been a
\nhuman breast, though even then, it could have been entirely defensible in a
\nfitting context; but it is the breast of the sea, an image for a vast expanse
\nsupporting and reflecting or subject to the moods or movements of the air and
\nthe sky. It is intended, in describing the passage of the rains of deluge over
\nthe breast of the sea, to present a picture of a storm-tossed shade crossing a
\nvast gloom: it is the gloom that
\nhas to be stressed and made the predominant idea and the breast or expanse is
\nonly its support and not the main thing: this could not have been suggested by
\nmerely writing "thy gloomy breast". A prepositional phrase need not
\nbe merely an artificial twist replacing an adjective; for instance, "a
\nworld of gloom and terror" means something more than "a gloomy and
\nterrible world", it brings forward the gloom and terror as the very nature
\nand constitution, the whole content of the world and not merely an attribute.
\nSo also if one wrote "Him too wilt thou throw to thy sword of
\nsharpness" or "cast into thy pits of horror", would it merely
\nmean "thy sharp sword" and "thy horrible pits"? and would
\nnot the sharpness and the horror rather indicate or represent formidable powers
\nof which the sword is the instrument and the pits the habitation or lair? That
\nwould be rhetoric but it would be a rhetoric not meaningless but having in it
\nmeaning and power. Rhetoric is a word with which we can batter something we do
\nnot like; but rhetoric of one kind or another has been always a great part of
\nthe world’s best literature; Demosthenes, Cicero,
\nBossuet and Burke are rhetoricians, but their work ranks with the greatest
\nprose styles that have been left to us. In poetry the accusation of rhetoric
\nmight be brought against such lines as Keats’<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! <\/span><\/p>\n

\nNo hungry generations
\ntread thee down….<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To conclude, there is "the swords of
\nsheen" in the translation of Bande Mataram.1<\/sup><\/i> That might
\nbe more open to the critic’s stric<\/span>ture<\/span><\/span>,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> Ibid., p.<\/span><\/font><\/i> 309.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 241<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

READING AND POETIC
\nCREATION AND YOGA<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nfor the expression
\ncan be used and perhaps has been used in verse as merely equivalent to
\n"shining swords"; but for anyone with an alert imagination it can
\nmean in certain contexts something more than that, swords that emit brilliance
\nand seem to be made of light. X says that to use this turn in any other than an
\nadjectival sense is unidiomatic, but he admits that there need be no objection
\nprovided that it creates a sense of beauty, but he finds no beauty in any of
\nthese passages. But the beauty can be perceived only if the other sense is
\nseen, and even then we come back to the question of personal reaction; you and
\nother readers may feel beauty where he finds none. I do not myself share his
\nsensitive abhorrence of this prepositional phrase; it may be of course because
\nthere are coarser rhetorical threads in my literary taste. I would not, for
\ninstance, shrink from a sentence like this in a sort of free verse, "Where
\nis thy wall of safety? Where is thy arm of strength? Whither has fled thy
\nvanished face of glory?" Rhetoric of course, but it has in it an element
\nwhich can be attractive, and it seems to me to bring in a more vivid note and
\nmean more than ‘-‘thy strong arm" or "thy glorious face" or than
\n"the strength of thy arm" and "the glory of thy face".<\/span><\/p>\n

I come next to the critic’s trenchant attack on that passage in my
\nsymbolic vision of Night and Dawn in which there is recorded the conscious
\nadoration of Nature when it feels the passage of the omniscient Goddess of
\neternal Light. Trenchant, but with what seems to me a false edge; or else if it
\nis a sword of Damascus that would cleave the strongest material mass of iron he
\nis using it to cut through subtle air, the air closes behind his passage and remains unsevered. He finds here only poor and false poetry, unoriginal in imagery and
\nvoid of true wording and true vision, but that is again a matter of personal
\nreaction and everyone has a right to his own, you to yours as he to his. I was
\nnot seeking for originality but for truth and the effective poetical expression
\nof my vision. He finds no vision there, and that may be because I could not
\nexpress myself with any power; but it may also be because of his temperamental
\nfailure to feel and see what I felt and saw. I can only answer to the
\nintellectual reasonings and judgments which turned up in him when he tried to
\nfind the causes of his reaction. These seem to me to be either fastidious <\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 242<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nand unsound
\nor founded on a mistake of comprehension and therefore invalid or else
\ninapplicable to this kind of poetry. His main charge is that there is a violent
\nand altogether illegitimate transference of epithet in the expression
\n"the wide-winged hymn of a great priestly wind"1<\/sup>. A
\ntransference of epithet is not necessarily illegitimate, especially if it
\nexpresses something that is true or necessary to convey a sound feeling and
\nvision of things: for
\ninstance, if one writes in an Ovidian account of the d\u00e9nouement <\/i>of <\/i>a lovers’ quarrel<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIn spite of a reluctant sullen heart <\/span><\/p>\n

\nMy
\nwilling feet were driven to thy door,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

it
\nmight be said that it was something in the mind that was willing and the
\nascription of an emotion or state of mind to the feet is an illegitimate
\ntransfer of epithet; but the lines express a conflict of the members, the mind
\nreluctant, the body obeying the force of the desire that moves it and the use
\nof the epithet is therefore perfectly true and legitimate. But here no such
\ndefence is necessary because there is no transfer of epithets. The critic
\nthinks that I imagined the wind as having a winged body and then took away the
\nwings from its shoulders and clapped them on to its voice or hymn which could
\nhave no body. But I did nothing of the kind; I am not bound to give wings to
\nthe wind. In an occult vision the breath, sound, movement by which we
\nphysically know of a wind is not its real being but only the physical
\nmanifestation of the wind-god or the spirit of the air, as in the Veda the
\nsacrificial fire is only a physical birth, temporary body or manifestation of
\nthe god of Fire, Agni. The gods of the Air and other godheads in the Indian
\ntradition have no wings, the Maruts or storm-gods ride through the skies in
\ntheir gallop\u00ading chariots with their flashing golden lances, the beings of the
\nmiddle world in the Ajanta frescoes are seen moving through the air not with
\nwings but with a gliding natural motion proper to ethereal bodies. The epithet
\n"wide-winged" then does not belong to the wind and is not transferred
\nfrom it, but is proper to the voice of the wind which takes the form of a
\nconscious hymn of<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/font><\/span><\/sup>Savitri, p.
\n4.<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 243<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

aspiration and rises ascending from the
\nbosom of the great priest, as might a great-winged bird released into the sky
\nand sinks and rises again, aspires and fails and aspires again on the
\n"altar hills". One can surely speak of a voice or a chant of
\naspiration rising on wide wings and I do not see how this can be taxed as a
\nfalse or unpoetic image. Then the critic objects to the expression "altar
\nhills" on the ground that this is superfluous as the imagination of the
\nreader can very well supply this detail for itself from what has already been
\nsaid: I do not think this is correct, a very alert reader might do so but most
\nwould not even think of it, and yet the detail is an essential and central
\nfeature of the thing seen and to omit it would be to leave a gap in the middle
\nof the picture by dropping out something which is indispensable to its
\ntotality. Finally he finds that the line about the high boughs praying in the
\nrevealing sky does not help but attenuates, instead of more strongly etching
\nthe picture. I do not know why, unless he has failed to feel and to see. The
\npicture is that of a conscious adoration offered by Nature and in that each
\nelement is conscious in its own way, \u00a0<\/span>wind and its hymn, the hills, the trees. The
\nwind is the great priest of this sacrifice of worship, his voice rises in a
\nconscious hymn of aspiration, the hills offer themselves with the feeling of
\nbeing an altar of the worship, the trees lift their high boughs towards heaven
\nas the worshippers, silent figures of prayer, and the light of the sky into
\nwhich their boughs rise reveals the Beyond towards which all aspires. At any
\nrate this "picture" or rather this part of the vision is a complete
\nrendering of what I saw in the light of the inspiration and the experience that
\ncame to me. I might indeed have elaborated more details, etched out at more
\nlength but that would have been superfluous and unnecessary; or I might have
\nindulged in an ampler description but this would have been appropriate only if
\nthis part of the vision had been the whole. This last line1<\/sup> is an
\nexpression of an experience which I often had whether in the mountains or on the
\nplains of <\/span>Gujarat<\/span> or looking from my window in <\/span>Pondicherry<\/span> not
\nonly in the dawn but at other times and I am unable to find any feebleness
\neither in the experience or in the words that express it. If the critic or any
\nreader does not feel or see what I so often<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9The high boughs prayed in a revealing sky. \u2014 <\/font>
\nIbid<\/font><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 244<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfelt and saw, that
\nmay be my fault, but that is not sure, for you and others have felt very
\ndifferently about it; it may be a mental or a temperamental failure on their
\npart and it will be then my or perhaps even the critic’s or reader’s
\nmisfortune.<\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nmay refer here to X’s disparaging characterisation of my epithets. He finds
\nthat their only merit is that they are good prose epithets, not otiose but
\nright words in their right place and exactly descriptive but only descriptive
\nwithout any suggestion of any poetic beauty or any kind of magic. Are there
\nthen prose epithets and poetic epithets and is the poet debarred from exact description
\nusing always the right word in the right place, the mot juste<\/i>?\u00a0<\/span>I am under the impression that all poets, even
\nthe greatest, use as the bulk of their adjectives words that have that merit,
\nand the difference from prose is that a certain turn in the use of them
\naccompanied by the power of the rhythm in which they are carried lifts all to
\nthe poetic level. Take one of the passages I have quoted from Milton,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nOn evil days though fall’n, and evil
\ntongues…<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBlind Thamyris and blind Maeonides <\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd Tiresias and Phineus,
\nprophets old,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

here the epithets are the same that would
\nbe used in prose, the right word in the right place, exact in statement, but
\nall lies in the turn which makes them convey a powerful and moving emotion and
\nthe rhythm which gives them an uplifting passion and penetrating insistence.
\nIn more ordinary passages such as the beginning of Paradise Lost<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>the epithets "forbidden tree" and
\n"mortal taste" are of the same kind, but can we say that they are
\nmerely prose epithets, good descriptive adjectives and have no other merit? If
\nyou take the lines about Nature’s worship in Savitri, <\/i>I do not see how they can be
\ndescribed as prose epithets; at any rate I would never have dreamt of using in
\nprose unless I wanted to write poetic prose such expressions as
\n"wide-winged hymn" or "a great priestly wind" or
\n"altar hills" or "revealing sky"; these epithets
\nbelong in their very nature to poetry alone whatever may be their other value
\nor want of value. <\/b> He says they<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 245<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nare obvious and
\ncould have been supplied by any imaginative reader; well, so are Milton’s in
\nthe passages quoted and per\u00adhaps there too the very remarkable imaginative
\nreader whom X repeatedly brings in might have supplied them by his own unfailing
\npoetic verve. Whether they or any of them prick a hidden beauty out of the
\npicture is for each reader to feel or judge for himself; but perhaps he is
\nthinking of such things as Keats’ "magic casements" and "foam of
\nperilous seas" and "fairy lands forlorn", but I do not think
\neven in Keats the bulk of the epithets are of that unusual character.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have said that his objections are sometimes inapplicable. I mean
\nby this that they might have some force with regard to another kind of poetry
\nbut not to a poem like Savitri.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>He says, to start
\nwith, that if I had had a stronger imagination, I would have written a very
\ndifferent poem and a much shorter one. Obviously, and to say it is a truism; if
\nI had had a different kind of imagination, whether stronger or weaker, I would
\nhave written a different poem and perhaps one more to his taste; but it would
\nnot have been Savitri.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>It would not have
\nfulfilled the intention or had anything of the character, meaning,
\nworld-vision, description and expression of spiritual experience which was my
\nobject in writing this poem. Its length is an indispensable condition for
\ncarrying out its purpose and everywhere there is this length, critics may say
\nan "unconscionable length" \u2014 I am quoting the Times’<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>reviewer’s description1<\/sup> in his otherwise
\neulogistic criticism of The Life Divine \u2014<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>in every part,
\nin every passage, in almost every canto or section of a canto. It has been
\nplanned not on the scale of Lycidas<\/i>
\nor Comus
\n<\/i>or some brief narrative poem, but of the longer epical narrative, almost a
\nminor, though a very minor Ramayana; <\/i><\/span>it aims not
\nat a minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its world-vision or
\nworld-interpretation. One artistic method is to select a limited subject and
\neven on that to say only what is indispensable, what is centrally suggestive
\nand leave the rest to the imagination or understanding of the reader. Another
\nmethod which I hold to be equally artistic or, if you like, architectural is
\nto give a large and even a vast, a complete interpretation, omitting nothing that
\nis necessary, fundamental to the completeness: <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup>The Times Literary Supplement, <\/font>
\n<\/i> January 17,1942.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 246<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthat is
\nthe method I have chosen in Savitri.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>But X has
\nunderstood nothing of the significance or intention of the passages he is
\ncriticising, least of all, their inner sense \u2014 that is not his fault, but is
\npartly due to the lack of the context and partly to his lack of equipment and
\nyou have there an unfair advantage over him which enables you to understand and
\nsee the poetic intention. He sees only an outward form of words and some kind
\nof surface sense which is to him vacant and merely ornamental or rhetorical or
\nsomething pretentious without any true meaning or true vision in it: inevitably
\nhe finds the whole thing false and empty, unjustifiably ambitious and pompous
\nwithout deep meaning or, as he expresses it, pseudo and phoney. His objection
\nof longueur <\/i><\/span>would be perfectly just if the description of
\nthe night and the dawn had been simply of physical night and physical dawn; but
\nhere the physical night and physical dawn are, as the title of the canto
\nclearly suggests, a symbol, although what may be called a real symbol of an
\ninner reality and the main purpose is to describe by suggestion the thing
\nsymbolised; here it is a relapse into Inconscience broken by a slow and
\ndifficult return of consciousness followed by a brief but splendid and
\nprophetic outbreak of spiritual light leaving behind it the "day" of
\nordinary human consciousness in which the prophecy has to be worked out. The
\nwhole of Savitri<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>is, according to the title of
\nthe poem, a legend that is a symbol and this opening canto is, it may be said,
\na key beginning and announcement. So understood there is nothing here otiose or
\nunnecessary; all is needed to bring out by suggestion some aspect of the thing
\nsymbolised and so start adequately the working out of the significance of the
\nwhole poem. It will of course seem much too long to a reader who does not
\nunderstand what is written or, understanding, takes no interest in the subject;
\nbut that is unavoidable.<\/span><\/p>\n

To illustrate the inapplicability of some of his judgments one might
\ntake his objection to repetition of the cognates "sombre Vast",
\n"unsounded Void", "opaque Inane", "vacant Vasts"
\nand his clinching condemnation of the inartistic inele\u00adgance of their
\noccurrence in the same place at the end of the line. I take leave to doubt his
\nstatement that in each place his alert imaginative reader, still less any
\nreader without that<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 247<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nequipment, could have supplied these
\ndescriptions and epithets from the context, but let that pass. What was
\nimportant for me was to keep constantly before the view of the reader, not
\nimaginative but attentive to seize the whole truth of the vision in its
\ntotality, the ever-present sense of the Inconscience in which everything is
\noccurring. It is the frame as well as the background without which all the
\ndetails v\/would either fall apart or stand out only as separate incidents. That
\nnecessity lasts until there is the full outburst of the dawn and then it
\ndisappears; each phrase gives a feature of this Inconscience proper to its
\nplace and context. It is the entrance of the "lonely splendour" into
\nan otherwise inconscient obstructing and unreceptive world that has to be
\nbrought out and that cannot be done without the image of the "opaque
\nInane" of the Inconscience which is the scene and cause of the resistance.
\nThere is the same necessity for reminding the reader that the "tread"
\nof the Divine Mother v\/as an intrusion on the vacancy of the Inconscience and
\nthe herald of deliverance from it. The same reasoning applies to the other
\npassages. As for the occurrence, of the phrases in the same place each in its
\nline, that is a rhythmic turn helpful, one might say necessary to bring out the
\nintended effect, to emphasise this reiteration and make it not only understood
\nbut felt. It is not the result of negligence or an awkward and inartistic
\nclumsiness, it is intentional and part of the technique. The structure of the
\npentameter blank verse in Savitri<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>is of its own
\nkind and different in plan from the blank verse that has come to be ordinarily
\nused in English poetry. It dispenses with enjambment or uses it very sparingly
\nand only when a special effect is intended; each line must be strong enough to
\nstand by itself, while at the same time it fits harmoniously into the sentence
\nor paragraph like stone added to stone; the sentence consists usually of one,
\ntwo, three or four lines, more rarely five or six or seven: a strong close for
\nthe line and a strong close for the sentence are almost indispensable except
\nwhen some kind of inconclusive cadence is desirable; there must be no laxity or
\ndiffusiveness in the rhythm or in the metrical flow anywhere, \u2014 there must be
\na flow but not a loose flux. This gives an added importance to what comes at
\nthe close of the line and this placing is used very often to give emphasis and<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 248<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nprominence to a key phrase or a key idea, especially
\nthose which have to be often reiterated in the thought and vision of the poem
\nso as to recall attention to things that are universal or fundamental or
\notherwise of the first consequence \u2014 whether for the immediate subject or in
\nthe total plan. It is this use that is served here by the reiteration at the
\nend of the line.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have not anywhere
\nin Savitri<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>written anything for the sake of mere
\npicturesqueness or merely to produce a rhetorical effect; what I am trying to
\ndo everywhere in the poem is to express exactly something seen, something felt
\nor experienced; if, for instance, I indulge in the wealth-burdened line or
\npassage, it is not merely for the pleasure of the indulgence, but because there
\nis that burden, or at least what I conceive to be that, in the vision or the
\nexperience. When the expression has been found, I have to judge, not by the
\nintellect or by any set poetical rule, but by an intuitive feeling, whether it
\nis entirely the right expression and, if it is not, I have to change and go on
\nchanging until I have received the absolutely right inspiration and the right
\ntranscription of it and must never be satisfied with any
\n\u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s\u00a0<\/span>or imperfect transcription even if that makes
\ngood poetry of one kind or another. This is what I have tried to do. The critic
\nor reader will judge for himself whether I have succeeded or failed; but if he
\nhas seen nothing and understood nothing, it does not follow that his adverse
\njudgment is sure to be the right and true one, there is at least a chance that he
\nmay so conclude, not because there is nothing to see and nothing to understand,
\nonly poor pseudo-stuff or a rhetorical emptiness but because he was not
\nequipped for the vision or the understanding. Savitri<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>is the record of a seeing, of an experience
\nwhich is not of the common kind and is often very far from what the general
\nhuman mind sees and experiences. You must not expect appreciation or
\nunderstanding from the general public or even from many at the first touch; as
\nI have pointed out, there must be a new extension of consciousness and
\naesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. Moreover if it is really
\nnew in kind, it may employ a new technique, not perhaps absolutely new, but new
\nin some or many of its elements: in that case old rules and canons and standards
\nmay be quite inapplicable; evidently, you cannot justly<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 249<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\napply to the poetry of Whitman the
\nprinciples of technique which are proper to the old metrical verse or the
\nestablished laws of the old traditional poetry; so too when we deal with a
\nmodernist poet. We have to see whether what is essential to poetry is there and
\nhow far the new technique justifies itself by new beauty and perfection, and a
\ncertain freedom of mind from old conventions is necessary if our judgment is to
\nbe valid or rightly objective.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your
\nfriend may say as he has said in another connection that all this is only
\nspecial pleading or an apology rather than an apologia. But in that other
\nconnection he was mistaken and would be so here too, for in neither case have I
\nthe feeling that I had been guilty of some offence or some shortcoming and
\ntherefore there could be no place for an apology or special pleading such as
\nis used to defend or cover up what one knows to be a false case. I have enough
\nrespect for truth not to try to cover up an imperfection; my endeavour would be
\nrather to cure the recognised imperfection; if I have not poetical genius, at
\nleast I can claim a sufficient, if not an infinite capacity for painstaking: that I have
\nsufficiently shown by my long labour on Savitri.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>Or rather, since it was not labour in the
\nordinary sense, not a labour of painstaking construction, I may describe it as
\nan infinite capacity for waiting and listening for the true inspiration and
\nrejecting all that fell short of it, however good it might seem from a lower
\nstandard until I got that which I felt to be absolutely right. X was evidently
\nunder a misconception with regard to my defence of the wealth-burdened line; he
\nsays that the principle enounced by me was sound but what mattered was my
\napplication of the principle, and he seems to think that I was trying to
\njustify my application although I knew it to be bad and false by citing
\npassages from Milton and Shakespeare as if my use of the wealth-burdened style
\nwere as good as theirs. But I was not defending the excellence of my practice,
\nfor the poetical value of my lines was not then in question; the question was
\nwhether it did not violate a valid law of a certain chaste economy by the use of
\ntoo many epithets massed together: against this I was asserting the legitimacy
\nof a massed richness, I was defending only its principle, not my use of the
\nprinciple. Even a very<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 250<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nsmall poet can cite in aid of his practice
\nexamples from greater poets without implying that his poetry is on a par with
\ntheirs. But he further asserts that I showed small judgment in choosing my
\ncitations, because <\/span>Milton<\/span>‘s passage1<\/sup> is not at all an illustration of the
\nprinciple and Shakespeare’s\u00b2<\/font><\/sup> is inferior in poetic value, lax and
\nrhetorical in its richness and belongs to an early and inferior Shakespearean
\nstyle. He says that <\/span>Milton<\/span>‘s astounding effect is due only to the sound and not to the words.
\nThat does not seem to me quite true: the sound, the rhythmic resonance, the
\nrhythmic significance is undoubtedly the predominant factor; it makes us hear and
\nfeel the crash and clamour and clangour of the downfall of the rebel angels:
\nbut that is not all, we do not merely hear as if one were listening to the roar
\nof ruin of a collapsing bomb-shattered house, but saw nothing, we have the
\nvision and the full psychological commotion of the "hideous" and
\nnaming ruin of the downfall, and it is the tremendous force of the words that
\nmakes us see as well as hear. X’s disparagement of the Shakespearean passage on
\n"sleep" and the line on the sea considered by the greatest critics
\nand not by myself only as ranking amongst the most admired and admirable things
\nin Shakespeare is surprising and it seems to me to illustrate a serious
\nlimitation in his poetic perception and temperamental sympathies.
\nShakespeare’s later terse and packed style with its more powerful dramatic
\neffects can surely be admired without disparaging the beauty and opulence of his
\nearlier style; if he had never written in that style, it would have been an
\nunspeakable loss to the sum of the world’s aesthetic possessions. The lines I
\nhave quoted are neither lax nor merely rhetorical, they have a terseness or at
\nleast a compactness of their own, different in character from the lines, let us
\nsay, in the scene of Antony’s death or other memorable passages written in his
\ngreat tragic style but none the less at every step packed with pregnant meanings
\nand powerful significances which would not be possible if<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n‘With hideous ruin and
\ncombustion, down <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo bottomless perdition, there to dwell <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn adamantine chains
\nand penal fire.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n2<\/font><\/span><\/sup>Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n Seal up the shipboy’s eyes
\nand rock his brains <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n In cradle of the rude imperious surge?<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage \u2013 251<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

it were merely a loose rhetoric. Anyone
\nwriting such lines would deserve to rank by them alone among the great and even
\nthe greatest poets.<\/span><\/p>\n

That
\nis enough for the detail of the criticism and we can come to the general effect
\nand his pronounced opinion upon my poetry. Apart from his high appreciation of Flame-wind <\/i>and descent, Jivanmukta<\/i> and Thought
\nthe Paraclete<\/i> and his general approval of the mystic poems published along
\nwith my essay on quantitative metre in English, it is sufficiently dam\u00adning and
\ndiscouraging and if I were to accept his verdict on my earlier and latest
\npoetry, the first comparatively valueless and the last for the most part pseudo
\nand phoney and for the rest offering only a few pleasant or pretty lines but
\nnot charged with the power and appeal of true or great poetry, I would have to
\nwithdraw the Collected Poems<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>from circulation, throw
\nSavitri <\/i>into
\nthe wastepaper-basket and keep only the mystical poems, \u2014 but these also have
\nbeen banned by some critics, so I have no refuge left to me. As X is not a
\nnegligible critic and his verdict agrees with that of the eulogist of my
\nphilosophy in The Times Literary Supplement,
\n<\/i><\/span>not to speak of others
\nless authoritative like the communist reviewer of Iyengar’s book who declared
\nthat it was not at all certain that I would live as a poet, it is perhaps
\nincumbent on me to consider in all humility my dismal position and weigh
\nwhether it is really as bad as all that. There are some especial judgments in
\nyour friend’s comments on the Collected Poems<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>but these
\nseem to concern only the translations. It is curious that he should complain
\nof the lack of the impulse of self-expression in the Songs of the Sea<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>as in this poem I was not busy with anything
\nof the kind but was only rendering into English the self-expression of my
\nfriend and fellow-poet C. R. Das in his fine Bengali poem Sagar Sangit.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>I was not even self-moved to translate this
\nwork, however beautiful I found it; I might even be accused of having written
\nthe translation as a pot-boiler, for Das knowing my impecunious and precarious
\ncondition at Pondicherry offered me Rs. 1,000 for the work. Nevertheless I
\ntried my best to give his beautiful Bengali lines as excellent a shape of
\nEnglish poetry as I could manage. The poet and litt\u00e9rateur<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>Chapman condemned my work because I had made
\nit too<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 252<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

English, written
\ntoo much in a manner imitative of traditional English poetry and had failed to
\nmake it Bengali in its character so as to keep its native spirit and essential
\nsubstance. He may have been right; Das himself was not satisfied as he appended
\na more literal translation in free verse but this latter version does not seem
\nto have caught on while some at least still read and admire the English
\ndisguise. If X is right in finding an overflow of sentiment in the Songs,<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>that must be my own importation of an early
\nromantic sentimentalism, a contribution of my own "self-expression"
\nreplacing Das’s. The sea to the Indian imagination is a symbol of life, \u2014 one
\nspeaks of the ocean of the samsāra<\/i>and Indian Yoga sees in its occult visions life in
\nthe image of a sea or different planes of being as so many oceans. Das’s poem
\nexpresses his communing with this ocean of universal life and psychic
\nintimacies with the Cosmic Spirit behind it and these have a character of grave
\nemotion and intense feeling, not of mere sentimentalism, but they come from a very
\nIndian and even a very Bengali mentality and may seem in translation to a different
\nmind a profuse display of fancy and sentiment. The Songs <\/i>are now far away from me in
\na dim backward of memory and I will have to read them again to be sure, but for
\nthat I have no time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again,
\nI am charged with modern nineteenth-century romanticism and a false imitation
\nof the Elizabethan drama in my rendering of Kalidasa’s Vikramorvasie;<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>but Kalidasa’s play is<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>romantic in its whole tone and he might almost
\nbe described as an Elizabethan predating by a thousand years at least the
\nElizabethans; indeed most of the ancient Sanskrit dramas are of this kind,
\nthough the tragic note is missing, and the general spirit resembles that of
\nElizabethan romantic comedy. So I do not think I committed any fault in making
\nthe translation romantic and in trying to make it Elizabethan, even if I only
\nachieved a "sapless pseudo-Elizabethan" style. One who knew the Sanskrit
\noriginal and who, although an Indian, was recognised as a good critic in <\/span>England<\/span>
\nas well as a poet, one too whose attitude towards myself and my work had been
\nconsistently adverse, yet enthusiastically praised my version and said if Kalidasa could be translated at all, it was only so that he could be
\ntranslated.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 253<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nThis imprimatur of an expert may perhaps be
\nweighed against the discouraging criticism of X. The comment on my translation
\nof Bhartrihari is more to the point; but the fault is not Bhartri-hari’s whose
\nepigrams are as concise and lapidary as the Greek, but in translating I
\nindulged my tendency at the time which was predominantly romantic: the version
\npresents faithfully enough the ideas of the Sanskrit poet but riot the spirit
\nand manner of his style. It is comforting, however, to find that it makes
\n"attractive reading",\u2014I must be content with small mercies in an
\nadversely critical world. After all, these poems are translations and not
\noriginal work and not many can hope to come within a hundred miles of the more
\nfamous achievements of this kind such as Fitzgerald’s splendid
\nmisrepresentation of Omar Khayyam, or Chapman’s and Pope’s mistranslations of
\nHomer which may be described as first-class original poems with a borrowed
\nsubstance from a great voice of the past. X does not refer specifically to Love and Death<\/i> to which your enthusiasm
\nfirst went out, to Poems,<\/i> to Urvasie<\/i> and to Perseus the Deliverer<\/i> though this last he would class, I suppose,
\nas sapless pseudo-Elizabethan drama; but that omission may be there because he
\nonly skimmed through them and afterwards could not get the first volume. But
\nperhaps they may come under his general remark that this part of my work lacks
\nthe glow and concentration of true inspired poetry and his further judgment classing
\nit with the works of Watson and Stephen Phillips and other writers belonging to
\nthe decline of romantic poetry. I know nothing about Watson’s work except for
\none or two short pieces met by chance; if I were to judge from them, I would
\nhave to regard him as a genuine poet with a considerable elevation of language
\nand metrical rhythm but somewhat thin in thought and substance; my poems may
\nconceivably have some higher quality than his in this last respect since the
\nreviewer in The Times Literary Supplement <\/i>grants deep thought and technical excellence as the only merits of
\nmy uninspired poetry. It is otherwise with Stephen Phillips: I read Marpessa <\/i><\/span>and Christ in Hades, <\/i>the
\nlatter in typescript, shortly before I left <\/span>England<\/span>
\nand they aroused my admiration and made a considerable impression on me. I read
\nrecently a reference to Phillips as a forgotten poet, but if that includes
\nthese<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 254<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

two poems I must consider the
\noblivion as a considerable loss to the generation which has forgotten them. His
\nlater poetry disappointed me, there was still some brilliance but nothing of
\nthat higher promise. The only other poet of that time who had some influence on
\nme was Meredith, especially his <\/span>
\nModern Love<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>which
\nmay have helped in forming the turn of my earlier poetic expres\u00adsion. I have
\nnot read the other later poets of the decline. Of subsequent writers or others
\nnot belonging to this decline I know only A.E. and Yeats, something of Francis
\nThompson, especially the <\/span>
\nHound of Heaven<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>and the <\/span>
\nKingdom of God,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>and a poem or two of Gerald Hopkins; but the
\nlast two I came across very late, Hopkins only quite recently, and none of them
\nhad any influence on me, although one English reviewer in India spoke of me in
\neulogistic terms as a sort of combination of Swinburne and Hopkins and some have
\nsupposed that I got my turn for compound epithets from the latter! The only
\nromantic poets of the Victorian Age who could have had any influence on me,
\napart from Arnold whose effect on me was considerable, were Tennyson perhaps,
\nsubconsciously, and Swinburne of the earlier poems, for his later
\nwork I did not at all admire. Still it is possible that the general atmosphere
\nof the later Victorian decline, if decline it was, may have helped to mould my
\nwork and undoubtedly it dates and carries the stamp of the time in which it was
\nwritten. It is a misfortune of my poetry from the point of view of recognition
\nthat the earlier work forming the bulk of the <\/span>
\nCollected Poems<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>belongs to the past and has little chance of
\nrecognition now that the aesthetic atmosphere has so violently changed, while
\nthe later mystical work and <\/span>
\nSavitri<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>belong to
\nthe future and will possibly have to wait for recognition of any merit they
\nhave for another strong change. As for the mystical poems which your friend
\npraises in such high terms, they are as much challenged by others as the rest
\nof my work. Some reviewers have described them as lacking altogether in
\nspiritual feeling and void of spiritual experience; they are, it seems, mere
\nmental work, full of intellectually constructed images and therefore without
\nthe genuine value of spiritual or mystic poetry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, then, what is
\nthe upshot? What have I to decide as a result of my aesthetic examination of
\nconscience? It is true that<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\nPage \u2013 255<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nthere are voices on the other side, not only from
\nmy disciples but from others who have no such connection with me. I have heard
\nof individuals nameless or tameless in <\/span>England<\/span> who chanced to come across <\/span>
\n
\nLove and Death<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>and had the same spontaneous enthusiasm for it
\nas yourself; others have even admired and discovered in my earlier work the
\nbeauty and the inspiration which X and the <\/span>
\n
\nTimes<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>reviewer find to be badly lacking in it. It is
\ntrue that they have differed in the poems they have chosen; Andrews cited
\nparticularly the <\/span>
\n
\nRishi<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>and the epigram on
\nGoethe as proof of his description of me as a great poet; an English critic,
\nRichardson, singled out <\/span>Urvasie<\/span> and <\/span>Love
\nand Death<\/span> and the more romantic poems, but
\nthought that some of my later work was less inspired, too intellectual and
\nphilosophical, too much turned towards thought, while some work done in the
\nmiddle he denounced altogether, complaining that after feeding my readers on
\nnectar for so long I came later on to give them mere water. This critic made a
\ndistinction between great poets and good poets and said that I belonged to the
\nsecond and not to the first category, but as he classed Shelley and others of
\nthe same calibre as examples of the good poets, his praise was sufficiently
\n"nectarous" for anybody to swallow with pleasure! Krishnaprem (Ronald
\nNixon), Moore and others have also had a contrary opinion to the adverse
\ncritics and these, both English and Indian, were men whose capacity for forming
\na true literary judgment is perhaps as good as any on the other side. Krishnaprem
\nI mention, because his judgement forms a curious and violent contrast to X’s:
\nthe latter finds no overtones in my poetry while Krishnaprem who similarly
\ndiscourages Harm’s poetry on the ground of a lack of overtones finds them
\nabundant in mine. One begins to wonder what overtones really are, or are we to
\nconclude that they have no objective existence but are only a term for some
\nsubjective personal reaction in the reader ? I meet the same absolute
\ncontradiction everywhere; one critic says about <\/span>
\n Perseus<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>that there is some good poetry in it but it is
\nnot in the least dramatic except for one scene and that the story of the .play
\nis entirely lacking in interest, while another finds in it most of all a drama
\nof action and the story thrilling and holding a breathless interest from
\nbeginning to end. Highest eulogy, extreme <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage \u2013 256<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\ndisparagement, faint
\npraise, mixed laudation and censure \u2014 it is a see-saw on which the unfortunate
\npoet who is incautious enough to attach any value to contemporary criticism is
\nbalanced without any possibility of escape. Or I may flatter myself with the idea
\nthat this lively variation of reaction from extreme eulogy to extreme damnation
\nindicates that my work must have after all something in it that is real and
\nalive. Or I might perhaps take refuge in the supposition that the lack of
\nrecognition is the consequence of an untimely and too belated publication, due
\nto the egoistic habit of writing for my own self-satisfaction rather than any
\nstrong thirst for poetical glory and immortality and leaving most of my poetry
\nin the drawer for much longer than, even for twice or thrice, the time
\nrecommended by Horace who advised the poet to put by his work and read it again
\nafter ten years and then only, if he still found it of some value, to publish
\nit. <\/span>
\nUrvasie, <\/span>
\nthe second of the only two poems published early, was sent at first to
\nLionel Johnson, a poet and <\/span>
\nlitt\u00e9rateur <\/span>
\nof some reputation who was the Reader of a big firm.
\nHe acknowledged some poetic merit, but said that it was a repetition of Matthew
\nArnold and so had no sufficient reason for existence. But Lionel Johnson, I was
\ntold, like the Vedantic sage who sees Brahman in all things, saw Arnold
\neverywhere, and perhaps if I had persisted in sending it to other firms, some
\nother Reader, not similarly obsessed, might have found the merit and, as
\nromanticism was still the fashion, some of the critics and the public too might
\nhave shared your and Richardson’s opinion of this and other work and, who
\nknows, I might have ranked in however low a place among the poets of the
\nromantic decline. Perhaps then I need not decide too hastily against any
\nrepublication of the <\/span>
\nCollected Poems<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>or could even
\ncherish the hope that, when the fashion of anti-romanticism has passed, it may
\nfind its proper place, whatever that may be, and survive.<\/span><\/p>\n

As
\nregards your friend’s appraisal of the mystical poems\/ I need say little. I
\naccept his reservation that there is much inequality as between the different
\npoems: they were produced very rapidly \u2014 in the course of a week, I think \u2014 and
\nthey were not given the long reconsideration that I have usually given<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> See
\nCollected Poems <\/i>(Centenary Edition, 1972), pp.
\n557-569.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage \u2013 257<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

READING AND POETIC
\nCREATION AND YOGA<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tto my poetic work before publication; he has chosen the
\n\tbest, though there are others also that are good, though not so good; in others, the
\n\tmetre attempted and the idea and language have not been lifted to their
\n\thighest possible value. I would like to say a word about his hesitation over
\n\tsome lines in Thought the Paraclete1<\/sup><\/i>
\n\twhich describe the spiritual planes. I can understand this hesitation; for
\n\tthese lines have not the vivid and forceful precision of the opening and the
\n\tclose and are less pressed home, they are general in description and
\n\ttherefore to one who has not the mystic experience may seem too large and
\n\tvague. But they are not padding; a precise and exact description of these
\n\tplanes of experience would have made the poem too long, so only some large
\n\tlines are given, but the description is true, the epithets hit the reality
\n\tand even the colours mentioned in the poem, "gold-red feet" and
\n\t"crimson-white mooned oceans", are faithful to experience. Significant
\n\tcolour, supposed by intellectual criticism to be symbolic but there is more
\n\tthan that, is a frequent element in mystic vision; I may mention the
\n\tpowerful and vivid vision in which Ramakrishna
\n\twent up into the higher planes and saw the mystic truth behind the birth of
\n\tVivekananda. At least, the fact that
\n\tthese poems have appealed so strongly to your friend’s mind may perhaps be
\n\ttaken by me as a sufficient proof that in this field my effort at
\n\tinterpretation of spiritual things has not been altogether a failure.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tBut how then
\n\tare we to account for the same critic’s condemnation or small appreciation
\n\tof Savitri<\/i> which is also a mystic
\n\tand symbolic poem although cast into a different form and raised to a
\n\tdifferent pitch, and what value am I to attach to his criticism
\n\t? Partly, perhaps, it is this very
\n\tdifference of form and pitch which accounts for his attitude and, having
\n\tregard to his aesthetic temperament and its limitations, it was inevitable.
\n\tHe himself seems to suggest this reason when he compares this difference to
\n\tthe difference of his approach as between Lycidas<\/i> and Paradise Lost.<\/i> His temperamental turn is
\n\tshown by his special appreciation of Francis Thompson and Coventry Patmore and his response to Descent<\/i>
\n\tand Flame-Wind<\/i> and the fineness of his judgment when speaking of the
\n\tHound of Heaven<\/i> and the<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t1<\/font><\/span><\/sup>
\n\tIbid., p.<\/font><\/span>
\n\t582.<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 258<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tKingdom of God,<\/font><\/span><\/i>
\n\tits limitation by his approach towards
\n\tParadise Lost.<\/i> I think he would be naturally inclined to regard any very
\n\thigh-pitched poetry as rhetorical and unsound and declamatory, wherever he
\n\tdid not see in it something finely and subtly true coexisting with the
\n\thigh-pitched expression, \u2014 the combination we find in Thompson’s later poem
\n\tand it is this he seems to have missed in Savitri.<\/i> For Savitri<\/i>
\n\tdoes contain or at least I intended it to contain what you and others have
\n\tfelt in it but he has not been able to feel because it is something which is
\n\toutside his own experience and to which he has no access. One who has had
\n\tthe kind of experience which Savitri<\/i> sets out to express or who, not
\n\thaving it, is prepared by his temperament, his mental turn, his previous
\n\tintellectual knowledge or psychic training, to have some kind of access to
\n\tit, the feeling of it if not the full understanding, can enter into the
\n\tspirit and sense of the poem and respond to its poetic appeal; but without
\n\tthat it is difficult for an unprepared reader to respond, \u2014 all the more if
\n\tthis is, as you contend, a new poetry with a new law of expression and
\n\ttechnique.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tLycidas<\/font><\/span><\/i>
\n\tis one of the finest poems in any literature, one of the most consistently
\n\tperfect among works of an equal length and one can apply to it the epithet
\n\t"exquisite" and it is to the exquisite that your friend’s aesthetic
\n\ttemperament seems specially to respond. It would be possible to a reader
\n\twith a depreciatory turn to find flaws in it, such as the pseudo-pastoral
\n\tsetting, the too powerful intrusion of St. Peter and puritan theological
\n\tcontroversy into that incongruous setting and the image of the hungry sheep
\n\twhich someone not in sympathy with Christian feeling and traditional
\n\timagery might find even ludicrous or at least odd in its identification of
\n\tpseudo-pastoral sheep and theological human sheep: but these would be
\n\thypercritical objections and are flooded out by the magnificence of the
\n\tpoetry. I am prepared to admit the very patent defects of Paradise Lost:<\/i>
\n\tMilton’s heaven is indeed unconvincing and can be described as grotesque and
\n\tso too is his gunpowder battle up there, and his God and angels are weak and
\n\tunconvincing figures, even Adam and Eve, our first parents, do not
\n\teffectively fill their part except in his outward description of them;
\n\tand the later narrative falls far below the grandeur of the first four books
\n\tbut those four books stand<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 259<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tfor ever among the greatest things in the world’s
\n\tpoetic literature. If Lycidas<\/i>
\n\twith its beauty and perfection had been the supreme thing done by Milton
\n\teven with all the lyrical poetry and the sonnets added to it, Milton would
\n\tstill have been a great poet but he would not have ranked among the dozen
\n\tgreatest; it is
\n\tParadise Lost<\/i> that gives him that place. There are deficiencies if not
\n\tfailures in almost all the great epics, the Odyssey<\/i> and perhaps the
\n\tDivina
\n\tCommedia<\/i> being the only exceptions, but still they are throughout
\n\tin spite of them great epics. So too is Paradise Lost.<\/i> The grandeur
\n\tof his verse and language is constant and
\n\tunsinking to the end and makes the presentation always sublime. We
\n\thave to accept for the moment Milton’s dry Puritan theology and his all too
\n\thuman picture of the celestial world and its denizens and then we can feel
\n\tthe full greatness of the epic. But the point is that this greatness in
\n\titself seems to have less appeal to X’s
\n\taesthetic temperament; it is as if he felt less at home in its atmosphere,
\n\tin an atmosphere of grandeur and sublimity than in the air of a less
\n\tsublime but a fine and always perfect beauty. It
\n\t;s the difference between a magic hill-side woodland of wonder and a
\n\tgreat soaring mountain climbing into a vast purple sky:
\n\tto accept fully the greatness he needs to find in it a finer and subtler
\n\tstrain as in Thompson’s Kingdom of God.<\/i> On a lower scale this, his
\n\tsentence about it seems to suggest, is the one fundamental reason for his
\n\tcomplete pleasure in the mystical poems and his very different approach to
\n\tSavitri.<\/i> The pitch aimed at by Savitri,<\/i> the greatness you attribute to it, would of itself have
\n\tdiscouraged in him any abandonment to admiration and compelled from the
\n\tbeginning a cautious and dubious approach; that soon turned to lack of
\n\tappreciation or a lowered appreciation even of the best that may be there
\n\tand to depreciation and censure of the rest.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tBut there is
\n\tthe other reason which is more effective. <\/b> He sees and feels nothing
\n\tof the spiritual meaning and the spiritual appeal which you find in
\n\tSavitri;<\/i> it is for him empty of anything but an outward significance and
\n\tthat seems to him poor, as is natural since the outward meaning is only a
\n\tpart and a surface and the rest is to his eyes invisible. If there had been
\n\twhat he hoped or might have hoped to find in my poetry, a spiritual vision
\n\tsuch as<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 260<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tthat of the
\n\tVedantin, arriving beyond the world
\n\ttowards the Ineffable, then he might have felt at home as he does with
\n\tThompson’s poetry or might at least have found it sufficiently accessible.
\n\tBut this is not what Savitri<\/i> has
\n\tto say or rather it is only a small part of it and, even so, bound up with a
\n\tcosmic vision and an acceptance of the world which in its kind is unfamiliar
\n\tto his mind and psychic sense and foreign to his experience. The two
\n\tpassages with which he deals do not and cannot give any full presentation of
\n\tthis way of seeing things since one is an unfamiliar symbol and the other
\n\tan incidental and, taken by itself apart from its context, an isolated
\n\tcircumstance. But even if he had had other more explicit and clearly
\n\trevealing passages at his disposal, I do not think he would have been
\n\tsatisfied or much illuminated ; his eyes
\n\twould still have been fixed on the surface and caught only some intellectual
\n\tmeaning or outer sense. That at least is what we may suppose to have been
\n\tthe cause of his failure, if we maintain that there is anything at all in
\n\tthe poem; or else we must fall back on
\n\tthe explanation of a fundamental personal incompatibility
\n\tand the rule
\n\tde gustibus non est disputandum,<\/i> or to put it in the
\n\tSanskrit form nānārucirhi lokaḥ.<\/i> If you are right in
\n\tmaintaining that Savitri<\/i> stands as a new mystical poetry with a new
\n\tvision and expression of things, we should expect, at least at first, a
\n\twidespread, perhaps, a general failure, even in lovers of poetry to
\n\tunderstand it or appreciate; even those
\n\twho have some mystical turn or spiritual experience are likely to pass it by
\n\tif it is a different turn from theirs or outside their range of experience.
\n\tIt took the world something like a hundred years to discover Blake; it
\n\twould not be improbable that there might be a greater time-lag here, though
\n\tnaturally we hope for better things. For in India at least some
\n\tunderstanding or feeling and an audience few and fit may be possible.
\n\tPerhaps by some miracle there may be before long a larger appreciative
\n\taudience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tAt any rate this is the only thing one can do, especially
\n\twhen one is attempting a new creation, to go on with the work with such
\n\tlight and power as is given to one and leave the value of the work to be
\n\tdetermined by the future. Contemporary judgments we know to be unreliable;
\n\tthere are only two judges whose joint verdict cannot easily be disputed, the
\n\tWorld and Time. The<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 261<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tRoman proverb says, securus judicat orbis
\n\tterrarum;<\/i> but the world’s verdict is secure only when it is
\n\tconfirmed by Time. For it is not the opinion of the general mass of men that
\n\tfinally decides, the decision is really imposed by the judgment of a
\n\tminority and \u00e9lite<\/i> which is finally accepted and settles down as the
\n\tverdict of posterity; in Tagore’s phrase
\n\tit is the universal man, viśva mānava,<\/i>
\n\tor rather something universal using the general mind of man, we might say
\n\tthe Cosmic Self in the race that fixes the value of its own works. In regard
\n\tto the great names in literature this final verdict seems to have in it
\n\tsomething of the absolute, \u2014 so far as anything can be that in a temporal
\n\tworld of relativities in which the Absolute reserves itself hidden behind
\n\tthe veil of human ignorance. It is no use for some to contend that Virgil is
\n\ta tame and elegant writer of a wearisome work in verse on agriculture and a
\n\ttedious pseudo-epic written to imperial order and Lucretius the only really
\n\tgreat poet in Latin literature or to depreciate Milton for his Latin English
\n\tand inflated style and the largely uninteresting character of his two epics;
\n\tthe world either refuses to listen or
\n\tthere is a temporary effect, a brief fashion in literary criticism, but
\n\tfinally the world returns to its established verdict. Lesser reputations may
\n\tfluctuate, but finally whatever has real value in its own kind settles
\n\titself and finds its just place in the durable judgment of the world. Work
\n\twhich was neglected and left aside like Blake’s or at first admired with
\n\treservation and eclipsed like Donne’s is singled out by a sudden glance of
\n\tTime and its greatness recognised; or
\n\twhat seemed buried slowly emerges or re-emerges;
\n\tall finally settles into its place. What was held as sovereign in its own
\n\ttime is rudely dethroned but afterwards recovers not its sovereign throne
\n\tbut its due position in the world’s esteem; Pope is an example and Byron who
\n\tat once burst into a supreme glory and was the one English poet, after
\n\tShakespeare, admired all over Europe but is now depreciated, may also
\n\trecover his proper place. Encouraged by such examples, let us hope that
\n\tthese violently adverse judgments may not be final and absolute and decide
\n\tthat the wastepaper-basket is not the
\n\tproper place for Savitri.<\/i> There
\n\tmay still be a place for a poetry which seeks to enlarge the field of poetic
\n\tcreation and find for the inner spiritual life of man and his now occult or
\n\tmystical knowledge and<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 262<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\texperience of the whole hidden range
\n\tof his and the world’s being, not a corner and a limited expression such as
\n\tit had in the past, but a wide space and as manifold and integral an
\n\texpression of the boundless and innumerable riches that lie hidden and
\n\tunexplored as if kept apart under the direct gaze of the Infinite
\n\tas has been found in the past for man’s surface and finite view and
\n\texperience of himself and the material world in which he has lived striving
\n\tto know himself and it as best he can with a limited mind and senses. The
\n\tdoor that has been shut to all but a few may open;
\n\tthe kingdom of the Spirit may be established not only in man’s inner being
\n\tbut in his life and his works. Poetry also may have its share in that
\n\trevolution and become part of the spiritual empire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tI had intended as the main subject of this letter to say
\n\tsomething about technique and the inner working of the intuitive method by
\n\twhich Savitri<\/i> was and is being
\n\tcreated and of the intention and plan of the poem.
\n\tX’s idea of its way of creation, an
\n\tintellectual construction by a deliberate choice of words and imagery, badly
\n\tchosen at that, is the very opposite of the real way in which it was done.
\n\tThat was to be the body of the letter and the rest only a preface. But the
\n\tpreface has become so long that it has crowded out the body. I shall have to
\n\tpostpone it to a later occasion when I have more time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t4-5-1947<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tQ: <\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n\t
\n\tIn<\/font><\/span>
\n\tthat long letter <\/b> on your own poetry, apropos of my friend’s
\n\tcriticisms, you have written of certain
\n\tinflu\u00adences of the later Victorian period on you. Meredith’s
\n\tfrom "Modern Love" I have been unable to
\n\ttrace con\u00adcretely \u2014 unless I consider some of the more pointed and
\n\tbitter-sweetly reflective turns in "Songs
\n\tto Myrtilla”1 <\/sup>to be
\n\tMeredithian. That of Tennyson is
\n\tnoticeable in only a delicate picturesqueness
\n\there and there or else in the use of some words. Perhaps more than in your
\n\tearly blank verse the Tennysonian
\n\tinfluence of this kind in general is there in "Songs to Myrtilla".
\n\tArnold has influenced<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 263<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tyour blank
\n\tverse in respect of particular constructions like two or three
\n\t^buts" as in <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tNo despicable wayfarer, but
\n\tRuru, <\/span><\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tBut son of a great
\n\tRishi,<\/span><\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tor<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tBut tranquil, but august, but
\n\tmaking easy…<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/i><\/span>Arnold
\n\tis also observable in the way you build up and elaborate your similes both
\n\tin<\/i><\/font><\/span> "
\n\t<\/font>Urvasie"
\n\tand in "Love and Death".
\n\tLess openly, a general tone of poetic mind from him can also be felt: it
\n\tpersists subtly in even the poems collected in
\n\t"Ahana", not to mention " Baji
\n\tPrabhou". I don’t know whether
\n\tSwinburne is anywhere patent in your narratives: he probably does have
\n\tsomething to do with "Songs to Myrtilld".
\n\tStephen Phillips is the most direct
\n\tinfluence in "Urvasie" and "Love and
\n\tDeath". But as I have said in my essay on
\n\tyour blank verse he is assimilated into a
\n\tstronger and more versatile genius, together with influences from the
\n\tElizabethans, Milton and perhaps less consciously Keats. In any case,
\n\twhatever the influences, your early narratives are intensely original in
\n\tessential spirit and movement and expressive
\n\tbody. It is only unreceptiveness or
\n\tinattention that can fail to see this and to savour the excellence of your
\n\twork.<\/font><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tA:<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n\tThe influences I spoke of were of course only such influences as every poet
\n\tundergoes before he has entirely found himself. What you say about Arnold’s
\n\tinfluence is quite correct; it acted
\n\tmainly, however, as a power making for restraint and refinement, subduing
\n\tany uncontrolled romanticism and insisting on clear lucidity and right form
\n\tand building. Meredith had no influence on Songs to
\n\tMyrtilla;<\/i> even afterwards I did not
\n\tmake myself acquainted with all his poetry, it was only Modern Love <\/i>and poems like the sonnet on
\n\tLucifer<\/i> and the Ascent to Earth of
\n\tthe Daughter of Hades<\/i> that I strongly admired and it had its effect on
\n\tthe formation of my poetic style and its after-effects in<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 264<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n\tthat respect are not absent from
\n\tSavitri.<\/i> It is only Swinburne’s early
\n\tlyrical poems that exercised any power on me, Dolores,
\n\tHertha, The Garden of Proserpine<\/i> and
\n\tothers that rank among his best work, \u2014 also Atalanta in Calydon,<\/i> his later
\n\tlyrical poetry I found too empty and his dramatic and narrative verse did
\n\tnot satisfy me. One critic characterised Love and Death<\/i> as an
\n\textraordinarily brilliant and exact reproduction of Keats: what do you say
\n\tto that? I think Stephen Phillips had
\n\tmore to do <\/font><\/span>with it.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t7-7-1947<\/font><\/span> \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSYMBOLISM OF THE TALE OF
\n\tSATYAVAN AND SAVITRI<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tale of
\n\tSatyavan and Savitri is recited in the
\n\tMahabharata <\/i>as a story of conjugal
\n\tlove conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the
\n\thuman tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the
\n\tVedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul
\n\tcarrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip
\n\tof death and ignorance; Savitri is the
\n\tDivine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes
\n\tdown and is born to save; Aswapati, the
\n\tLord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord
\n\tof Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps
\n\tus to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; <\/font><\/span>
\n\t
\n\tDyumatsena,
\n\tLord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here
\n\tfallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss
\n\tits kingdom of glory. Still this is not a mere allegory, the characters are
\n\tnot personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living and
\n\tconscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take
\n\thuman bodies in order to help men and show him the way from his mortal state
\n\tto a divine consciousness and immortal life.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tCREATION OF "LOVE AND DEATH"<\/font>1<\/font><\/sup><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ:<\/span><\/b>
\n\tAs "Love and Death"
\n\tI have long since adopted as my poetic Bible owing to the consummate beauty
\n\tof its<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\u00b9See Collected Poems<\/i> (Centenary
\n\tEdition, 1972), pp. 231-257.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 265<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tinspiration and
\n\tart, and as now I am just awaking to a capacity in myself for blank verse, I
\n\tshall be really happy if you will tell me the way in which you created this
\n\tpoem \u2014 the first falling of the seed of the idea, the growth and maturing of
\n\tit, the influences assimilated from other poets, the mood and atmosphere you
\n\tused to find most congenial and productive, the experience and the frequency
\n\tof the afflatus, the pace at which you composed, the evolution of that
\n\tmultifarious, many-echoed yet perfectly original style and of a blank verse
\n\twhose art is the most unfailing and, except for one too close repetition of
\n\tthe mannerism of the double "but",
\n\tthe most unobtrusively conscious that I have seen. In my essay, in
\n\t"Sri Aurobindo \u2014 the Poet",
\n\tI tried to show the white harmony, so to speak, of
\n\t"Love and Death"
\n\tin a kind of spectrum analysis, how colours from Latin, Italian, Sanskrit
\n\tand English verse had fused here together with an absolutely original
\n\tultra-violet and infra-red not to be traced ^anywhere.
\n\tAmong English influences the most outstanding are, to my mind, Shakespeare,
\n\tMilton, Keats and Stephen Phillips. In my
\n\tessay I dwelt at length on the first two and on the magic way in which the
\n\tpassage about Rum’s sail along the Ganges
\n\tand subsequent sea-plunge into Patala
\n\tcombines at the same time the early and later Milton and, with that,
\n\tsomething of Shelley and Coleridge. Keats and Stephen Phillips I did not
\n\tspecially deal with. Keats seems to have added to the element of supple
\n\tstrength in your poem, while Phillips has tinged it with a certain poignant
\n\tvividness and colourful delicacy. More fundamental, however, than the effect
\n\tof his manner was, I think, the spell cast by certain moods, as it were, of
\n\this "Marpessa"…. But all this is
\n\tguess-work \u2014 correct maybe in some respects, but I should like very much to
\n\thave your own illuminating account of the matter, as well as your answer to
\n\tthe other points in my question at the beginning of this letter.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA: I<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n\tcannot tell you much about it from that point of view;<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 266<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tI did not draw consciously from any of the poets you
\n\tmention except from Phillips. I read
\n\tMarpessa<\/i> and Christ in Hades<\/i>
\n\tbefore they were published and as I was just in the stage of formation then
\n\t\u2014 at the age of 17 \u2014 they made a powerful impression which lasted until it
\n\twas worked out in Love and Death.<\/i> I dare say some influence of most
\n\tof the great English poets and of others also, not English, can be traced in
\n\tmy poetry \u2014 I can myself see that of Milton, sometimes of Wordsworth and
\n\tArnold; but it was of
\n\tthe automatic kind \u2014 they came in unnoticed. I am not aware of much
\n\tinfluence of Shelley and Coleridge, but since I read Shelley a great deal
\n\tand took an intense pleasure in some of Coleridge’s poetry, they may have
\n\tbeen there without my knowledge. The one work of Keats that influenced me
\n\twas Hyperion \u2014<\/i> I dare say my blank
\n\tverse got something of his stamp through that. The poem itself was written
\n\tin a white heat of inspiration during 14 days of continuous writing\u2014in the
\n\tmornings, of course, for I had to attend office the rest of the day and saw
\n\tfriends in the evening. I never wrote anything with such ease and rapidity
\n\tbefore or after. Your other questions I can’t very well answer \u2014 I have
\n\tlived ten lives since then and don’t remember. I don’t think there was any
\n\tfalling of the seed of the idea or growth and maturing of it; it just came,
\n\t\u2014from my reading about the story of Ruru
\n\tin the Mahabharata;<\/i> I thought,
\n\t"Well, here’s a subject", and the rest burst out of itself. Mood and
\n\tatmosphere ? I never depended on these
\n\tthings that I know of \u2014 something wrote in me or didn’t write, more often
\n\tdidn’t, and that is all I know about it. Evolution of style and verse
\n\t? Well, it evolved, I suppose \u2014 I assure
\n\tyou I didn’t build it. I was not much of a critic in those days \u2014 the critic
\n\tgrew in me by Yoga like the philosopher, and as for self-criticism the only
\n\tstandard I had was whether I felt satisfied with what I wrote or not, and
\n\tgenerally I felt it was very fine when I wrote it and found it was very bad
\n\tafter it had been written, but I could not at that time have given you a
\n\treason either for the self-eulogy or the self-condemnation. Nowadays it is
\n\tdifferent, of course; for I am conscious
\n\tof what I do and how things are done. I am afraid this will not enlighten
\n\tyou much but it is all I can tell you.<\/font><\/span> \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t                            <\/font>
\n\t3-7-1933<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 267<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tThere was no trial or experiment \u2014 as I wrote, I did
\n\tnot proceed like that, \u2014 I put down what came, changing afterwards;
\n\tbut there too only as it came. At that time I had no theories, no methods or
\n\tprocess. Bat Love and Death<\/i> was not my first blank verse poem \u2014 I had
\n\twritten one before in the first years of my stay in
\n\tBaroda which was privately published, but
\n\tafterwards I got disgusted with it and rejected it.1<\/sup>
\n\tI made also some translations from the Sanskrit (in blank verse and heroic
\n\tverse); but I don’t remember to what you are referring as the translation of Kalidasa. Most of all that has
\n\tdisappeared into the unknown in the whirlpools and turmoil of my political
\n\tcareer.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t4-7-1933<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tMADAN’S SPEECH IN "LOVE
\n\tAND DEATH"<\/b><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tQ: <\/b>The
\n\tother day X told me that he considered
\n\tthe long speech of the Love-God Kama or Madan
\n\tabout himself in "Love and Death’
\n\tone of the peaks in that poem\u2014he as good as compared it to the descent into
\n\tHell about which I have raved ever since I read the poem some years back. He
\n\tadded that the Mother too had been very much moved by it. Somehow I couldn’t
\n\tat the time wax extremely enthusiastic about it. I found it moving and
\n\texcellent of its own kind, very powerful and displaying great psychological
\n\tacumen; but, except for the opening eight or ten lines and some three or
\n\tfour in the middle, I couldn’t regard it
\n\tas astonishing poetry \u2014 at least not one of the peaks. What is your own
\n\tprivate opinion ? I need not of course,
\n\tquote it to anyone. Here is the passage, to refresh your memory:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t1<\/font><\/span><\/sup>
\n\tThe poem in question is Urvasie,<\/i> a
\n\tlong narrative which some critics are inclined to consider the best of Sri
\n\tAurobindo’s early blank verses. The
\n\treaction in himself against it which Sri Aurobindo speaks of in this letter
\n\tpersisted for many years during which he had no opportunity to see the poem
\n\tagain. On 5-2-1931 he wrote to a Sadhak-poet:
\n\t"I don’t think I have the Urvasie,<\/i> neither am I very anxious to have
\n\tthe poem saved from oblivion." Later when he saw it he found it not at all a
\n\tthing to be thrown away and allowed its inclusion in Collected Poems and
\n\tPlays<\/i> (First Edition, 1942). Subsequently it has been included in
\n\tCollected Poems <\/i>(Centenary Edition, 1972), pp. 189-228.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 268<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n\t
\n\tBut with the
\n\tthrilled eternal smile that makes <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe spring, the lover of Rathi golden-limbed Replied to Rum,
\n\t"Mortal, I he; <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tI am that
\n\tMadan who inform the stars<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tWith lustre and on life’s
\n\twide canvas fill<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tPictures of light and shade,
\n\tof joy and tears,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tMake ordinary moments
\n\twonderful<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAnd common speech a charm:
\n\tknit life to life<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tWith interfusions of opposing
\n\tsouls<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tAnd sudden meetings and slow
\n\tsorceries:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tWing the boy bridegroom to
\n\tthat panting breast,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tSmite Gods with mortal faces,
\n\tdreadfully<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAmong great beautiful kings
\n\tand watched by eyes<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tThat burn, force on the
\n\tvirgin’s fainting limbs<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAnd drive her to the one face
\n\tnever seen,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tThe one breast meant
\n\teternally for her.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tBy<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b>
\n\tme come wedded sweets, by me the wife’s<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tBusy delight and passionate
\n\tobedience,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAnd’loving
\n\teager service never sated,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAnd happy lips, and
\n\tworshipping soft eyes:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And mine
\n\tthe husband’s hungry arms and use
\n\t<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tUnwearying of old tender words and ways, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tJoy of her hair and silent pleasure
\n\tfelt <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tOf nearness to one dear familiar shape. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tNor only these, but many
\n\taffections bright <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tAnd soft glad things cluster around my name. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tI plant
\n\tfraternal tender yearnings, make <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tThe sister’s
\n\tsweet attractiveness and leap <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tOf heart towards imperious kindred blood, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tAnd
\n\tthe young mother’s passionate deep look, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tEarth’s high similitude of One not
\n\tearth, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tTeach filial heart-beats strong.These are my gifts <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tFor which men
\n\tpraise me, these my glories calm:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

But
\n\tfiercer shafts I can, wild storms blown down <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tShaking fixed minds and melting
\n\tmarble natures, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tTears and dumb bitterness and pain unpitied, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tRacked thirsting jealousy and
\n\tkind hearts made stone:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAnd in undisciplined huge
\n\tsouls I sow<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 269<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t
\n\tDire vengeance
\n\tand impossible cruelties, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tCold lusts that linger and fierce fickleness, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe
\n\tloves close kin to hate, brute violence <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd mad insatiable longings pale,
\n\t<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd passion blind as death and deaf as swords. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t0 mortal, all
\n\tdeep-souled desires and all <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tYearnings
\n\timmense are mine, so much I can."<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tA:
\n\t<\/b>My own private opinion agrees with X’s
\n\testimate rather than with yours. These lines may not be astonishing in the
\n\tsense of an unusual effort of constructive imagination and vision like the
\n\tdescent into Hell; but I do not think I have, elsewhere, surpassed this
\n\tspeech in power of language, passion and truth of feeling and nobility and
\n\tfelicity of rhythm all fused together into a perfect whole. And I think I
\n\thave succeeded in expressing the truth of the godhead of Kama, the godhead
\n\tof vital love (I am not using "vital" in the strict
\n\tYogic sense;
\n\tI mean the love that draws lives passionately together or throws them into
\n\tor upon each other) with a certain completeness of poetic sight and
\n\tperfection of poetic power, which puts it on one of the peaks \u2014 even if not
\n\tthe highest possible peak \u2014 of achievement. That is my private opinion \u2014
\n\tbut, of course, all do not need to see alike in these matters.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t10-2-1932<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAPPRECIATION OF "LOVE AND DEATH"<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tQ:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b> A.E. has made a few interesting remarks
\n\ton some of my poems \u2014 remarks curious in some places while fairly perceptive
\n\tin others. He warns against frequent use of words like
\n\t"infinite’", ”"eternal",
\n\t"limitless".
\n\tThe difficulty about such words has struck me before \u2014frequent use of them
\n\tgives a not altogether agreeable Hugoesque
\n\tflavour to mystic Indian poetry; but I wonder whether I have cheapened or
\n\tmisused them. At least you have never taken me to task on that score.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAs regards those two poems of
\n\tmine which you have<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 270<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tliked
\n\timmensely, he notes with pleasure only one phrase in
\n\t"Ne Plus Ultra"
\n\t\u2014 "the song-impetuous mind"
\n\t\u2014 and has nothing to say about "This
\n\tErrant Life". Isn’t
\n\tthat strange?<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tBy the way,
\n\tthe copy of your "Love and Death" is
\n\tready to go to England. I wonder how the
\n\tcritics will receive the poem. They should be enthusiastic. It is full of
\n\tsuperb passages. Do you remember Ruru’s
\n\tgoing down to Patala, the underworld? I
\n\thave commented on its inspiration in my essay "Sri
\n\tAurobindo \u2014 the Poet". I can never stop
\n\tthrilling to it. Here are the lines:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tIn a thin soft eve <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tGanges spread far her multitudinous
\n\twaves, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tA glimmering restlessness with voices large,
\n\t<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd from the forests of that half-seen bank <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tA boat came heaving over
\n\tit, white-winged, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tWith a sole silent helmsman marble-pale. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThen
\n\tRuru by his side stepped in; they went
\n\t<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tDown the mysterious river and beheld <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe great banks widen out of sight. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe
\n\tworld Was water and the skies to water plunged. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAll night with a dim motion
\n\tgliding down <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHe felt the dark against his eyelids; felt, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAs in a dream more
\n\treal than daylight, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe helmsman with his dumb and marble face <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tNear him and
\n\tmoving wideness all around, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd that
\n\tcontinual gliding dimly on, <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAs one who on a shoreless water sails <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tFor ever
\n\tto a port he shall not win. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tBut when the darkness paled, he heard a moan <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tOf
\n\tmightier waves and had the wide great sense <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tOf Ocean and the depths below
\n\tour feet. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tBut the boat stopped; the pilot lifted on him <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHis marble gaze
\n\tcoeval with the stars. <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThen in the white-winged boat the boy arose <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd saw
\n\taround him the vast sea all grey <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd heaving in the pallid dawning light.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 271<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tLoud Rum cried across the
\n\tmurmur: "Hear me,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t0 inarticulate grey Ocean, hear.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tIf any cadence in thy infinite<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tRumour was caught from lover’s
\n\tmoan, 0 Sea,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tOpen thy abysses to my mortal
\n\ttread.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tFor I
\n\twould travel to the despairing shades,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tThe spheres of suffering
\n\twhere entangled dwell<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tSouls
\n\tunreleased and the untimely dead<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tWho weep remembering.
\n\tThither, 0 guide me,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tNo despicable wayfarer, but
\n\tRuru,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tBut son of a great
\n\tRishi.from all men<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tOn
\n\tearth selected for peculiar pangs,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tSpecial disaster.
\n\tLo, this
\n\tpetalledfire,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tHow freshly it blooms and lasts
\n\twith my great painF<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tHe held the flower out subtly
\n\tglimmering.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAnd like a living thing the
\n\thuge sea trembled,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tThen rose, calling, and
\n\tfilled the sight with waves,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tConverging all its giant crests:
\n\ttowards him<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tInnumerable waters loomed and
\n\theaven<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tThreatened. Horizon on horizon
\n\tmoved<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tDreadfully swift; then with a
\n\tprone wide sound<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tAll Ocean hollowing drew him
\n\tswiftly in,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tCurving with monstrous menace
\n\tover him.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tHe down the gulf where the
\n\tloud waves collapsed<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tDescending, saw with floating
\n\thair arise<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tThe daughters of the sea in pale
\n\tgreen light,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tA million mystic breasts
\n\tsuddenly bare,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tAnd came beneath the flood and
\n\tstunned beheld<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tA mute stupendous march of
\n\twaters race<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tTo
\n\treach some viewless pit beneath the world.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tA: <\/font><\/b>I
\n\tdid not object to your frequent use of "infinite", "eternal", "limitless",
\n\tbecause these are adjectives that I myself freely pepper over my poetry.
\n\tWhen one writes about the Infinite, the Eternal and the Limitless or when
\n\tone feels them constantly, what is one to do ?
\n\tA. E. who has not this consciousness but
\n\tonly that of the temporal and finite (natural or occult) can avoid these
\n\twords, but I can’t. Besides, all poets have their favourite
\n\twords<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 272<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tand epithets which they constantly
\n\trepeat. A. E. himself has been charged
\n\twith a similar crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tIf you send your poems to five different poets, you are
\n\tlikely to get five absolutely disparate and discordant estimates of them. A
\n\tpoet likes only the poetry that appeals to his own temperament or taste, the
\n\trest he condemns or ignores. Contemporary poetry, besides, seldom gets its
\n\tright judgment from contemporary critics, even. You expect for instance
\n\tLove and Death<\/i> to make a sensation in England\u2014I don’t expect it in the
\n\tleast: I shall be agreeably surprised if it gets more than some qualified
\n\tpraise, and if it does not get even that, I shall be neither astonished nor
\n\tdiscomfited. I know the limitations of the poem and its qualities and I
\n\tknow that the part about the descent into Hell can stand comparison with
\n\tsome of the best English poetry; but I don’t expect any contemporaries to
\n\tsee it. If they do, it will be good luck or divine grace, that is all.
\n\tNothing can be more futile than for a poet to write in expectation of
\n\tcontemporary fame or praise, however agreeable that may be, if it comes:
\n\tbut it is not of much value; for very few poets have enjoyed a great
\n\tcontemporary fame and very great poets have been neglected in their time. A
\n\tpoet has to go on his way, trying to gather hints from what people say for
\n\tor against, when their criticisms are things he can profit by, but not
\n\totherwise moved (if he can manage it) \u2014 seeking mainly to sharpen his own
\n\tsense of self-criticism by the help of others. Differences of estimate need
\n\tnot surprise him at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t2-2-1932<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tI am
\n\tafraid you are under an illusion as to the success of Love and Death<\/i>
\n\tin England. Love and Death<\/i> dates, \u2014 it belongs to the time when
\n\tMeredith and Phillips were still writing
\n\tand Yeats and A. E. were only in bud if not in
\n\tovo.<\/i> Since then the wind has changed
\n\tand even Yeats and A.E. are already a
\n\tlittle high and dry on the sands of the past, while the form or other
\n\tcharacteristics of Love and Death<\/i> are just the things that are
\n\tanathema to the post-war writers and literary critics. I fear it would be,
\n\tif not altogether ignored which is most likely, regarded as a feeble and
\n\tbelated imitation of the literary model exploded and buried<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 273<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

READING AND POETIC
\nCREATION AND YOGA<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

long
\nago. I don’t regard it in that light myself, but it is not my opinion that
\ncounts for success but that of the modern high\u00adbrows. If it had been published
\nwhen it was written it might have been a success, but now! Of course, I know
\nthere are many people still in <\/span>England<\/span>,
\nif it got into their hands, who would read it with enthusiasm, but I don’t
\nthink it would get into their hands at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the other poems they could not go with Love and Death<\/i>.
\nWhen the time comes for publication, the sonnets will have to be published in a
\nseparate book of sonnets and the others in a separate book of (mainly) lyrical
\npoems \u2014 so it cannot be now. That at least is my present idea. It is not that I
\nam against publication for all time, but my idea was to wait for the proper
\ntime rather than do anything premature.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing, however, could be done. X
\ncould send his friend Love and Death <\/i>and perhaps the Six Poems <\/i>and sound the publishers as to whether the publication, in their eye, would be
\nworthwhile from their point of view. That could at least give a clue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>24-10-1934<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAN INTERPRETATION OF "THOUGHT THE PARACLETE"\u00b9<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ: Dr. X has given an
\ninterpretation of your poem "Thought the Paraclete"’, which some
\nother critic has fallen foul of. What is your own analysis of the
\nthought-structure in this poem.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A: <\/b>There is no thought-structure in the
\npoem; there is only a succession of vision and experience, it is a mystic poem,
\nits unity is spiritual and concrete, not a mental and logical building. When
\nyou see a flower, do you ask the gardener to reduce the flower to its chemical
\ncomponents? There would then be no flower left and no beauty. The poem is not
\nbuilt upon intellectual definitions or philosophical theorisings; it is
\nsomething seen. When you ascend a mountain, you see the scenery and feel the
\ndelight<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Collected Poems <\/i>(Centenary <\/font><\/span>Edition, 1972), p. 582.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 274<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof the ascent; you
\ndon’t sit down to make a map with names for every rock and peak or spend time
\nstudying its geological structure \u2014 that is work for the geologist, not for
\nthe traveller. X’s geological account (to make one is part of his m\u00e9<\/font>tier
\n<\/i>as a critic and a student and writer on literature) is probably as good as any
\nother is likely to be; but each is free to make his own according to his own
\nidea. Reasoning and argumentation are not likely to make one account truer and
\ninvalidate the rest. A mystic poem may explain itself or a general idea may
\nemerge from it, but it is the vision that is important or what one can get from
\nit by intuitive feeling, not the explanation or idea; Thought the Paraclete
\n<\/i>is a vision or revelation of an ascent through spiritual planes, but gives no
\nnames and no photographic descriptions of the planes crossed. I leave it there.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBHAVA BEHIND "THE BIRD OF FIRE"\u00b9<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ: <\/span>Your "The Bird of Fire" is full
\nof colour and images, but if one can follow the bhāva behind or through them, I
\nbelieve the appreciation becomes complete.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A: <\/b>What do you mean by following the
\n<\/span>bhāva behind? Putting a label on
\nthe bird and keeping it <\/span>dried up in your
\nintellectual museum, for Professors to describe \u2014 to their pupils \u2014 "this is the
\nspecies and that’s how it is constituted, these are the bones, feathers etc.,
\netc., and now you know all about the bird. Or would you like me to dissect it
\nfarther?"<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\nTAGORE’S OBJECTIONS TO "THE LIFE HEAVENS"<\/b>\u00b2<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIn<\/span> regard to Tagore, I understand from X that his
\nobjections to The Life Heavens <\/i>were personal rather than in principle \u2014
\nthat is, he himself <\/i>had no such experience and could not take them as
\ntrue (for himself), so they excited in him no emotion, while my poem Shiva<\/i>\u00b3
\nwas just the contrary. I don’t say anything to that,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Ibid<\/i>., p. 571.   \u00b2I<\/i>bid<\/i>.,<\/span><\/span>
\np. 574.  \u00b3Ibid<\/i>., p. 140.<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 275<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\nas I could not say anything if somebody
\ncondemned a poem of mine root-and-branch because he did not like it or on good
\ngrounds such as Cousins’ objection to the inferiority of the greater part of my
\npoem In the Moonlight<\/i>\u00b9 to the opening stanzas. I learnt a great deal
\nfrom that objection: it pointed me the way I had to go towards "The Future
\nPoetry". Not that I did not know before, but that it gave precision and
\npoint to my previous perception. But still I don’t quite understand Tagore’s
\nobjection. I myself do not take many things as true in poetry (e.g. Dante’s
\nHell etc.) of which I yet feel the emotion. It is surely part of the power of poetry
\nto open new worlds to us as well as to give a supreme voice to our own ideas,
\nexperiences and feelings. The Life Heavens <\/i>may not do that for its
\nreaders, but, if so, it is a fault of execution, not of principle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCOUSIN’S CRITICISM OF "THE RISHI"\u00b2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:
\n<\/b>I hear that
\nJames Cousins said about your poem "The Rishi" that it was only
\nspiritual philosophy, not poetry.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A: <\/b>I never heard
\nthat. If I had I would have noted that Cousins had no capacity for appreciating
\nintellectual poetry. But that I knew already, just as he had no liking for epic
\npoetry either, only for poetic "jewellery". His criticism was of In
\nthe Moonlight <\/i>which he condemned as brain-stuff only except the early
\nstanzas for which he had high praise. That criticism was of great use to me,
\nthough I did not agree with it. But the positive part of it helped me to
\ndevelop towards a supra-intellectual style. As Love and Death <\/i>was poetry
\nof the vital, so Ahana<\/i>\u00b3 is mostly work of the poetic
\nintelligence. Cousins’ criticism helped me to go a stage farther.<\/span><\/p>\n

11-11-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ: <\/b>X says Cousins
\nignored your poem "The Rishi" while<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Ibid<\/i>.,
\np. 55.  \u00b2Ibid<\/i>., p. 297.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b3The reference is to the early
\nversion, not the one revised and considerably re-written later.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 276<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nspeaking of the others. Isn’t that far worse?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> Neither worse nor better. What does Cousins’ bad opinion about
\nThe
\nRishi <\/i>matter to me ? I know the limitations of my poetry and also its
\nqualities. I know also the qualities of Cousins as a critic and also his
\nlimitations. If <\/span>Milton<\/span> had written during the life of Cousins instead of having an
\nestablished reputation for centuries. Cousins would have said of <\/span>Paradise<\/span><\/i> Lost <\/i>and still more of <\/span>
\nParadise<\/span><\/i> Regained<\/i>, "This is not poetry,
\nthis is theology". Note that I don’t mean to say that The Rishi <\/i>is
\nanywhere near <\/span>Paradise<\/span><\/i> Lost<\/i>, but it is poetry as well as
\nspiritual philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n13-11-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSPIRITUAL VALUE OF POETRY<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It won’t do to put
\nexcessive and sweeping constructions on what I write, otherwise it is easy to misunderstand
\nits real significance. I said there was no reason why poetry of a spiritual
\ncharacter (not any poetry like Verlaine’s or Swinburne’s or Baudelaire’s)
\nshould bring no realisation at all. This did not mean that poetry is a major
\nmeans of realisation of the Divine. I did not say that it would lead us to the
\nDivine or that anyone had achieved the Divine through poetry or that poetry by
\nitself can lead us straight into the sanctuary. Obviously, if such
\nexaggerations are put into my words, they become absurd and untenable.<\/span><\/p>\n

My
\nstatement is perfectly clear and there is nothing in it against reason or
\ncommon sense. The Word has power \u2014 even the ordinary written word has a power.
\nIf it is an inspired word it has still more power. What kind of power or power
\nfor what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of
\nthe being it touches. If it is the Word itself, \u2014 as in certain utterances of
\nthe great Scriptures, Veda, Upanishads, Gita, it may well have a power to
\nawaken a spiritual and uplifting impulse, even certain kinds of realisation.
\nTo say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe
\nVedic poets regarded their poetry as Mantras, they were the vehicles of their
\nown realisations and could become<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 277<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

vehicles of realisation for others.
\nNaturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent
\nrealisation that is the goal of Yoga \u2014 but they could be steps on the way or at
\nleast lights on the way. I have had in former times many illu\u00adminations, even
\ninitial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita.
\nAnything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light
\nthis fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which
\nthe Word is the body. You yourself know that some of your poems deeply moved
\npeople who had the tendency towards spiritual things. Many have got openings
\ninto realisation while reading passages of the Arya <\/i>\u2014 which are not
\npoetry, have not the power of spiritual poetry \u2014 but it shows all the more
\nthat the word is not without power even for the things of the spirit. In all
\nages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in
\npoetry or inspired language and it has helped them and others. Therefore there
\nis nothing absurd in my assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value
\nand effectiveness of a psychic or spiritual character.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is obvious
\nthat poetry cannot be a substitute for Sadhana; it can be an
\naccompaniment only. If there is a feeling (of devo\u00adtion, surrender etc.), it
\ncan express and confirm it; if there is an experience, it can express and
\nstrengthen the force of experience. As reading of books like the Upanishads or
\nGita or singing of devotional songs can help, especially at one stage or
\nanother, so this can help also. Also it opens a passage between the external
\nconsciousness and the inner mind or vital. But if one stops at that, then
\nnothing much is gained. Sadhana must be the main thing and Sadhana means the
\npurification of the nature, the consecration of the being, the opening of the
\npsychic and the inner mind and vital, the contact and presence of the Divine,
\nthe realisation of the Divine in all things, surrender, devotion, the widening
\nof the consciousness into the cosmic Consciousness, the Self one in all, the
\npsychic and the spiritual transformation of the nature. If these things are
\nneglected and only poetry and mental<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 278<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ndevelopment and social contact occupy all
\nthe time, then that is not Sadhana. Also the poetry must be written in the true
\nspirit, not for fame or self-satisfaction, but as a means of contact with the
\nDivine through inspiration or of the expression of one’s own inner being as it
\nwas written formerly by those who left behind them so much devotional and
\nspiritual poetry in India; it does not help if it is written only in the spirit
\nof the western artist or litt\u00e9rateur<\/i>. Even works or meditation cannot
\nsucceed unless they are done in the right spirit of consecration and spiritual
\naspiration gathering up the whole being and dominating all else. It is lack of
\nthis gathering up of the whole life and nature and turning it towards the one
\naim, which is the defect in so many here that lowers the atmosphere and stands
\nin the way of what is being done by myself and the Mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n19-5-1938<\/span><\/p>\n

POETRY AND YOGA<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Literature and art are or can be a first
\nintroduction to the inner being \u2014 the inner mind, vital; for it is from there
\nthat they come. And if one writes poems of Bhakti, poems of divine seeking,
\netc., or creates music of that kind, it means that there is a Bhakta or seeker
\ninside who is supporting himself by that self-expression. There is also the
\npoint of view behind Lele’s answer to me when I told him that I wanted to do
\nYoga but for work, for action, not for Sannyasa and Nirvana, \u2014 but after years
\nof spiritual effort I had failed to find the way and it was for that I had
\nasked to meet him. His first answer was, "It would be easy for you as you
\nare a poet." But it was not from any point of view like that that X put
\nhis question and it was not from that point of view that I gave my answer. It
\nwas about some especial character-making virtue that he seemed to attribute to
\nliterature.<\/span><\/p>\n

18-11-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

I have not seen
\nwhat X says, but if it is that you have narrowed or deteriorated because you no
\nlonger sing erotic songs. I do not<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 279<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

see how that can be. One is not narrowed if
\none loses taste for Jazz and can hear with rich pleasure only the great masters
\nor music like theirs; it is not deterioration when one rises from a lower to a
\nhigher plane of thinking, feeling or artistic self-expression. I used to write
\npoems on vital love, I could not do it now (for if I wrote of love, it would be
\nthe psychic and spiritual feeling) not because I have narrowed or deteriorated
\nbut I have centred myself in a higher consciousness and anything merely vital
\nwould not express me. It must be the same with anyone who changes his level of
\nconsciousness. Can one say of the man who has grown out of childishness and no
\nlonger plays with nursery toys that he has narrowed and deteriorated by the
\nchange?<\/span><\/p>\n

27-8-1933 <\/span><\/p>\n

What you write is
\nperfectly true, that all human greatness and fame and achievement are nothing
\nbefore the greatness of the Infinite and the Eternal. There are two possible
\ndeductions from that: first that all human action has to be renounced and one
\nshould go into a cave; the other is that one should grow out of ego so that the
\nactivities of the nature may become one day consciously an action of the
\nInfinite and Eternal. I myself never gave up poetry or other creative human
\nactivities out of tapasyā<\/i>; they fell into a
\nsubordinate position because the inner life became stronger and stronger
\nslowly: nor did I really drop them, only I had so heavy a work laid upon me
\nthat I could not find time to go on. But it took me years and years to get the
\nego out of them or the vital absorption, but I never heard anybody say nor did
\nit ever occur to me that that was a proof that I was not born for Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The difficulty
\nyou feel or any Sadhak feels about Sadhana is not really a question of
\nmeditation versus <\/i>Bhakti versus <\/i>works, it is a difficulty of the
\nattitude to be taken, the approach or whatever you call it. Yours seems to be characterised on one side by a tremendous effort in the mind, on the other a
\ngloomy certitude in the vital which seems to watch and mutter under its breath
\nif<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 280<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nnot aloud, "Yes,
\nyes, go ahead, my fine fellow, but"…and at the end of the meditation
\n"What did I tell you?"… A vital so ready to despair that even after
\na "glorious" flood of poetry, it uses the occasion to preach the
\ngospel of despair! I have passed through most of the difficulties of the Sadhak,
\nbut I cannot recollect to have looked on delight of poetical creation or
\nconcentration in it as something undivine and a cause for despair. This seems
\nto me excessive.<\/span><\/p>\n

23-12-1934<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHELP TO NEW POETS<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, of course, I have been helping X. When
\nsomebody wants, really, to develop the literary power, I put some force to help
\nhim or her. If there is faculty and application, however latent the faculty, it
\nalways grows under the pressure and can even be turned in this or that direction.
\nNaturally, some are more favourable Adharas than others and grow more
\ndecisively and quickly. Others drop off not having the necessary power of
\napplication. But, on the whole, it is easy enough to make this faculty grow for
\nthere is co-operation on the part of the recipient and only the Tamas of the apravr<\/i><\/span>̣<\/span><\/i>tti
\n<\/i>and aprakāśa <\/i>in the human mind are to be overcome
\nwhich are not as serious obstacles in the things of the human mind as a vital
\nresistance or non-co-operation of the will or idea which confronts one when
\nthere is a pressure for change or progress in other directions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n11-6-1935<\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ: <\/b>We feel that your Force gives us the necessary inspiration for
\npoetry, but I often wonder if you send it in a continuous current.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

If it were so, we would not write 15 to 20 lines at a stretch and
\nthen go on for days together producing only 3 or 4 lines.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> Of course not.
\nWhy should I? It is not necessary. I put my<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 281<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Force from time to time and let it work out
\nwhat has to be worked out. It is true that with some I have to put it often to
\nprevent too long stretches of unproductivity, but even there I don’t put a
\ncontinuous current. I have not time for such things.<\/span><\/p>\n

That
\ndepends on the mental instrument. Some people write freely \u2014 others do so only
\nwhen in a special condition.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n12-6-1935<\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ: I tried to
\nwrite a poem, but failed in spite of prayer and call. Then I wrote to you to
\nsend me some Force. Before the letter had reached you, lo, the miracle was
\ndone! Can you explain the process? Simply the writing has helped to establish
\nthe contact with the Force?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> The call for
\nthe Force is very often sufficient, not absolutely necessary that it should
\nreach my physical mind first. Many get as soon as they write \u2014 or (if they are
\noutside), when the letter reaches the atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes,
\nit is the success in establishing the contact that is important. It is a sort
\nof hitching on or getting hold of the invisible button or whatever you like to
\ncall it.<\/span><\/p>\n

21-6-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ: When you send the Force, is there a time limit for its functioning
\nor does it work itself out in the long run or get washed off after a while,
\nfinding the Adhar unreceptive?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:
\n<\/b>There is no time limit. I have known
\ncases in which I have put a Force for getting a thing done and it seemed to
\nfail damnably at the moment; but after two years everything carried itself out
\nin exact detail and order just as I had arranged it, although I was thinking no
\nmore at all of the matter. You ought to know but I suppose you don’t that
\n"Psychic" Research in <\/span>Europe<\/span> has proved that all so-called "psychic" communications
\ncan sink into the consciousness without being noticed and turn up long
\nafterwards.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 282<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nIt is like that with the communication of Force also.<\/span><\/p>\n

21-6-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ: <\/b>If a man has outer knowledge
\nand capacity, will he not receive your right Force?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> It does
\nnot follow. Another man may have the knowledge and receive nothing. If he
\nreceives, his knowledge and capacity help the Force to work out the details.<\/span><\/p>\n

10-4-1937<\/span><\/p>\n

Your idea is that
\neither I must inspire him specifically in every detail, making a mere automaton
\nof him, or if I don’t do that I can do nothing with him? What is this stupid
\nmechanical notion of things?<\/span><\/p>\n

28-4.1937<\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ: <\/b>Don’t you develop our intuition by outer guidance in the form of
\ncorrections and changes in our English poems?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> I do so in your English poetry because I
\nam an expert in English poetry. In Bengali poetry I don’t do it. I only select
\namong alternatives offered by yourself. Mark that for X I now-a-days avoid
\ncorrecting or changing as far as possible \u2014 that is in order to encourage the
\ninspiration to act in himself. Sometimes I see what he should have written but
\ndo not tell it to him, leaving him to get it or not from my silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

10-4-1937<\/span><\/p>\n

X’s poems are only attempts \u2014 good
\nattempts for his age \u2014 so I encourage him by telling him that they are good
\nattempts. It is his English poems I correct, as he has talent, but his mastery
\nof the language is still naturally very imperfect. The other three<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 283<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

are masters of language and Y is a poet of
\na very high order. I give my general opinion only when they want it. I never
\nmake suggestions. It is in English poetry that I give my opinions or correct or
\nmake suggestions.<\/span><\/p>\n

22-11-1933 <\/span><\/p>\n

I do not know
\nthat I can suggest any detailed criticisms of Bengali poetry, as I have to rely
\nmore on what I feel than on any expert knowledge of language and metre.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t want to say
\nanything [about X’s book], because when I cannot positively encourage a young
\nand new writer, I prefer to remain mum…. Each writer must be left to develop
\nin his own way.<\/span><\/p>\n

31-5-1943  <\/span><\/p>\n

As
\nto X, you can, if you like, send the complimentary portion of my remarks
\nwith perhaps a hint that I found his writing rather unequal, so that it may not
\nbe all sugar. But the phrases about album-verse and chaotic technique are too
\nvivid \u2014 being meant only for private consumption \u2014 to be transmitted to the
\nwriter of the poem criticised; I would for that have expressed the same view in
\nless drastic language. As I have already said once, I do not want to write
\nanything disparaging or discouraging for those whom I cannot help to do better.
\nI received much poetry from Indian writers for review in the Arya<\/i>, but I
\nalways refrained because I would have had to be very severe. I wrote only about
\nY because there I could seriously, and I think justly, write unqualified
\npraise.<\/span><\/p>\n

25-5-1931<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJUDGMENT OF POETRY <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nYou seem to demand a very
\nrigid and academic fixity of meaning<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 284<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfrom my hastily penned comments on the
\npoetry sent to me. I have no unvarying aesthetic standard or fixed qualitative
\ncrite\u00adrion, \u2014 not only so, but I hold any such thing to be impossible with
\nregard to so subtle and unintellectual an essence as poetry. It is only
\nphysical things that can be subjected to fixed measures and unvarying criteria.
\nAppreciation of poetry is a question of feeling, of intuitive perception, of a
\ncertain aesthetic sense, it is not the result of an intellectual judgment.<\/span><\/p>\n

My
\njudgment does differ with different writers and also with different kinds of
\nwritings. If I put "very good" on a poem of S’s, it does not <\/i>mean
\nthat it is on a par with H’s or A’s or yours. It means that it is very good S,
\nbut not that it is very good H or very good A. "If very good were won<\/i>
\nby them all," you write! But, good heavens, you write that as if I were a
\nmaster giving marks in a class. I may write "good" or "very
\ngood" on the work of a novice if I see that it has succeeded in being
\npoetry and not mere verse however correct or well rhymed \u2014 but if H or A or you
\nwere to produce work like that, I would not say "very good" at all.
\nThere are poems of yours which I have slashed and pro\u00adnounced unsatisfactory,
\nbut if certain others were to send me that, I would say, "Well, you have
\nbeen remarkably successful this time." I am not giving comparative marks
\naccording to a fixed rule. I am using words flexibly according to the occasion
\nand the individual. It would be the same with different kinds of writings. If I
\nwrite "very good" or "excellent" on some verses of D about
\nhis chair, I am not giving it a certificate of equality with some poems of
\nyours similarly appreciated \u2014 I am only saying that as humorous easy verse in
\nthe lightest vein it is very success\u00adful, an outstanding piece of work. Applied
\nto your poem it would mean something different altogether.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coming
\nfrom your huge P.S. to the tiny body of your letter, what do you mean by
\n"a perfect success" ? I meant that pitched in a certain key and style
\nyour poem had worked itself out very well in that key and style in a very
\nsatisfying way from the point of view of thought, expression and rhythm. From
\nthat stand\u00adpoint it is a perfect success. If you ask whether it is at your high\u00adest
\npossible pitch of inspiration, I would say no, but it is nowhere weak or
\ninadequate and it says something poetically well<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 285<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nworth saying and
\nsays it well. One cannot always be writing at the highest pitch of one’s
\npossibility, but that is no reason why work of very good quality in itself
\nshould be rejected.<\/span><\/p>\n

14-11-1934<\/span><\/p>\n

You all attach
\ntoo much importance to the exact letter of my remarks of the kind as if it were
\na giving of marks. I have been obliged to renounce the use of the word
\n"good" or even "very good" because it depressed N \u2014 though
\nI would be very much satisfied myself if I could always write poetry certified
\nto be very good. I write "very fine" against work which is not
\nimprovable, so why ask me for suggestions for improving the unimprovable ? As
\nfor rising superior to yourself that is another matter \u2014 one always hopes to do
\nbetter than one has yet done, but that means not an avoidance of defects \u2014 I
\nalways point out ruthlessly anything defective in your work \u2014 but to rise
\nhigher, wider, deeper etc. etc. in the consciousness. Incidentally, even if my
\nremarks are taken to be of mark-giving value, what shall I do in future if I
\nhave exhausted all adverbs ? How shall I mark your self-exceeding if I have
\nalready certified your work as exceeding ? I shall have to fall back on roars
\n"Oh, damned fine, damned damned damned fine!"<\/span><\/p>\n

15-5-1937<\/span><\/p>\n


\nDIFFICULTY OF APPRECIATION OF IMAGED  <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\nSPIRITUAL POETRY<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/b> How is it that people find my poetry difficult? I almost suspect
\nthat only N and A get the whole hang of it properly. Of course many appreciate
\nwhen I have explained it to them \u2014 but otherwise they admire the beauty of
\nindividual phrases without grasping the many-sided whole the phrases form. This
\nmorning P, V and N read my "Agni". None
\nof them caught the precise<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 286<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nrelevances, the significant connections
\nof the words and phrases of the opening lines:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nNot from the day but from the night he’s
\nborn, Night with her pang of dream \u2014 star on pale star Winging strange rumour
\nthrough a secret dawn. For all the black uncanopied spaces mirror The brooding
\ndistance of our plumbless mind.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIn the rest of the poem too they failed to get, now
\nand again, the true point of felicity which constitutes poetic expression. My
\nwork is not surrealist: I put meaning into everything, not intellectualism but
\na coherent vision worked out suggestively in various detail. Why then the
\ndifficulty ? Everybody feels at home in H’s poetry, though I dare say that if I
\ncatechised them I might find the deepest felicities missed. All the same,
\nthere was something in his work which made his sense more accessible. Even D
\nsays that my work passes a little over his head \u2014 A’s, of course, he finds
\nstill more difficult. Perhaps I tend to pack too much stuff into my words and
\nto render my links a little less explicit than H did \u2014 or D himself does in
\nBengali. But would people have the same trouble with vernacular poetry, however
\nlike my own it might be?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:
\n<\/b>It is precisely because what you put in is not intellectualism or a product of
\nmental imagination that your poetry is difficult to those who are accustomed to
\na predominantly mental strain in poetry. One can grasp fully if one has some
\nclue to what you put in, either the clue of personal experience or the clue of
\na sympathetic insight. One who has had the concrete experience of the
\nconsciousness as a night with the stars coming out and the sense of the secret
\ndawn can at once feel the force of those two lines, as one who has had
\nexperience of the mind as a wide space or infinity or a thing of distances and
\nexpanses can fathom those that follow. Or even if he has had not these
\nexperiences but others of the same order, he can feel what you mean and enter
\ninto it by a kind of identification. Failing this experience, a sym-<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 287<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\npathetic insight
\ncan bring the significance home; certainly, N and A who write poems of the
\ninner vision and feeling must have that, moreover their minds are sufficiently
\nsubtle and plastic to enter into all kinds of poetic vision and expression. P
\nand V have no such training; it is natural that they should find it difficult.
\nN ought to understand, but he would have to ponder and take some trouble before
\nhe got it; night with her labour of dream, the stars, the bird-winging, the
\nbird-voices, the secret dawn are indeed familiar symbols in the poetry he is
\nhimself writing or with which he is familiar; but his mind seeks usually at
\nfirst for precise allegories to fit the symbols and is less quick to see and
\nfeel by identification what is behind them \u2014 it is still intellectual and not
\nconcrete in its approach to these things, although his imagination has learned
\nto make itself their transcribing medium. That is the difficulty, the crux of
\nimaged spiritual poetry; it needs not only the fit writer but the fit audience
\n\u2014 and that has yet to be made.<\/span><\/p>\n

D wrote to me in recent times expressing great admiration for A’s
\npoems and wanting to get something of the same quality into his own poetic
\nstyle. But in any case D has not the mystic mind and vision \u2014 H also. In quite
\ndifferent ways they receive and express their vision or experience through the
\npoetic mind and imagination \u2014 even so, because it expressed something unusual,
\nD’s poetry has had a difficulty in getting recognised except by people who were
\nable to give the right response. H’s poetry deals very skilfully with spiritual
\nideas or feelings through the language of the emotion and the poetic
\nimagination and intelligence \u2014 no difficulty there. As regards your poetry, it
\nis indeed more compressed and carefully packed with substance and that creates
\na difficulty except for those who are alive to the language or have become
\nalive to subtle shades, implications, depths in the words. Even those who
\nunderstand a foreign language well in the ordinary way find it sometimes difficult
\nto catch these in its poetry. Indications and suggestions easy to catch in
\none’s own tongue are often missed there. So probably your last remark is
\nfounded.<\/span><\/p>\n

14-5-1937<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 288<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nQ:<\/b> I hope people won’t misunderstand
\nwhat you have remarked about the mystic mind. One’s not having the mystic mind
\nand vision does not reflect upon one’s poetic excellence, even as a singer of
\nthe Spirit. As regards H, you had said long ago that he wrote from several
\nplanes. And surely his "Dark Well" poems come from a source beyond
\nthe poetic intelligence ?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b> I used the word
\n"mystic" in the sense of a certain kind of inner seeing and feeling
\nof things, a way which to the intellect would seem occult and visionary \u2014 for
\nthis is something different from imagination and its work with which the
\nintellect is familiar. It was in this sense that I said D had not the mystic
\nmind and vision. One can go far in the spiritual way, have plenty of spiritual
\nvisions and dreams even without having this mystic mind and way of seeing
\nthings. So too one may write poetry from different planes or sources of
\ninspiration and expressing spiritual feelings, knowledge, experience and yet
\nuse the poetic intelligence as the thought medium which gives them shape in
\nspeech; such poems are not of the mystic type. One may be mystic in this sense
\nwithout being spiritual \u2014 one may also be spiritual without being mystic; or
\none may be both spiritual and mystic in one. Poems ditto.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had not in view the Dark Well <\/i>poems when I wrote about H. I
\nwas thinking of his ordinary way of writing. If I remember right, the Dark
\nWell <\/i>poems came from the inner mind centre, some from the Higher Mind \u2014
\nother planes may have sent their message to his mind to put in poetic speech, but
\nthe main worker was the poetic intelligence which took what was given and
\nturned it into something very vivid, coloured and beautiful, \u2014 but surely not mystic in the sense given above.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n15-5-1937<\/span><\/p>\n

YEATS’ ADVICE TO INDIAN POETS<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/b> What do you think of
\nYeats’ letter to Purohit Swami, in which he advises Indian poets to write in
\ntheir<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 289<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

READING AND POETIC
\nCREATION AND YOGA<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\n

\n\t\tmother tongues \u2014
\n\t\tMarathi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali,
\n\t\tTamil \u2014 and not try English ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/b> All
\n\t\tvery well for those who can write in some language of India and don’t
\n\t\tknow English intimately. But what of those who think and write naturally
\n\t\tin English? Why didn’t Yeats write in Gaelic?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t17-9-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tOVERHEAD INSPIRATION \u2014 A
\n\t\tFEW EXAMPLES<\/span><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tTo help me distinguish the planes of inspiration, would you just
\n\t\tindicate where the following lines from various poems of mine have their
\n\t\tsources?<\/span><\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t
\n\t\t1.                 What visionary urge<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tHas stolen
\n\t\tfrom horizons watched alone <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tInto thy being with ethereal guile ?<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t2.    A huge sky-passion sprouting from the earth
\n\t\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t       In
\n\t\tbranched vastnesses of leafy rapture.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t3.    The mute unshadowed spaces of her mind.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t4.    A sea
\n\t\tunheard where spume nor spray is blown.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t5.    Irradiant
\n\t\twing-waft through eternal space, <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t    
\n\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/i><\/span>
\n\t\t  Pride of lone rapture and invincible
\n\t\tsun-gaze.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t6.         Born nomad of the infinite heart!
\n\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     
\n\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/i><\/span>
\n\t\t Time-tamer! star-struck debauchee of light!
\n\t\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t      
\n\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/i><\/span>
\n\t\tWarrior who hurls his spirit
\n\t\tlike a dart<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t            Across the
\n\t\tterrible night <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t       Of death to conquer immortality!<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t7.     …And
\n\t\tto the earth-self suddenly<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t        Came, through remote
\n\t\tentranced marvelling<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 290<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\t\t        Of adoration ever-widening,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t        A spacious
\n\t\tsense of immortality.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t8. <\/font>    Here life’s
\n\t\tlost heart of splendour beats immense.<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t9.      The
\n\t\thaunting rapture of the vast dream-wind That blows, star-fragrant, from
\n\t\teternity.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t10.   
\n\t\tAn ocean-hearted ecstasy am I<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t         Where time flows inward to
\n\t\teternal shores.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tA: <\/b>1. Second line
\n\t\tIntuitive with Overmind touch. Third
\n\t\tline imaginative Poetic Intelligence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     2. Imaginative Poetic Intelligence with something of
\n\t\tthe Higher Mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     3. Intuitive with Overmind touch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     4. Intuitive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     5. Higher Mind with mental Overmind touch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     6. Illumined Mind with mental Overmind touch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     7. Mixture of Higher and Illumined Mind\u2014in the last
\n\t\tline the mental Overmind touch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     8. Illumined Mind with mental Overmind touch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t     9. Ditto.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t   10. Intuitive, Illumined, Overmind touch all mixed
\n\t\ttogether.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI have analysed but very imperfectly\u2014because these
\n\t\tinfluences are so mixed together that the descriptions are not
\n\t\texhaustive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAlso remember that I speak of a touch,<\/i> of the
\n\t\tmental<\/i> Overmind touch and that when there is the touch it is not
\n\t\talways complete \u2014 it may be more apparent from something either in the
\n\t\tlanguage or substance or rhythm than in all three together.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven so, perhaps some of my descriptions are
\n\t\toverhasty and denote the impression
\n\t\tof the moment. Also the poetical value of the poetry exists independent
\n\t\tof its source.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t13-2-1934<\/span><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 291<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\t\tQ: I<\/span><\/i><\/b> should like
\n\t\tto know whether you intend any important distinction when you speak of Overmind touch"
\n\t\tand "mental
\n\t\tOvermind touch."<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/b> Yes\u2014the Overmind proper has some gnostic light in
\n\t\tit which is absent in the mental Overmind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2-3-1934 <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b>
\n\t\tOnce the consciousness is aware of a certain vibration and poetic
\n\t\tquality, it is possible to reach out towards its source of inspiration.
\n\t\tAs poetry for us here must be a way of Yoga, I suppose this reaching out
\n\t\tis a helpful attempt; but it would become easier if there were some
\n\t\tconstant vibration present in the consciousness which we know to have
\n\t\tdescended from the higher ranges. Very often the creative spark comes to
\n\t\tme from the poems I read. I shall be obliged if you mil
\n\t\tindicate the origin of the few examples below \u2014 only the first of which
\n\t\tis from my own work.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t1.
\n\t\tPlumbless inaudible waves of shining <\/b>sleep.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t2. The diamond dimness of the domed
\n\t\tair.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t3. Withdrawn in a lost attitude of
\n\t\tprayer.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t4. This patter of Time’s
\n\t\tmarring steps across the solitude <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t   <\/i><\/span> Of Truth’s
\n\t\tabidingness. Self-blissful and alone.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t5. Million
\n\t\td’oiseaux
\n\t\td’or, 6 future vigueur!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t6. Rapt above earth by power of one
\n\t\tfair face.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t7. I saw them walking in an air of
\n\t\tglory.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t8.     Solitary thinkings such as
\n\t\tdodge<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 292<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t\t   
\n\t\tConception to the very bourne of heaven, <\/font> <\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t    Then leave
\n\t\tthe naked brain.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t9. But felt through all this fleshly
\n\t\tdress Bright shoots off everlastingness.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t10.
\n\t\tI saw Eternity the other night,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\t    Like a great ring of pure and endless light, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t           
\n\t\t<\/i><\/span>
\n\t\tAll
\n\t\tcalm, as it was bright.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/b> 1. Illumined Mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Illumined Mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Intuition.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Illumined Mind with an intuitive
\n\t\telement and a strong Overmind touch.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Illumined Mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Difficult to say. More of Higher Mind perhaps than
\n\t\tanything else \u2014 but something of illumination and intuition also.<\/span><\/p>\n

7. It is a mixture. Something of the Illumined Mind,
\n\t\tsomething of the Poetic Intelligence diluting the full sovereignty of
\n\t\tthe higher expression.<\/span><\/p>\n

8. Higher Mind combined with Illumined.<\/span><\/p>\n

9. Illumined Mind with something from Intuition.<\/span><\/p>\n

10. Illumined Mind with something from Overmind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t7-3-1934 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/b>
\n\t\tA long time ago, you wrote to me that the Overmind
\n\t\thas two levels \u2014 the intuitive and the gnostic. There are surely several
\n\t\tpassages in your own poetry as well as in the Upanishads and the
\n\t\tGita that sustain an inspiration from
\n\t\tthe former; but has no poetry ever come from the Overmind proper which
\n\t\tis turned towards the full supramental
\n\t\tGnosis? Do you remember anything either in Sanskrit or in your
\n\t\town work which derives from there? If not, is it possible to give some
\n\t\tidea as to what quality of rhythm, language and substance would
\n\t\tconstitute the difference between the
\n\t\texpression of the Overmind<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 293<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\t\tIntuition and the Overmind Gnosis ?
\n\t\tThose four lines I quoted to you from yourself the other day \u2014
\n\t\twhere do they hail from
\n\t\t? \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tArms taking to a voiceless
\n\t\tsupreme delight,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLife that meets the Eternal
\n\t\twith close breast, <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAn unwalled mind dissolved in the
\n\t\tInfinite,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tForce one with
\n\t\tunimaginable rest.<\/font>1<\/font><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/b>
\n\t\tIt is really very difficult for me to say anything in this respect about
\n\t\tmy own poetry; there is too complex a working of the Consciousness for
\n\t\tit to be possible for me to classify and define. As for the Overmind
\n\t\tGnosis, I cannot yet say anything \u2014 I am familiar with its workings, but
\n\t\tthey are not easily definable or describable
\n\t\tand, as for poetry I have not yet observed sufficiently to say whether
\n\t\tit enters in anywhere or not. I should expect its intervention to be
\n\t\textremely rare even as a touch; but I
\n\t\trefer at present all higher Overmind intervention to the Overmind
\n\t\tIntuition in order to avoid any risk of overstatement. In the process
\n\t\tof overmental transformation what I
\n\t\thave observed is that the Overmind first takes up the illumined and
\n\t\thigher mind and intellect (thinking, perceiving and reasoning
\n\t\tintelligence) into itself and modifies itself to suit the operation \u2014
\n\t\tthe result is what may be called a mental Overmind\u2014then it lifts these
\n\t\tlower movements and the intuitive mind together into a higher reach of
\n\t\titself, forming there the Overmind Intuition, and then all that into the
\n\t\tOvermind Gnosis awaiting the supramental
\n\t\ttransformation. The Overmind "touch" on the Higher Mind and Illumined
\n\t\tMind can thus raise towards the O.I. or to the O.G. or leave in the
\n\t\tM.O.; but estimating at a glance as I
\n\t\thave to do, it is not easy to be quite precise. I may have to revise my
\n\t\testimates later on a little, though not perhaps very appreciably, when I
\n\t\tam able to look at things in a more leisurely way and fix the misty
\n\t\tlines which often tend to fade away, being an indefinable border.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t3-5-1937<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t‘
\n\t\t"The Life Heavens", Collected Poems<\/i> (Centenary Edition, 1972), p.
\n\t\t575.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 294<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\t\t
\n\t\tQ:<\/font><\/span> I
\n\t\tsaid to X and
\n\t\tY that it has been a habit with me to
\n\t\treread and repeat and hum lines which I have felt or known
\n\t\tto have come from very high sources. I mentioned your recent poems as
\n\t\tmy aid to drawing inspira\u00adtion from the Overhead planes. I quoted also
\n\t\tthe famous lines from other poets which have derived from the highest
\n\t\tlevels. Y begged me to type for her all the lines of this character from
\n\t\tyour poems. I have chosen the following:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. 0
\n\t\tmarvel bird with the burning wings of light and the unbarred lids that
\n\t\tlook beyond all space…<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t2. Lost the
\n\t\ttitan winging of the thought.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t3. Arms
\n\t\ttaking to a voiceless supreme delight,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tLife that
\n\t\tmeets the Eternal with close breast, <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t    An
\n\t\tunwalled mind dissolved in the Infinite, <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tForce one with
\n\t\tunimaginable rest.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t4. My
\n\t\tconsciousness climbed like a topless hill…<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t5. He who from Time’s
\n\t\tdull motion escapes and thrills <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t    <\/font> <\/i>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tRapt thoughtless, wordless into the Eternal’s breast,
\n\t\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tUnrolls the form
\n\t\tand sign of being,<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSeated above in the
\n\t\tomniscient Silence.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6. Calm
\n\t\tfaces of the gods on backgrounds vast <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Bringing the marvel of the
\n\t\tinfinitudes…<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t7. A silent unnamed emptiness content
\n\t\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tEither to fade in
\n\t\tthe Unknowable <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tOr thrill with the luminous seas of the Infinite.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t8. Crossing power-swept silences rapture-stunned,
\n\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t    <\/font> <\/i>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tClimbing high far ethers eternal-sunned…<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t9. I have
\n\t\tdrunk the Infinite like a giant’s
\n\t\twine.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 295<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\t\t10. My soul
\n\t\tunhorizoned widens to measureless sight…<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

11. Rose
\n\t\tof God like a blush of rapture on Eternity’s
\n\t\tface, <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 Rose of Love, ruby depth of all being, fire-passion of
\n\t\t<\/font> <\/span>
\n\t\tGrace
\n\t\t!<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t Arise from
\n\t\tthe heart of the yearning that sobs in Nature’s
\n\t\tabyss:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t Make earth
\n\t\tthe home of the Wonderful and life beatitude’s
\n\t\tkiss.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I shan’t
\n\t\task you to tell me in detail the sources of all these lines \u2014 but
\n\t\twhat do you think in general of my
\n\t\tchoice ? Only for one quotation I
\n\t\tmust crave the favour of your closer attention. Please do try to tell me
\n\t\tsomething about it, for I like it so much that I cannot remain without
\n\t\tknowing all that can be known: it is, of course.
\n\t\tNumber 3 here. I consider these lines the most satisfying I have ever
\n\t\tread: poetically as well as spiri\u00adtually, you have written others as
\n\t\tgreat \u2014 but what I mean to say is that the whole essence of the truth of
\n\t\tlife is given by them and every cry in the being seems answered. So be
\n\t\tkind enough to take a little trouble and give me an intimate knowledge
\n\t\tof them. I’ll be very happy to know their sources and the sort of <\/font> <\/i>
\n\t\tenthousiasmo
\n\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\tyou had when writing them. How exactly did they come into being?<\/font><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/font><\/b> The
\n\t\tchoice is excellent. I am afraid I couldn’t tell you in detail the
\n\t\tsources, though I suppose they all belong to the Over\u00adhead inspiration.
\n\t\tIn all I simply remained silent and allowed the lines to come down
\n\t\tshaped or shaping themselves on the way \u2014 I don’t know that I know
\n\t\tanything else about it. All depends on the stress of the
\n\t\tenthousiasmos,<\/i> the force of the
\n\t\tcreative thrill and largeness of the wave of its
\n\t\tAnanda, but how is that
\n\t\tdescribable or definable? What is
\n\t\tprominent in No. 3 is a certain calm, deep and intense spiritual emotion
\n\t\ttaken up by the spiritual vision that sees exactly the state or
\n\t\texperience and gives it its exact revelatory words. It is an
\n\t\tOvermind vision and experience<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 296<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

and condition that is given a
\n\t\tfull power of expression by the word and the rhythm\u2014there is a success
\n\t\tin "embodying" them or at least the sight and emotion of them which
\n\t\tgives the lines their<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tforce.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t4-5-1937<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tQ:<\/span>
\n\t\tIt is a bit of a surprise to me that Virgil’s<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSunt<\/span>
\n\t\tlacrimae
\n\t\trerum et mentem
\n\t\tmortalia tangunt<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tis now
\n\t\tconsidered by you "an almost direct
\n\t\tdescent from the Overmind
\n\t\tconsciousness".1<\/sup> I was
\n\t\tunder the impression that, like that
\n\t\tother line of his \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\t0
\n\t\tpassi
\n\t\tgraviora! dabit deus his
\n\t\tquoque finem<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tit was a
\n\t\tperfect mixture of the Higher Mind with the Psychic; and the impression
\n\t\twas based on something you had yourself written to me in the past.
\n\t\tSimilarly I remember you definitely declaring Wordsworth’s<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tThe Winds come to me from
\n\t\tthe fields of sleep<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tto be
\n\t\tlacking precisely in the Overmind
\n\t\tnote and having only the note of Intuition in an intense form.2<\/sup>
\n\t\tWhat you write now means a big change of opinion in both the instances \u2014
\n\t\tbut how and why the change ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/b>
\n\t\tYes, certainly, my ideas and reactions to some of the lines and passages
\n\t\tabout which you had asked me long ago, have developed and changed and
\n\t\tcould not but change. For at that time I was new to the overhead regions
\n\t\tor at least to the highest of them \u2014 for the higher thought and the
\n\t\tillumination were already old friends \u2014 and could not be sure or
\n\t\tcomplete in my<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t \u00b9See
\n\t\t"Letters on Savitri"<\/i> in
\n\t\tSavitri<\/i> (Centenary Edition,
\n\t\t1972), p. 803. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t 2<\/sup> See
\n\t\t"Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art" in The Future Poetry<\/i>
\n\t\t(Centenary Edition, 1972), p. 368.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 297<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

perception of many things
\n\t\tconcerning them. I hesitated there\u00adfore to assign anything like
\n\t\tOvermind touch or inspiration to
\n\t\tpassages in English or other poetry and did not presume to claim any of
\n\t\tmy own writing as belonging to this order. Besides, the intellect took
\n\t\tstill too large a part in my reactions to poetry; for instance, I judged
\n\t\tVirgil’s line too much from what seemed to be its surface intellectual
\n\t\timport and too little from its deeper meaning and vision and its
\n\t\treverberations of the Overhead. So also with Wordsworth’s line about the
\n\t\t"fields of sleep": I have since then
\n\t\tmoved in those fields of sleep and felt the breath which is carried from
\n\t\tthem by the winds that came to the poet, so I can better appreciate the
\n\t\tdepth of vision in Wordsworth’s line. I could also see more clearly the
\n\t\timpact of the Overhead on the work of poets who wrote usually from a
\n\t\tmental, a psychic, an emotional or other vital inspiration, even when it
\n\t\tgave only a tinge.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t20-11-1946<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tGRADES OF POETIC STYLE \u2014
\n\t\tSOME EXAMPLES<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t
\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b>
\n\t\tYou have distinguished five kinds of poetic style\u2014 the adequate, the
\n\t\teffective, the illumined, the inspired, the inevitable. In what kind are
\n\t\tthe following lines from my
\n\t\t"Ne plus ultra" ? \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tIs the keen
\n\t\tvoice of tuneful ecstasy <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tTo be denied its winged
\n\t\tomnipotence, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tIts ancient kinship to immensity <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tAnd the swift suns?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/span><\/b>
\n\t\tThis seems to me the effective style
\n\t\tat a high pitch.<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tQ: <\/span><\/b>
\n\t\tOr
\n\t\ttake these lines\u2014from your early "Urvasie":<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tB<\/span>ut
\n\t\tplunged o’er difficult
\n\t\tgorge and prone ravine<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 298<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\t\tAnd rivers thundering between dim walls, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tDriven by
\n\t\timmense desire, until he came <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tTo dreadful silence of the peaks and trod
\n\t\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tRegions as vast and lonely as his love.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tA: This is also high-pitch effective except the last
\n\t\tline which is in the inspired style\u2014perhaps!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t23-9-1934<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\tQ:<\/b>
\n\t\tSome more lines to classify, the close of a sonnet by me \u2014 the sestet
\n\t\tfollowing the last four words of the
\n\t\toctave:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tFor I have viewed, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAstir within my
\n\t\tclay’s engulfing sleep, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAn ‘alien astonishment of light!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLet me be merged with its unsoundable
\n\t\tdeep <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd mirror in futile farness the
\n\t\tfull height <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOf a heaven barred for ever to my distress, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather than
\n\t\thoard life’s happy littleness!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tA:<\/span><\/b>
\n\t\tThis is indeed an example of the effective style at its best, that is to
\n\t\tsay rising to something of illumination, especially in the second,
\n\t\tfourth and sixth lines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t16-9-1934<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Will you please comment on this new sonnet of mine,
\n\t\t"Mystic Mother"?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tSeeing you walk our little
\n\t\tways, they wonder<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tThat I who scorn the common
\n\t\tloves of life<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tShould kneel to You in
\n\t\tabsolute surrender,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeeming Your visible
\n\t\tperfection wife<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tUnto my spirit’s
\n\t\timmortality.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey think I have changed
\n\t\tone weakness for another,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tBecause they mark not the
\n\t\tnew birth of me \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 299<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\t\tThis body which by You, the Mystic Mother,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tHas now become a child of my vast soul!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLoving Your feet’s
\n\t\tearth-visitation, I<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tFind each heart-throb miraculously flower<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOut of the
\n\t\tunplumbable God-mystery<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBehind dark clay; and, hour by dreamful hour,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tUpbear that fragrance like an aureole.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tA:<\/span><\/b>
\n\t\tExceedingly good. Here you have got to inevitability. I forgot to say
\n\t\tthat all the styles "adequate", "effective" etc. can be raised to
\n\t\tinevitability in their own line. The octet here is
\n\t\tadequateness raised to inevitability
\n\t\texcept the fourth and fifth lines in which the effective undergoes the
\n\t\tsame transformation. In the sestet on the other hand it is the illumined
\n\t\tstyle that becomes inevitable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t17-9-1934 <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\t
\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b>
\n\t\tWould you describe the following poem of mine as "coin of the fancy" ? What is the peculiarity of poetic
\n\t\teffect, if any, here?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tNIGHT<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tNo more the
\n\t\tpress and play of light release <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tThrilling bird-news between high
\n\t\tcolumned trees. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tUpon the earth a blank of slumber drops:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tOnly cicadas toil in grassy
\n\t\tshops\u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut all their labours
\n\t\tseem to cry "Peace, peace."<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNought travels down the
\n\t\troadway save the breeze;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tAnd though
\n\t\tbeyond our gloom \u2014 throb after throb \u2014 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tGathers the great heart of a
\n\t\tsilver mob, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tThere is no haste in heaven, no frailty mars <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\t\tThe very quiet
\n\t\tbusiness of the stars.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/b>
\n\t\tIt is very successful \u2014 the last two lines are very fine and the rest
\n\t\thave their perfection. I should call it a mixture of inspiration<\/span><\/div>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 300<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tand cleverness \u2014 or perhaps
\n\tingenious discovery would be a better phrase. I am referring,
\n\tto such images as "thrilling bird-news", "grassy shops", "silver mob".
\n\tEssentially they are conceits but saved by the note of inspiration running
\n\tthrough the poem \u2014 while in the last line the conceit "quiet business" is
\n\tlifted beyond itself and out of conceitedness
\n\tby the higher tone at which the inspiration arrives there.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t20-8-1936
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t
\n\tQ:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b>
\n\tI feel my poem "The Triumph of Dante" has
\n\tnow been sufficiently quintessenced. If
\n\tit satisfies you, will you make whatever analysis is possible of its
\n\tinspirational qualities ?<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThese arms, stretched through ten hollow years,<\/font><\/span>have brought her
\n\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tBack to my heart! A light, a hush
\n\timmense <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tFalls suddenly upon my voice of tears,
\n\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tOut of a sky whose each blue
\n\tmoment bears <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tThe shining touch of that omnipotence.
\n\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tIneffable the secrecies
\n\tsupreme <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tPass and elude my gaze \u2014 an exquisite
\n\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tFailure to hold some nectarous Infinite
\n\t! <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tThe uncertainties of time grow
\n\tshadowless\u2014 <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tAnd never but with startling
\n\tloveliness, <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tA white shiver of breeze on moonlit water,
\n\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tFlies the chill
\n\tthought of death across my dream.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tFor, how shall
\n\tearth be dark when human eyes <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tMirror the love whose smile is paradise?\u2014
\n\t<\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tA
\n\tlove that misers not its golden store <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tBut gives itself and yearns to give
\n\tyet more, <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tAs though God’s light were
\n\tinexhaustible <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tNot for His joy but this one heart to fill!<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tA:<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n\tThere are three different tones or pitches of inspiration in the poem, each<\/span><\/font>
\n\tin its own manner reaching inevitability. The first<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n\tPage \u2013 301<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

seven lines up to "gaze" bear as a
\n\twhole the stamp of a high elevation of thought and vision \u2014 height and
\n\tillumination lifted up still farther by the Intuition to its own inspired
\n\tlevel; one passage (lines 3, 4) seems to me almost to touch in its tone of
\n\tex\u00adpression an Overmind seeing. But here
\n\t"A light, a hush…a voice of tears" anticipates the second movement by an
\n\telement of subtle inner intensity in it. This inner intensity \u2014 where a deep
\n\tsecret intimacy of feeling and seeing replaces the height and large
\n\tluminosity \u2014 characterises the rest of the first part. This passage has a
\n\tseizing originality and authenticity in it \u2014 it is here that one gets a pure
\n\tinevitability. In the last lines the intuition descends towards the higher
\n\tmental plane with less revelatory power in it but more precise in its
\n\tillumination. That is the difference between sheer vision and thought. But
\n\tthe poem is exceedingly fine as a whole;
\n\tthe close also is of the first order.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t14-9-1936 <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\tQ:
\n\tAccording to your five kinds of poetic style\u2014the adequate, the effective,
\n\tthe illumined, the inspired and the pure inevitable
\n\twhich is something indefinable \u2014 how
\n\twould you class Dante’s style
\n\t? It has a certain simplicity mixed with
\n\tpower which suggests what I may call the forceful adequate \u2014 of course at an
\n\tinevitable pitch \u2014 as its definition. Or is it a mixture of the adequate and
\n\tthe effective ? A line like \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tE venni dal martirio a
\n\tquesta pace1<\/sup> \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tis evidently adequate; but has this the same style \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tSi come
\n\tquando
\n\tMars\u00efa traesti <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\n\tDella
\n\tvagina delle membra sue?2<\/sup><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tA:<\/span><\/b>
\n\tThe "forceful adequate" might apply to much of Dante’s writing, but much
\n\telse is pure inevitable; elsewhere it is
\n\tthe inspired<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t1<\/font><\/span><\/sup>
\n\t"And came from that martyrdom into this peace."<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t2<\/font><\/span><\/sup>
\n\t"As when you pulled Marsyas out of the
\n\tscabbard of his limbs."<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 302<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n\tstyle as in the last lines quoted. I
\n\twould not call the other line merely adequate;
\n\tit is much more than that. Dante’s simplicity comes from a penetrating
\n\tdirectness of poetic vision, it is not the simplicity of an adequate style.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t3-11-1936<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\tQ: <\/span><\/b>I
\n\tam drawn to Dante especially by his conception of Beatrice which seems to me
\n\tto give him his excellence. How would you define that conception
\n\t?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tA:<\/b>
\n\tOutwardly it was an idealisation, probably due to a psychic connection of
\n\tthe past which could not fulfil itself in that life. But I do not see how
\n\this conception of Beatrice gives him his excellence \u2014 it was only one
\n\telement in a very powerful and complex nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t10-7-1932<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t"TRANCE"\u00b9\u2014SOME
\n\tMETRICAL AND OTHER POINTS<\/span><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b>
\n\tIs it not the case that, in this metre2<\/sup>,
\n\teither one must keep a rather staccato movement, pausing with almost
\n\tunbroken regularity at the end of each foot, or else risk the iambic
\n\tpentameter approximation by the use of an easy and fluent movement, as in
\n\tyour very beautiful line, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tMute the body aureate with light, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tthat would seem least out of place if inserted amidst
\n\tother iambic pentameters ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tA:<\/b>
\n\tPossibly \u2014 though the line does not read to my ear very well as an iambic
\n\tpentameter \u2014 the movement sounds then common and rather lame. It goes better
\n\tas a trochaic rhythm. It is true that there is this dilemma and the whole
\n\tskill will then be in<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\u00b9Collected Poems<\/i> (Centenary Edition, 1972), p. 572.
\n\t2<\/sup> Quantitative Trimeter.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n\tPage \u2013 303<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tavoiding the staccato effect, but that necessitates a
\n\tvery light movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

I think
\n\tthe principle of this metre1<\/sup>
\n\tshould be to say a few very clear-cut things in a little space. At least it
\n\tlooks so to me at present \u2014 though a more free handling of the metre might
\n\tshow that the restriction was not justifiable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tI had chosen this metre \u2014 or rather it came to me and I
\n\taccepted it \u2014 because it seemed to me both brief and easy, so suitable for
\n\tan experiment. But I find now that it was only seemingly easy and in fact
\n\tvery difficult. The ease with which I wrote it only came from the fact that
\n\tby a happy inspiration the right rhythm for it came into my consciousness
\n\tand wrote itself out by virtue of the rhythm being there. If I had
\n\tconsciously experimented 1 might have
\n\tstumbled over the same difficulties as have come in your way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThe Bird of Fire2<\/sup><\/i>
\n\twas written on two consecutive days and afterwards revised. The Trance<\/i>
\n\tat one sitting \u2014 it took only a few minutes. You may have the date as they
\n\twere both completed on the same day and sent to you the next.<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tQ:<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n\tIn the line\u2014<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tHalo-moon of
\n\tecstasy unknown \u2014<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tis the<\/span>
\n\t"o" <\/span>assonance
\n\tsatisfactory, or does the ear feel the two sounds come too close or for some
\n\treason are too insistent?<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tA:<\/span><\/b> It seems to me that
\n\tthere is sufficient space between to prevent the assonance from being too
\n\tprominent; it came like that and I kept it because the repetition and the
\n\tprolongation of the full "o" sound seemed
\n\tto me to carry in it a certain unexpressed (and inexpressible) significance.
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t1<\/font><\/span><\/sup>
\n\tQuantitative Trimeter.
\n\t    \u00b2Op. cit.,<\/i> p. 571.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 304<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tQ: What
\n\texactly does "Halo-moon" signify?
\n\tIn line 2 there was the concrete physical moon ringed with a halo. Is the
\n\tsuggestion of line 10 that a glory of indefinable presence is imaged by a
\n\tlunar halo \u2014 the moon as a distinct object now being swallowed up in the
\n\thalo? My difficulty is that if it is
\n\t"halo" simply it cannot be a
\n\t"moon"
\n\tas well. But possibly the compound "halo-moon"
\n\tis elliptical for "moon with its surrounding halo".<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tA:<\/span><\/b>
\n\tWell, it is of course the "moon with its halo", but I wanted to give a
\n\tsuggestion if not of the central form being swallowed up in the halo, at
\n\tleast of moon and halo being one ecstatic splendour as when one is merged in
\n\tecstasy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t 
\n\t<\/font>\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tQ:<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n\tThe last line\u2014<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t 
\n\t<\/font>\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOcean
\n\tself enraptured and alone \u2014<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 
\n\t<\/font>\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI took as meaning "Self, who art symbolised by this ocean", since
\n\totherwise you would probably have written "self-enraptured"?<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tA:<\/span><\/b> Yes, that is right.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tIAMBIC<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n\tPENTAMETER<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ:<\/font><\/span><\/b> How is it that
\n\tone slips so easily into the iambic pentameter when one wants to say things
\n\tof most signi\u00adficance ? Have you also a<\/font><\/span>
\n\tpenchant <\/span><\/font>
\n\tfor it
\n\t?<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA:<\/b>
\n\tAn inspiration which leans more on a sublimated or illumined thought than on
\n\tsome strong or subtle or very simple psychic or vital intensity and
\n\tswiftness of feeling, seems to call naturally for the iambic pentameter,
\n\tthough it need not confine itself to<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 305<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

READING AND POETIC
\nCREATION AND YOGA<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nthat form. I myself have not yet found another
\nmetre which gives room enough along with an apposite movement \u2014 shorter metres
\nare too cramped, the longer ones need a technical dexterity (if one is not to
\nbe either commonplace or clumsy) for which I have not leisure.<\/span><\/p>\n

5-3-1932<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAIM OF QUANTITATIVE EFFORTS IN ENGLISH POETRY<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nX’s poem in laghu-guru<\/i> is splendid. But
\nperhaps Y would say that it is a pure Bengali rhythm, which means, I suppose, that
\nit reads as well and easily in Bengali as if it were not written on an unusual
\nrhythmic principle. I suppose that must necessarily be the aim of a new metre
\nor metrical principle; it is what I am trying to do with quantitative efforts
\nin English.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE LOOSE ALEXANDRINE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Robert Bridges has invented what is
\ncalled the loose Alexandrine. Lascelles Abercrombie explains its principle
\nthus: "The novelty is to make the number of syllables the fixt base of
\nthe metre; but these are the effective syllables, those which pronunciation
\neasily slurs or combines with following syllables being treated as metrically
\nineffective. The line consists of 12 metrically effective syllables; and within
\nthis constant scheme the metre allows of any variation in the number and placing
\nof the accents. Thus the rhythm attained is purely accentual, in accordance
\nwith the genius of the English language, but a new freedom is achieved within
\nthe confines of a new kind of discipline.^ What do you think of the principle ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA:<\/b> I do not understand how this can be called
\nan accentual rhythm except in the sense that all English rhythm, prose or
\nverse, is accentual. What one usually means by accentual verse is verse with a
\nfixed number of accents for each line, but here accents can<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 306<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nbe of any number and placed anywhere as it would be in a prose; cut up into lines. The only distinctive feature is thus of
\nthe number of "effective" syllables. The result is a kind of free
\nverse movement with a certain irregular regularity in the lengths of the lines.<\/span><\/p>\n

1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE PROBLEM OF BLANK VERSE QUATRAINS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ: I<\/span><\/i><\/b> have begun a poem on Parvati in
\nblank verse quatrains. Here are the first five stanzas. If at all you think I
\nshould continue, will not the closed stanza plan adopted so far prove
\nmonotonous?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nMen dreamed of her strange hair and saw it fall
\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nA cataract of nectar through their sleep, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nCrushing the soul with sweetness \u2014
\nand woke a-dread, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nIn all their limbs a speechless heaven of pain!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHer voice reached to Creations highest peak,
\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nAnd though a music most delicate its rapture <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nSwept through the seven worlds and
\nfound the gods <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nHelpless like flames swaying in a huge wind!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA terror beautiful were those dark eddies, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nHer
\nfathomless vague-glimmering pure eyes, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nWherein the spirits that rashly plunged
\ntheir love <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nWhirled through a lifetime of bewildered bliss!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBut all in vain her voice and gaze and hair<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Before the snowy calm immutable<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Of Shiva’s meditation, a frozen fire<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Of omnipotence alone with its self-splendour!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nLike an immortal death his far face glowed\u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Inaudible disclosure of some white<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Eternity of unperturbed dream-vast<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Behind the colour and passion of time’s
\nheart-beat!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 307<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A:<\/span><\/b> It looks as if you were facing the problem of blank verse by attempting
\nit under conditions of the maximum difficulty. Not content with choosing a form
\nwhich is based on the single-line blank verse (I mean, of course, each line a
\nclear-cut entity by itself) as opposed to the flowing and freely enjambed
\nvariety you try to unite flow-lines and single-line and farther undertake a
\nform of blank verse quatrains! I have myself tried the blank verse quatrain;
\neven, when I attempted the single-line blank verse on a large scale in Savitri<\/i>
\nI found myself falling involuntarily into a series of four-line movement. But
\neven though I was careful in the building, I found it led to a stiff monotony
\nand had to make a principle of variation \u2014 one line, two line, three line, four
\nline or longer passages (paragraphs as it were) alternating with each other;
\notherwise the system would be a failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

In attempting the blank verse quatrain one has
\nto avoid like poison all flatness of movement \u2014 a flat movement immediately creates
\na sense of void and sets the ear asking for the absent rhyme. The Fast line of
\neach verse especially must be a powerful line acting as a strong close so that
\nthe rhyming close-cadence is missed no more. And, secondly, there must be a
\nvery careful building of the structure. A mixture of sculpture and architecture
\nis indicated \u2014 there should be plenty of clear-cut single lines but they must
\nbe built into a quatrain that is itself a perfect structural whole. In your
\nlines it is these qualities that are lacking, so that the poetic substance
\nfails in its effect owing to rhythmic insufficiency. One closing line of yours
\nwill absolutely not do \u2014 that of the fourth stanza \u2014 its feminine ending is
\nenough to damn it; you may have feminine endings but not in the
\nlast line of the quatrain, and its whole movement is an unfinished movement.
\nThe others would do, but they lose half their force by being continuations of
\nclauses which look back to the previous line for their sense. They can do that
\nsometimes, but only on condition of their still haying a clear-cut wholeness in
\nthemselves and coming in with a decisive force. In the structure you have
\nattempted to combine the flow of the lyrical quatrain with the force of a
\nsingle-line blank verse system. I suppose it can be done, but here the
\nsingle-line has interfered with the flow and the flow has interfered with the
\nsingle-line force.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 308<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

In my version\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Men dreamed of her strange hair; they saw it
\nfall<\/span><\/p>\n

A cataract of nectar through their sleep,<\/span><\/p>\n

Crushing the soul with sweetness; they woke
\nfrom dread,<\/span><\/p>\n

With all their limbs a speechless heaven of
\npain!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHer voice soared to Creation’s highest peak,
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd that most delicate music with its rapture <\/span><\/p>\n

\nSweeping through seven worlds
\nfound out the gods <\/span><\/p>\n

\nHelpless like flames swaying in a huge wind!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA beautiful terror were those dark conscious
\neddies, <\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer pure vague-glimmering and fathomless eyes;<\/span><\/p>\n

Therein the spirits that rashly plunged their
\nlove <\/span><\/p>\n

\nFell whirled through lifetimes of bewildering bliss!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBut all in vain, her voice and gaze and hair
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBefore the snow-pale and immutable calm <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf Shiva’s meditation, a frozen
\nfire <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf lone omnipotence locked in self-light!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHis far face glowed like an immortal death:<\/span><\/p>\n

The inaudible disclosure of some white<\/span><\/p>\n

Eternity, some unperturbed dream-vast,<\/span><\/p>\n

It slew the colour and passion of time’s
\nheart-beat! \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI have made only minor changes for the most
\npart, but many of them in order to secure what I feel to be the missing
\nelements. I have indicated in the places where my reasons for change were of
\nanother kind what those reasons were;1<\/sup> the rest are dictated by the
\ntwo considerations of rhythmic efficiency and quatrain structure. In the first
\nverse this structure is secured by putting two pauses in the middle of lines,
\neach clause taking up the sense<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>Line 3: "’A-dread’ seems to me rather
\nfeeble." <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n Line 5: " ‘Reached’ is very weak."<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 Line 17: "Why this inversion? It spoils
\nthe power and directness of the line." <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n Lines 18 <\/b> & 19:<\/b> "The
\ndouble "of is very awkward and spoils both force and flow."<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 309<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfrom there and enlarging into amplitude and
\nthen bringing to a forceful close. In the second verse and in the fourth I have
\nattempted a sweeping continuous quatrain movement but taken care to separate
\nthem by a different structure so as to avoid monotony. The third is made of two
\nblank verse couplets, each complementary in sense to the other; the fifth is
\nbased on a one-line monumental phrase worked out in sense by a three-line
\ndevelopment with a culminating close-line. The whole thing is not perhaps as
\nperfect as it needs to be, but it is in the nature of a demonstration, to show
\non what principles the blank verse quatrain can be built if it has to be done
\nat all \u2014 I have founded it on the rule of full but well-sculptured single lines
\nand an architectural quatrain structure: others are possible, but I think would
\nbe more difficult to execute.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had half a mind to illustrate my thesis by
\nquotations from Savitri,<\/i> but -I resist the temptation, warned by the
\nscowling forehead of Time \u2014 this will do.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP.S. <\/b>I don’t consider the proximity of the closing
\nwords "light" and "white" in the last stanzas an objection
\nsince the quatrains stand as separate entities \u2014 so<\/b> I did not alter; of
\ncourse in continuous blank verse an objection would be.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n8-7-1933<\/span><\/p>\n

\nREGULAR AND IRREGULAR SONNET RHYMES<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The two regular sonnet rhyme sequences are (1)
\nthe Shakespearean ab ab cd cd ef ef gg \u2014 that is, three quatrains with alternate
\nrhymes with a closing couplet and (2) the Miltonic with an octet abba abba (as
\nin your second and third quatrains) and a sestet of three rhymes arranged
\naccording to choice. The Shakespearean is closer to the natural lyric rhythm,
\nthe Miltonic to the ode movement \u2014 i.e. something large and grave. The Miltonic
\nis very difficult, for it needs either a strong armoured structure of the
\nthought or a carefully developed unity of the building which all poets can’t
\nmanage. However there have been attempts at an irregular sonnet rhyme sequence.
\nKeats tried his hand at one a<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 310<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

century ago and I vaguely believe (but that may
\nbe only an illusion or Maya) that modern poets have played loose fantastic
\ntricks of their own invention; but I don’t have much first hand knowledge of
\nmodern (contemporary) poetry. Anyhow I have myself written a series of sonnets
\nwith the most heterodox rhyme arrangements, so I couldn’t very well go for you
\nwhen you do the same. One who has committed many murders can’t very well rate
\nanother for having done a few. All the same this sequence is rather\u2014a Miltonic
\noctet with Shakespearean close would be more possible. I think I have done
\nsomething of the kind with not too bad an effect, but I have no time to consult
\nmy poetry file and am not sure. In the sonnet too it might be well for you to
\ndo the regular thing first soberly and well, and afterwards when you are sure
\nof your steps, frisk and dance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n22-2-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSOME VERBAL SUBTLETIES AND TECHNICAL POINTS<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: <\/span><\/b>I should like to know what exactly
\nthe meaning of the word "absolve" is in the following lines from your
\n"Love and Death". I have been puzzled because the ordinary dictionary
\nmeanings don’t seem to fit in.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

But if with price, ah God! what easier! Tears<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Dreadful, innumerable I will absolve,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Or pay with anguish through the
\ncenturies…<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere is another passage a few pages later
\nwhere the same word is used:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n                For late <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nI saw her mid those pale inhabitants
\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nWhom bodily anguish visits not, but thoughts <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nSorrowful and dumb memories
\nabsolve, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nAnd martyrdom of scourged hearts quivering.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA:<\/b> In the second passage it is used in its
\nordinary sense. "Absolution"<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 311<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmeans release from sins or from
\ndebts \u2014 the sorrowful thoughts and memories are the penalty or payment which
\nprocures the release from the debt which has been accumulated by the sins and
\nerrors of human life.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first passage "absolve" is
\nused in its Latin and not in its English sense, \u2014 "to pay off a
\ndebt", but here the sense is stretched a little. Instead of saying "I
\nwill pay off with tears", Ruru says: "I will pay off tears" as
\nthe price of the absolution. This Latinisation and the inversion of syntactical
\nconnections are familiar licences in English poetry \u2014 of course, it is incor\u00adrect,
\nbut a deliberate incorrectness, a violence purposely done to the language in
\norder to produce a poetic effect. The English language, unlike the French and
\nsome others, likes, as Stephen Phillips used to say, to have liberties taken
\nwith it. But, of course, before one can take these liberties, one must be a
\nmaster of the language \u2014 and, in this case, of the Latin also.<\/span><\/p>\n

1931<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/b> In my lines\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThis heart grew brighter when your breath’s proud chill
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFlung my disperse life-blood more richly in \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\na terminal "d" will at once English
\nthat Latin fellow "disperse”1<\/sup>, but is he really objectionable?
\nAt first I had "Drove" instead of "Flung" \u2014 so the desire
\nfor a less dental rhythm was his<\/span><\/i> raison d\u2019\u00eatre, but if he seems a trifle weaker than his English
\nAvatar, he can easily be dispensed with now.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nA: I<\/span><\/b> don’t think "disperse" as an
\nadjective can pass\u2014the dentals are certainly an objection but do not justify
\nthis Latin-English neologism.<\/span><\/p>\n

12-6-1937<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Why should that poor
\n"disperse" be inadmissible<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 312<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

when English has many such Latin forms \u2014 e.g.
\n"consecrate", "dedicate", "intoxicate\u201d? I felt it to
\nbe a natural innovation and not against the genius of the language: I
\ndiscover now from the Standard Dictionary that it is not even a neologism \u2014 it
\nis only an obsolete word. I have a substitute ready, however:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nFlung my diffuse life-blood more richly in.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBut is not "disperse" formed on
\nexactly the same principle as "diffuse"? By the way, does
\n"dispersed" make the line really too dental, now that
\n"Flung" is there and not the original "Drove"?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA:<\/b> I don’t think people use
\n"consecrate", "intoxicate" etc. as adjectives nowadays \u2014 at
\nany rate it sounds to me too recherch\u00e9. <\/i>Of course, if one chose, this
\nkind of thing might be perpetrated \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nO wretched man intoxicate, <\/span><\/p>\n

\nLet<\/span> not thy life be consecrate<\/span><\/p>\n

To wine’s red yell (spell, if you want to be
\n"poetic").<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Else will thy soul be dedicate <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo Hell\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nbut it is better not to do it. It makes no
\ndifference if there are other words like "diffuse" taken from French
\n(not Latin) which have this form and are generally used adjectives. Logic is
\nnot the sole basis of linguistic use. I thought at first it was an archaism and
\nthere might be some such phrase in old poetry as lids dis\u00adperse, but as I could
\nnot find it even in the <\/span>Oxford<\/span> which claims to be exhaustive and
\nomniscient, I concluded it must be a neo\u00adlogism of yours. But archaism or
\nneologism does not matter. "Dispersed life-blood" brings three d’s so
\nnear together that they collide a little \u2014 if they were farther from each other
\nit would not matter \u2014 or if they produced some significant or opportune effect. I think "diffuse" will do.<\/span><\/p>\n

13-6-1937<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 313<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Q:<\/span><\/b> What do I find this afternoon ? Just read:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n                Suddenly <\/span><\/p>\n

\nFrom motionless battalions as outride <\/span><\/p>\n

\nA speed
\ndisperse of horsemen, from that mass <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf livid menace went a frail light cloud
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRushing through heaven, and behind it streamed <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe downpour all in wet and greenish
\nlines.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThis is from your own "Urvasie",
\nwritten in the middle nineties of the last century! Of course it is possible
\nthat the printer has omitted a terminal "d"\u2014but is that really the
\nexplanation ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA:<\/b> I dare say I tried to Latinise. But that does
\nnot make it a permissible form. If it is obsolete, it must remain obsolete. I
\nthought at first it was an archaism you were trying on, I seemed to remember
\nsomething of the kind, but as I could find it nowhere I gave up the idea\u2014it was
\nprobably my own crime that I remembered.<\/span><\/p>\n

29-6-1937 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> The English reader has digested
\nCarlyle and swallowed Meredith and is not quite unwilling to reJOyce <\/font><\/span>in even more startling
\nstrangenesses of expression at the present day. Will his stomach really turn at
\nthe novelty of that phrase which you wouldn’t approve: "the voice of a
\ndevouring eye"? "The voice of an eye" sounds rather idiotic,
\nbut if the adjective "devouring" is added the phrase seems to become
\neffective. "Devouring eye" is then a synecdoche \u2014 isolating and emphasising Shakespeare’s most remarkable quality, his eager multitudinous
\nsight, and the oral epithet provides a connection with the idea of a voice,
\nthus preventing the catachresis from being too startling. If <\/span><\/i>Milton<\/span><\/i> could give us "blind
\nmouths" and Wordsworth<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 314<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Thou eye among the blind, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nThat, deaf and
\nsilent, readst the eternal deep,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nis there very much to object to in this
\nvisioned voice ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA:<\/b> Can’t accept all that. A voice of a
\ndevouring eye is even more re-Joycingly mad than a voice of an eye pure and
\nsimple. If the English language is to go to the dogs, let it go, but the Joyce
\ncut by the way of Bedlam does not recommend itself to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

The poetical examples have nothing to do with
\nthe matter. Poetry is permitted to be insane \u2014 the poet and the madman go
\ntogether: though even there there are limits. Meredith and Carlyle are tortuous
\nor extravagant in their style only \u2014 though they can be perfectly sane when
\nthey want. In poetry anything can pass \u2014 for instance, my "voice of a
\ntilted nose":<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nO voice of a tilted nose, <\/span><\/p>\n

\nSpeak but speak not
\nin prose!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nNose like a blushing rose, <\/span><\/p>\n

\nO Joyce of a tilted
\nnose!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThat is high poetry, but put it in prose and it
\nsounds insane.<\/span><\/p>\n

5-5-1935 <\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> In the lines,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nO Grace that flowest from the Master’s Will,
\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nHow fondly thou dost mitigate the power <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nOf utter summit for our volleyed
\nsake…<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhat do you think of the turn "our
\nvolleyed sake" ? Can it pass ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nA:<\/span><\/b> "For our valleyed sake" is a locution that offers fascinating
\npossibilities but fails to sound English. One might risk, "Let fall some
\ntears for my unhappy sake" in defiance of grammar or<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 315<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

humourously, "Oh shed some
\nsweat-drops for my corpulent <\/span>
\nsake"; but "valleyed sake"
\ncarries the principle of the ārs<\/span><\/i><\/span>̣<\/span>a prayoga1<\/sup><\/span><\/i> beyond the boundaries of the
\npossible.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Is there any advantage in changing
\nthe phrase \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nas though a press <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nOf benediction lay on me
\nunseen \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nto<\/span><\/p>\n

as though the press <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nOf a benediction lay on me
\nunseen ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/span><\/b> No, no. The first was immeasurably better. "A press of
\nbenediction" is striking and effective; "the press of a benedic\u00adtion"
\nis flat and means nothing. Besides, it is not good English. You can say "a
\npress of affairs", "a press of matter"; you can say "the
\npressure of this affair", but you cannot say "the press of an
\naffair".<\/span><\/p>\n

1931<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ: Here is a sonnet for your judgment. It deals
\nwith the massive spiritual light descending into the brain like an inverted
\npyramid. The final phrase has a historical allusion:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n…a conscious hill <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nDown-kindled by some Cheops
\nof the skies <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nTo monument his lordship over death.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nYou must have heard of Cheops, the Egyptian
\nKing who built the Great Pyramid at Gizeh ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA: <\/b>Of course I have heard of Cheops, but did not
\nexpect to hear<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> Rihi’s licence.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 316<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof him again in this context. Don’t you think
\nthe limiting proper name brings in an excessive touch of intellectual
\ningenuity, almost as if the poem were built for the sake of this metaphor and
\nnot for its subject? I would myself prefer a general term so as to prevent any
\ndrop from sublimity, e.g.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nDown-sloped by some King-Builder of the skies.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBut it is a good sonnet and there is certainly
\nboth vision and poetry in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n25-9-1933<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

"Revealed her mateless beauty the true
\nparadise" is not permissible in prose, but it is one of those contracted
\nexpressions which are allowed in poetry and it is quite intelligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

8-10-1934<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Q: In your sonnet "The Human Enigma^
\noccurs the magnificent line:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHis heart is a chaos and an empyrean.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBut I am much saddened by the fact that the rhythm of
\nthese words gets spoiled at the end by a mis-stressing in "empyrean".
\n"Empyrean" is stressed currently in the penultimate syllable, thus:
\n"empyre’an". Your line puts the stress on the second syllable. It is
\nin the adjective "empyreal" that the second syllable is stressed, but
\nthe noun is never stressed that way, so far as I know. Perhaps you have a
\nprecedent in the Elizabethans? Or have you deliberately taken liberty with the
\naccentuation? The same mis-stressing occurs also in Book II, Canto 11, of
\nSavitri1<\/sup>: page 270, line 6:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nSurprised in their untracked empyrean.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> Centenary Edition, 1972.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 317<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

But you certainly do not always stress the noun
\nlike the adjective. In Book I, Canto III, line 5 from below on page 25 is the
\nsplendid verse:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAn empyrean vision saw and knew.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHere the penultimate syllable gets the ictus.
\nMay I have some explanation? Perhaps there are acknowledged alternative
\naccentuations and I am just ignorant? I really hope so, for otherwise, while
\nthe line from Book II of ‘Savitri’1<\/sup> can easily take a noun after
\n"empyrean" or get its "empyrean" changed to
\n"empyreal" and then take a noun, the sonnet-line will not have the
\nsame absolute grandeur of phrase as now if it is rewritten:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHis heart is a chaos and an empyreans span.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIf it is to rhyme with "man",
\n"plan" and "scan" in your sonnet-scheme it must bring in
\n"span" \u2014 mustn’t it?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA: <\/b>I find in the Chambers’s Dictionary the noun
\n"empyrean" is given two alternative pronunciations, each with a
\ndifferent stress,\u2014the first, "empyre’an" and secondly,
\n"empy’rean". Actually in the book the accent seems to fall on the
\nconsonant "r" instead of the vowel. That must be a mistake in
\nprinting; it is evident that it is meant to fall on the
\nsecond vowel. If that is so, my variation is justified and needs no further
\ndefence. The adjective "empyreal" the dictionary gives as having the
\nsame alternative accentuation as the noun, that is to say, either
\n"empyre’al" with the accent on the long "e" or
\n"empy’real" with the accent on the second syllable, but the
\n"e" although unaccented still keeps its long pronunciation. Then? But
\neven if I had no justification from the dictionary and the noun
\n"empy’rean" were only an Aurobindonian freak and a wilful shifting of
\nthe accent, I would refuse to change it; for the rhythm here is an essential
\npart of whatever beauty there is in the line.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 318<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nP.S. Your view is supported by the small Oxford
\nDictionary which, I suppose, gives the present usage. Chambers being an older
\nauthority. But Chambers must represent a former usage and I am entitled to
\nrevive even a past or archaic form if I choose to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n4-8-1949<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> As between the forms \u2014 "with a
\nview to express" and "with a view to expressing" \u2014 the Concise <\/span><\/i>Oxford<\/span><\/i> Dictionary calls the former vulgar.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA: I don’t agree with <\/span>Oxford<\/span>. Both forms are used. If "to
\nexpress" is vulgar, "to expressing" is cumbrous and therefore
\ninelegant.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> The <\/span><\/i>Oxford<\/span><\/i> Dictionary seems to leave one no
\nchoice as regards counting the number of syllables in the word
\n"vision" and its likes. I quote below some of the words explained as
\nmonosyllables in the same way as "rhythm" and "prism":<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nFa’shion (-shn) <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPassion (pa’shn) <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPrison (-zn)
\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nScission (si’shn) <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nTrea’son (-ezn) <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nVi’sion (-zhn)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAs X would say,<\/span><\/i> qu’en dites vous? Chambers’s Dictionary
\nmakes "vision" a dissyllable, which is quite sensible, but the
\nmonosyllabic pronunciation of it deserves to be considered at least a
\nlegitimate variant when H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler \u2014 the name of Fowler is
\nlooked upon as a synonym for authority on the English language \u2014 give no other.
\nI don’t think I am mistaken in inter-<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 319<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/span>preting their intention. Take
\n"realm", which they pronounce in brakets as<\/span><\/i> "relm"; now I see no
\ndifference as regards syllabification between their intention here and in the
\ninstances above.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP.S. <\/span><\/b>
\nI must admit, however, what struck me
\nafter typing the preceding. In the preface to the <\/span><\/i>Oxford<\/span><\/i> Dictionary it is said that it has
\nnot been thought necessary to mention certain pronunciations which are familiar
\nto the normal reader, such as that of the suffix "-ation (ashn). Does this
\nmean that a word like "’meditation" is to be taken as three syllables
\nonly ? According to my argument there seems no alternative; and yet the example
\nlooks very much like a<\/span><\/i> reductio ad absurdum.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA: You may not have a choice \u2014 but I have a
\nchoice, which is to pronounce and scan words like vision and
\npassion and similar words as all the poets of the English language (those at least
\nwhom I know) have consistently pronounced and scanned them \u2014 as dissyllables. If you ask me to scan
\nShakespeare’s line in the following manner to please H. W. Fowler and F. G.
\nFowler,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nĬn māī|děn mēd|ĭtatīōn | fān|cў frēē,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI shall decline without thanks. Shakespeare
\nwrote, if I remember right, "treasons, strategems and spoils";
\nShelley, Tennyson, any poet of the English language, I believe would do the
\nsame \u2014 though I have no books with me to give
\nchapter and verse. I lived in both northern and southern England, but I never
\nheard vision pronounced vizhn, it was always vizhun; treason, of course, is
\npronounced trez’n, but that does not make it a monosyllable in scansion because
\nthere is in these words a very perceptible slurred vowel sound in pronunciation
\nwhich I represent by the ‘; in poison also. If realm, helm etc. are taken as
\nmonosyllables, that is quite reasonable, for there is no vowel between
\n"1" and "m" and none is heard, slurred or otherwise in
\npronunciation. The words rhythm and prism are technically monosyllables,
\nbecause they are so pronounced in French (i.e.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 320<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthat part of the word, for there is a mute
\n"e" in French): but in fact most Englishmen take the help of a
\nslurred vowel-sound in pronouncing rhythms and it would be quite permissible to
\nwrite in English as a blank verse line, "The unheard rhythms that sustain
\nthe world".<\/span><\/p>\n

This is my conviction and not all the Fowlers
\nin the world will take it away from me. I only hope the future lexicographers
\nwill not "fowl" the language any more in that direction; otherwise
\nwe shall have to write lines like this \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nO vizhn! O pashn! m’d’tashn! h’rr’p’lashn! <\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhy
\ndid the infern’l Etern’l und’take creash’n? <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr else, creat’ng, could he not
\nhave afford’d <\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot to allow the Engl’sh tongue to be Oxford’d?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP.S.I remember a book (Hamerton’s? some one
\nelse’s? I don’t remember) in which the contrast was drawn between the English
\nand French languages, that the English tongue tended to throw all the weight on
\nthe first or earliest possible syllable and slurred the others, the French did
\nthe opposite \u2014 so that when an Englishman pretends to say strawberries, what he
\nreally says is strawb’s. That is the exaggeration of a truth \u2014 but all the same
\nthere is a limit.<\/span><\/p>\n

27-9-1934<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\nQ: Of course a language is not made altogether
\naccording to logical rules. Originally, or aboriginally, it came, I suppose,
\nout of the entrails and in spite of all Volapuks and Esperantos natural
\nlanguages will flourish. But I should like to ask you a few questions suggested
\nby your falling foul of the Fowlers. The poetic pronunciation of words cannot
\nbe accepted as a standard for current speech \u2014 can it ? On your own showing,
\n"treason" and "poison" which are monosyllables in prose or
\ncurrent speech can be scanned as dissyllables in verse; Shelley makes
\n"evening" three syllables and X has used even "realm" as a
\ndissyllable, while the practice of taking<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 3121<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

"precious”1<\/sup> and
\n"conscious" to be three syllables is not even noticeable, I believe.
\nAll the same, current speech, if your favourite Chambers^ Dictionary as well as
\nmy dear Concise <\/span><\/i>Oxford<\/span><\/i> is to be believed, insists on
\n"evening’"’, "precious" and "conscious" being
\ndissyllabic and "realm" monosyllabic. I am mentioning this disparity
\nbetween poetic and current usages not because I wish "meditation" to
\nbe robbed of its full length or "vision" to lose half its effect but
\nbecause it seems to me that Shelley\u2019s or Tennyson’s or any poets practice does
\nnot in itself prove anything definitely for English as it is spoken. And spoken
\nEnglish, very much more than written English, undergoes change; even the line
\nyou quote from Shakespeare was perhaps not scanned in his time as you would do
\nit now, for "meditation" \u2014 as surely "passion" and
\n"fashion" also and most probably "vision" as well\u2014 was
\noften if not always given its full vowel-value and the fourth foot of the line
\nin question might to an Elizabethan ear have been very naturally an anapaest:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIn mai\\den me\\dita\\tion fān\\cy
\nfree.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhen, however, you say that your personal experience
\nin England, both north and south, never recorded a monosyllabic
\n"vision", we are on more solid ground, but the Concise Oxford
\nDictionary is specially stated to be in its very title as "of Current
\nEnglish": is all its claim to be set at nought ? It is after all a
\nresponsible compilation and, so far as my impression goes, not unesteemed. If
\nits errors were so glaring as you think, would there not be a general protest ?
\nOr is it that English has changed so much in "word of mouth" since
\nyour departure from <\/span><\/i>England<\/span><\/i>? This is not an ironical query\u2014I am
\njust<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

wondering.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

P.S.<\/span><\/i><\/b> Your exclamatory-interrogatory
\nelegiacs illustrating the predicament we should fall into if the Fowlers<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 322<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

were allowed to spread their nets with impunity
\nwere very enjoyable. But I am afraid the tendency of the English language is
\ntowards contraction of vowel-sounds^ at least terminal, ones; and perhaps the
\nOxford Dictionary has felt the need to monumentalise \u2014 clearly and
\nauthoritatively \u2014 the degree to which this tendency has, in some cases more
\ndefinitely, in others less but still perceptibly enough, advanced? The
\nvocalised "e" of the suffix "-ed" of the Spenserian days is
\nnow often mute;the trisyllabic suffix "-ation" of
\nthe "spacious times" has shrunk by one syllable, and
\n"treason’" and "poison" and "prison”1<\/sup>, all
\nhaving the same second-vowel sound if fully pronounced as in the second
\nsyllable of "-ation", are already monosyllables in speech \u2014 so, if
\n"passion" and "fashion" which too have lost their
\nElizabethan characteristic like "meditation" should contract by a
\nnatural analogy, carrying all "ation"-suffixed words as well as
\n"vision" and "scission" and the like with them, it would be
\nquite as one might expect. And if current speech once fixes these contractions,
\nthey will not always keep outside the pale of poetry. What do you think?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA: Where the devil have I admitted that
\n"treason" and "poison" are monosyllables or that their use
\nas dissyllables is a poetic licence? Will you please quote the words in which I
\nhave made that astounding and imbecile admission? I have said distinctly that
\nthey are dissyllabic, \u2014 like risen, dozen, maiden, garden, laden and a thousand
\nothers which nobody (at least before the world went mad) ever dreamed of taking
\nas monosyllables. On my own showing, indeed! After I had even gone to the
\ntrouble of explaining at length about the slurred syllable "e" in
\nthese words, for the full sound is not given, so that you cannot put it down as
\npronounced maid-en, you have to indicate the pronunciation as maid’n. But for
\nthat to dub maiden a monosyllable and assert that Shakespeare, Shelley and
\nevery other poet who scans maiden as a dissyllable was a born fool who did not
\nknow the "current" pronunciation or was indulging in a constant
\npoetic licence<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 323<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhenever he used the words garden, maiden,
\nwiden, sadden etc. is a long flight of imagination. I say that these words are
\ndissyllables and the poets in so scanning them (not as an occasional licence
\nbut normally and every time) are much better authorities than any owl \u2014 or fowl
\n\u2014 of a dictionary-maker in the universe. Of<\/b> course the poets use
\nlicences in lengthening out words occasionally, but these are exceptions; to
\nexplain away their normal use of words as a perpetually repeated licence would
\nbe a wild wooden-headedness (5 syllables, please). That these words are
\ndissyllables is proved farther by the fact that "saddened",
\n"maidenhood" cannot possibly be anything but respectively dissyllabic
\nand trisyllabic, yet "saddened" could, I suppose, be correctly
\nindicated in a dictionary as pronounced "saddnd". A dictionary
\nindication or a dictionary theory cannot destroy the living facts of the
\nlanguage.<\/span><\/p>\n

I do not know why you speak of my
\n"favourite" Chambers. Your attachment to <\/span>Oxford<\/span> is not balanced by any attachment
\nof mine to Chambers or any other lexicographer. I am not inclined to swear by
\nany particular dictionary as an immaculate virgin authority for pronunciation
\nor a papal Infallible. It was you who quoted Chambers as differing from <\/span>Oxford<\/span>, not I. You seem indeed to think
\nthat the Fowlers are a sort of double-headed Pope to the British public in all
\nlinguistic matters and nobody could dare question their dictates or ukases \u2014
\nonly I do so because I am antiquated and am living in <\/span>India<\/span>. I take leave to point out to you
\nthat this is not yet a universally admitted catholic dogma. The Fowlers indeed
\nseem to claim something of the kind, they make their enunciations with a
\nhaughty papal arrogance condemning those who differ from them as outcasts and
\nbrushing them aside in a few words or without a mention. But it is not quite
\nlike that. What is current English? As far as pronunciation goes, every
\nEnglishman knows that for an immense number of words there is no such thing \u2014
\nEnglishmen of equal education pronounce them in different ways, sometimes in
\nmore than two different ways. "Either"-"neither" is a
\ncurrent pronunciation, so is "eether" "neether". In some
\nwords the "th" is pronounced variably as a soft "d" or a
\nsoft "t" or as "th" \u2014 and so on. If the <\/span>Oxford<\/span> pronunciation of "vision"
\nand "meditation" is correct <\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 324<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncurrent English, then the confusion has
\nmuch increased since my time, for then at feast every body pronounced
\n"vizhun’\\ <\/i>‘"meditashun", as I do still and shall go on doing
\nso. Or if the other existed, it must have been confined to uneducated people.
\nBut you suggest that my pronunciation is antiquated, English has advanced since
\nthen as since Shakespeare. But I must point out that you yourself quote
\nChambers for "vizhun" and following your example \u2014 not out of
\nfavouritism \u2014 I may quote him for "summation" \u2014
\n"summashun", not "shn". The latest edition of Chambers is
\ndated 1931 and the editors have not thought themselves bound by the decisive
\nchange of the English language to change "shun" into "shn".
\nHas the decisive change taken place since 1931? Moreover in the recent dispute
\nabout the standard Broadcast pronunciation, the decisions of Bernard Shaw’s
\nCommittee were furiously disputed \u2014 if Fowler and Oxford were papal authorities
\nin England for current speech (it was current speech the Committee was trying
\nto fix through the broadcasts), would it not have been sufficient simply to
\nquote the Oxford in order to produce an awed and crushed silence?<\/span><\/p>\n

So your P.S. has no solid ground to stand on
\nsince there is no "fixed" current speech and Fowler is not its Pope
\nand there is no universal currency of his vizhn of things. Language is not
\nbound by analogy and because "meditation" has become
\n"meditashun" it does not follow that it must become
\n"meditashn" and that "tation" is now a monosyllable
\ncontrary to all common sense and the privilege of the ear. It might just as
\nwell be argued that it will necessarily be clipped farther until the whole word
\nbecomes a monosyllable. Language is neither made nor developed in that way \u2014 if
\nthe English language were so to deprive itself of all beauty by turning vision
\ninto vizhn and then into vzhn and all other words into similar horrors, I would
\nhasten to abandon it for Sanskrit or French or Bengali \u2014 or even Swahili.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP.S. By the way, one point. Does the <\/span>Oxford<\/span> pronounce in cold blood and so many
\nset words that vision, passion (and by logical extension treason, maiden,
\ngarden etc.) are mono\u00adsyllables? Or is it your inference from "realm"
\nand "prism"?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 325<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

READING AND POETIC
\nCREATION AND YOGA<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tIf the latter, I would only say,
\n\t"Beware" of too rigidly logical inferences. If the former, I can only say
\n\tthat Oxford needs some gas from Hitler to save the English mind from its
\n\tpedants. This quite apart from the currency of
\n\tvizhns.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t20-9-1934<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tQ: I
\n\tam sincerely sorry for mistaking you on an important point. But before my
\n\targumentative wooden-headedness gives up the ghost under your sledge-hammer
\n\tit is bursting to cry a Themistoclean "Strike, but hear". Please try to
\n\tunderstand my misunderstanding. What you wrote was: " ”Treason” of course
\n\tis pronounced trez’n’, but
\n\tthat does not make it a monosyllable in scansion because there is in these
\n\twords a very perceptible slurred vowel sound in pronunciation which I
\n\trepresent by the ‘; in
\n\t”poison’
\n\talso." I think it must have been the
\n\tword "scansion"
\n\twhich led me astray\u2014as if you had meant that these words were
\n\tnon-monosyllabic in poetry only. But am I really misjudging Chambers as well
\n\tas the Fowlers when I draw the logical inference that, since a dictionary is
\n\tno dictionary if it does not follow a coherent system and since these
\n\tpeople absolutely omit to make any distinction between the indicated
\n\tscansion of "prism", "realm", "rhythm"
\n\tetc., and that of "treason" and "poison", they definitely mean us to take
\n\tall these words as monosyllables? If Chambers who writes
\n\t"vizhun" but
\n\t"trezn" and
\n\t"poizn" just as he writes "relm"
\n\tand "rithm", intends us to understand
\n\tthat there is some difference between
\n\tthe scansions of the latter pairs he, in my opinion, completely
\n\tde-dictionaries his work by so illogical an expectation. He and the Fowlers
\n\tmay not say in cold blood and so many set words that "treason" and "poison"
\n\tare monosyllables but it is their design, in most freezing blood and more
\n\teloquently than words can express, that they should fall into the same
\n\tcategory as "realm" and "rhythm". Else, what could have prevented them from
\n\tinventing some such sign as your ‘
\n\tto<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 326<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tmark
\n\tthe dissimilarity ? My sin was to have
\n\tloved logic not wisely but too well where logicality had been
\n\tobstreperously announced in flaring capitals on the title page and
\n\tthroughout the whole book by a fixed system of spelling and pronunciation.
\n\tMy Othellolike extremity of love plunged
\n\tme into abysmal errors, but oh the Iagoistic "motiveless
\n\tmalignity" of lexicographers!<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tI
\n\tam grateful to you for disabusing my mind of its trust in these
\n\tself-appointed Popes. Your contentions I accept: I also see that the beauty
\n\tof the English language is at stake when these Fowlers and their
\n\tilk start their word-clipping business.
\n\tYou could at least turn to Sanskrit or French or Bengali, but I without
\n\tEnglish would be quieter than the grave.<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA:
\n\t<\/b>It seemed to me impossible that even the reckless Fowler \u2014 reckless in the
\n\texcess of his learning \u2014 should be so audacious as to announce that this
\n\tlarge class of words accepted as dissyllables from the beginning of
\n\t(English) time were really mono\u00adsyllables. After all, the lexicographers do
\n\tnot set out to give the number of syllables in a word. Pronunciation is a
\n\tdifferent matter. Realm cannot be a dissyllable unless you violently make it
\n\tso, because 1 is a liquid like r and you cannot make a dissyllable of words
\n\tlike "charm", unless
\n\tyou Scotchify the English language and
\n\tmake it char’r’r’m or vulgarise it and
\n\tmake it charrum \u2014 and even char’r’r’m is
\n\tafter all a monosyllable. Prism, the ism in Socialism and pessimism, rhythm
\n\tcan be made dissyllabic; but by convention (convention has nothing to do
\n\twith these things) the ism, rhythm are treated as a single syllable, because
\n\tof the etymology. But there is absolutely no reason to bring in this
\n\tconvention with treason, poison, garden or maiden (coming from French
\n\ttrahison, poison <\/i>and some O.E. equivalent of the German
\n\tgarten<\/i>, madchen<\/i>). The dictionaries give the same mark of pronunciation
\n\tfor thm, sm
\n\tand the den (dn) of maiden and
\n\tson (sn) of treason because they are
\n\tphonetically the same. The French pronounce
\n\trhythme\u2014 reethm (I make English
\n\tsound indications) without anything to help them out in passing from
\n\tth to m,
\n\tbut the English tongue<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 327<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tcan’t do that, there is a very
\n\tperceptible quarter vowel or one-eighth vowel sound between
\n\tth and m
\n\t\u2014 if it were not so the plural rhythms would be unpronounceable. I remember
\n\tin my French class at St. Paul’s our teacher (a Frenchman) insisted on our
\n\tpronouncing ordre <\/i>in the French
\n\tway \u2014 in his mouth orrdrr; I was the
\n\tonly one who succeeded, the others all made it
\n\tauder, orrder, audrer, or some
\n\tsuch variation. There is the same difference of habit with words like
\n\trhythm, and yet conventionally the French treatment is accepted so far as to
\n\timpose rhythm as a monosyllable. Realm on the other hand is pronounced truly
\n\tas a monosyllable without the help of any fraction of a vowel.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t30-9-1934 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ:
\n\tWhy have you bucked at my "azure"
\n\tas a line-ending ? And why so late in
\n\tthe day ? Twice before I have used the
\n\tsame inversion and it caused no alarm. Simple poetic licence.
\n\tSir. If Wordsworth could write<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tWhat awful perspective;
\n\twhile from our sight…<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tand leave
\n\tno reverberation of "awful" in the
\n\treader’s mind, and if
\n\tAbercrombie boldly come out with<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tTo smite the horny eyes of
\n\tmen<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tWith the renown of our
\n\tHeaven<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tand our
\n\thorny eyes remain unsmitten by his
\n\ttopsyturvy "Heaven" \u2014 why, then, I need
\n\tnot feel too shy to shift the accent of "azure"
\n\tjust because of poor me happening to be an Indian. Not that an alternative
\n\tline getting rid of that word is impossible \u2014 quite a fine one can be
\n\twritten with "obscure". But why does
\n\tthis particular inversion shock you? There is nothing
\n\tun-English or
\n\tunpoetic about it \u2014 so far as I can see,
\n\tthough of course such things should not be done often. What do you say
\n\t?<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tYour
\n\t"through whom" in place of my
\n\t"wherethrough" in another line is an improvement, but it is<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 328<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t
\n\tdifficult to reject that word as a legal archaism inadmissible in good
\n\tpoetry. Your remark about "whereas"
\n\tin my A.E. essay seemed to me
\n\tjust in pointing out the obscurity of connection it introduced between the
\n\ttwo parts of my sentence, but the term itself has no stigma on it of
\n\tobsolescence as does for instance "whenas": in poetry it would be rather prosaic, while
\n\t"wherethrough" is a special poetic
\n\tusage as any big dictionary will tell us, and in certain contexts it would
\n\tbe preferable to "through which",
\n\tjust as "whereon", "wherein", and
\n\t"whereby" would sometimes be better than their ordinary equivalents. I
\n\twonder why you have become so ultra-modern: I remember you jibbing also at
\n\t"from out" \u2014 a phrase which has not fallen into desuetude yet,
\n\tand can be used occasionally even in a common context: e.g. "from out the
\n\tbed".<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA: <\/b>I can
\n\tswallow "perspective" with some difficulty, but if anybody tried to justify
\n\tby it a line like this (let us say in a poem to Miss Mayo):<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tO \u00ednspect\u00f3r, why s\u00faggestive of drains
\n\t?<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tI would
\n\tbuck. I disapprove totally of Abercrombie’s
\n\tbold wriggle with Heaven, but even he surely never meant to put the accent
\n\ton the second syllable and pronounce it Hev\u00e9nn.
\n\tI absolutely refuse to pronounce "azure" as "az\u00fare". "Perspective" can just
\n\tbe managed by making it practically atonal or unaccented or evenly accented,
\n\twhich comes to the same thing. "Sapphire" can be managed at the end of a
\n\tline, e.g. "strong sapphire", because "phire"
\n\tis long and the voice trails over it, but the
\n\t"ure" of "azure" is more slurred into shortness than trailed out into
\n\tlength as if it were "azyoore".<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tI didn’t suggest that "whereas" was obsolete. It is a
\n\tperfectly good word in its place, e.g. He pretended the place was empty
\n\twhereas in reality it was crowded, packed, overflowing; but its use as a
\n\tloose conjunctive turn which can be conveniently shoved into any hole to
\n\tkeep two sentences together is altogether reprehensible<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 329<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tNone of these words is obsolete, but "wherethrough" is rhetorically
\n\tpedantic, just as "whereabout" or "wherewithal" would be. It is no use
\n\tthrowing the dictionary at my head \u2014 the dictionary admits many words which
\n\tpoetry refuses to admit. Of course you can drag any word in the dictionary
\n\tinto poetry if you like, e.g.:<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMy spirit parenthetically wise<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tGave me its obiter dictum; a
\n\tpropos<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tI looked within with weird and brilliant eyes<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd found in the pit of my stomach the juste mot.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tBut all that is possible is not
\n\tcommendable. So if you seek a pretext wherethrough to bring in these heavy
\n\tvisitors I shall buck and seek a means whereby to eject them.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tP.S. <\/b>It
\n\tis not to the use of "azure" in place of an iamb in the last foot that I
\n\tobject but to your blessed accent on the last syllable. I will even, if you
\n\ttake that sign off, allow you to rhyme "azure" with "pure" and pass it off
\n\tas an Abercrombiean acrobacy by way of
\n\tfun. But not otherwise \u2014 the accent mark must go.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t2-10-1936<\/span><\/font> \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSHAKESPEARE’S INSPIRATION<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ:
\n\tFrom what plane are the substance and
\n\trhythm of this phrase from Shakespeare ?
\n\t\u2014<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tthe
\n\tprophetic soul <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tOf the wide world dreaming on things to come.<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAre they really from his
\n\tusual plane\u2014the vital?<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA:
\n\t<\/b>The origin of the inspiration may be from anywhere, but in Shakespeare it
\n\talways comes through the vital and strongly coloured by it as in some others
\n\tit comes from the poetic intelligencegence. <\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 330<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tWhat play or poem is this from? I don’t remember it. It sounds
\n\talmost overmental in origin.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tQ:
\n\tThe phrase occurs in Sonnet CVII
\n\tbeginning,<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tNot mine
\n\town fears, nor the prophetic soul <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tOf the wide world, dreaming on things to
\n\tcome, <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tCan yet the lease of my true love control, <\/span>
\n\t<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tSupposed
\n\tas forfeit to a confined doom.<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I am
\n\teager to know is whether the rhythm of the words I have picked out is a
\n\tfusion of the overmental and the vital; or is only the substance from the
\n\tOvermind?<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tA:
\n\t<\/b>There is something from the Above in the rhythm also, but it is rather
\n\tcovered up by the more ordinary rhythm of the first half line and the two
\n\tlines that follow. It is curious that
\n\tthis line and a half should have come in as if by accident and have nothing
\n\treally to do with the restricted subject of the rest.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t19-5-1934<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ: Is
\n\tthere something definitely in the rhythm or language of a line of poetry
\n\twhich would prove it to be from a certain plane
\n\t? Take the lines I am sending you. From what you once wrote to me I
\n\tgather that my first quotation from
\n\tShakespeare has an Overmind movement as
\n\twell as substance coming strongly coloured by the vital. But where and in
\n\twhat lies the vital colour which makes it the highest Shakespearian and not,
\n\tsay, the highest Wordsworthian \u2014 the
\n\tline inspired by Newton ? How does one
\n\tcatch here and elsewhere the essential <\/i>differentiae?<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tA:
\n\t<\/b>It is a question of feeling, not of intellectual understanding. The second
\n\tquotation from Shakespeare \u2014 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n
\n\tPage \u2013 331<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t
\n\tEternity was in our lips and eyes,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tBliss in our brows’ bent, none our parts so poor<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tBut was a race of heaven \u2014<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tis plainly vital in its excited
\n\tthrill. Only the vital can speak with that thrill of absolute passion \u2014 the
\n\trhythm too is vital.1 I have
\n\tgiven the instance2 of
\n\tShakespeare’s<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tit is a tale <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
\n\t<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tSignifying nothing.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThat is a "thought", a judgment on life, so would
\n\tnaturally be assigned to the intellect, but as a matter of fact it is a
\n\tthrow-up from Macbeth’s vital, an
\n\temotional or sensational, not an intellectual judgment and its whole turn
\n\tand rhythm are vital. About the first quotation, Shakespeare’s<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tthe prophetic soul <\/span>
\n\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tOf the wide world dreaming on
\n\tthings to come,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tthere might be some doubt, but still it is quite
\n\tdifferent in tone from Wordsworth’s line on Newton \u2014<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tVoyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone \u2014<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\twhich
\n\tis an above-head vision \u2014 and the difference comes be\u00adcause the vision of
\n\tthe "dreaming soul" is felt through the vital mind and heart before it finds
\n\texpression. It is this constant vitality, vital surge in Shakespeare’s
\n\tlanguage, which makes it a sovereign expression not of mind or knowledge but
\n\tof life. <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t27-2-1935<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tHAMLET <\/span><\/font><\/b> \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ:
\n\tWould you take, as many critics do.
\n\tHamlet as<\/i><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00b9Alongside the lines themselves Sri Aurobindo wrote: "Tremendously vital."<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\u00b2In The Future Poetry.<\/i><\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 332<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\ttypically a mental
\n\tbeing ? How would you characterise his
\n\tessential psychology ?<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA:
\n\t<\/b>Hamlet is a Mind, an intellectual, but like many intellectuals a mind that
\n\tlooks too much all round and sees too many sides to have an effective will
\n\tfor action. He plans ingeniously without coming to anything decisive. And
\n\twhen he does act, it is on a vital impulse. Shakespeare suggests but does
\n\tnot bring out the idealist in him, the man of bright illusions.<\/span><\/font> 
\n\t \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tINTERPRETATION OF A PASSAGE IN SHAKESPEARE <\/span>
\n\t<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tQ: <\/b>On that famous passage of Shakespeare’s\u2014<\/i><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOur revels now are
\n\tended. These our actors, <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tAs I foretold you, were all spirits, and <\/span><\/i>
\n\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tAre
\n\tmelted into air, into thin air:<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tAnd, like the baseless fabric of this vision, <\/span><\/i>
\n\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe
\n\tcloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous
\n\tpalaces, <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe solemn temples, the great globe itself, <\/span><\/i>
\n\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tYea, all which it
\n\tinherit, shall dissolve <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd, like this insubstantial pageant faded, <\/span><\/i>
\n\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tLeave
\n\tnot a rack behind. We are such stuff <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAs dreams are made on, and our little
\n\tlife <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tIs rounded with a sleep. \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\twould it be legitimate to comment as follows
\n\t? \u2014 "The meaning, on the surface, is
\n\tthat for each of us life will pass away as if it were a dream and what will
\n\tremain is the sleep of death, an undetailed everlasting rest. But there is a
\n\tdeeper implication: just as the actor-spirits have not been destroyed and
\n\tonly their visible play has vanished while they themselves, seeming to melt
\n\tinto ‘thin air\\
\n\thave returned to their unknown realm of consciousness, so too the sleep of
\n\tdeath is but an annihilation in appearance \u2014 it is really an unknown state
\n\twhich is our original mode of existence. Nor is this all: from the fourth
\n\tline<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 333<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tonward the
\n\tlanguage and the rhythm serve to evoke by a certain large and deep
\n\tsuggestiveness an intuition of some
\n\ttranscendental God-self\u2014 a being, rapt and remote, who experiences through
\n\teach individual life a dream-interlude between a divine peace and peace, an
\n\t‘insubstantial pageant’ conjured up for a while by its creative imagination
\n\tbetween two states of self-absorbed superconsciousness. We are reminded of
\n\tthe Upanishad’s
\n\tdescription of the mystic trance in which the whole world fades like an
\n\tillusion and the individual soul enters the supreme Spirits unfeatured ecstasy of repose.
\n\tShakespeare’s intuition is not pure
\n\tUpanishad, the supreme Spirit is not
\n\tclearly felt and whatever profundity is there is vague and unintentional;
\n\tstill, a looming mystic light does appear, stay a little, find a suggestive
\n\tcontour before receding and falling away to a music sublimely
\n\tdefunctive."<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tA: <\/b>I don’t think
\n\tShakespeare had any such idea in his mind. What he is dwelling on is the
\n\tinsubstantiality of the world and of
\n\thuman existence. "We are such stuff" does not point to any God-self. "Dream"
\n\tand "sleep" would properly imply Some\u00adbody who dreams and sleeps, but the
\n\ttwo words are merely metaphors. Shakespeare is not an intellectual or
\n\tphilosophic thinker nor a mystic one. All that you can say is that there
\n\tcomes out here an impression or intimation of the illusion of
\n\tMaya, the dream-character of life, but
\n\twithout any vision or intimation of what is behind the dream and the
\n\tillusion. There is nothing in the passage that even hints vaguely the sense
\n\tof something abiding \u2014 all is insubstantial, "into air, into thin air",
\n\t"baseless fabric," "insubstantial pageant", "we
\n\tare such stuff as dreams are made on". "Stuff" points to some inert material
\n\trather than a spirit dreamer or sleep. Of course one can always read
\n\tthings into it for one’s own pleasure, but…<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t8-3-1935 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tQ: I
\n\tadmit that Shakespeare was hot a philosophic or<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 334<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tmystic
\n\tthinker; also that he had no wish to mysticise
\n\tin this passage. But is great poetry always a matter of one’s
\n\tconscious intention ? \u2014 do not
\n\tunconscious or accidental effects occur which have implications beyond the
\n\tpoet’s personal aim or at least
\n\tunrealised in full by him ? A genuinely
\n\tmystic accident of a high order is the quotation I sent you some days back \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tthe prophetic soul <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tOf the wide world dreaming on things
\n\tto come.<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tIf we take this in connection with Prosperous
\n\tlines we may have not only an intuition of the illusion
\n\tof Maya but also that of an abiding
\n\tsomething behind the illusory appearance: the word
\n\t"dream’"
\n\tcommon to the two passages is extremely suggestive. But as Shakespeare was
\n\tnot a systematic thinker it might not be right to construct like this a
\n\tphilosophy of any sort. And in my essay I do not. wish to do so. What,
\n\thowever, surprises me is your saying that there is not the vaguest hint of
\n\tsomething abiding. In the magic performance which
\n\tProspero gave to Ferdinand and Miranda
\n\tit was spirits that produced a simulacrum of material reality \u2014 a very
\n\tconvincing simulacrum and the young,
\n\tlovers must have been quite taken in, until Prospero reminded them of what
\n\the had said before \u2014 namely, that "these
\n\tour actors…were all spirits." They
\n\tmelt into thin air but do not disappear from existence, from conscious being
\n\tof some character however unearthly: they just become invisible and what
\n\tdisappears is the visible pageant produced by them, a seemingly material
\n\tconstruction which yet was a mere phantom. From this seeming, Prospero
\n\tcatches the suggestion that all that looks material is like a phantom, a
\n\tdream, which must vanish, leaving no trace. But as the actor-spirits are not
\n\tdestroyed with the fabric of their visionary pageant, the terms
\n\t"baseless"
\n\tand "insubstantial"
\n\tassume a meaning not quite what you give them. They mean that the pageant<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 335<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\thas no
\n\tbasis in materiality, in substantiality
\n\tas opposed to spirit-nature; and by "we are such stuff as dreams are
\n\tmade on" the outer human earthly
\n\tpersonalities are regarded as dreamlike, as having no permanent basis of
\n\tmaterial reality. I may be going beyond the premises in speaking of a
\n\tGod-self, but, all things considered,
\n\twhat strikes me as analogically implicit in the passage is that "we"
\n\tand earth-existence are projected as a visionary pageant by some
\n\timmaterial being or beings. I can’t
\n\texactly say whether spirits akin to Ariel and his crew are implied or some
\n\tsuperconscious God-self; but a general
\n\timplication of occult if not mystic reality responsible for the pageant of
\n\thuman life and earth-existence seems to
\n\tme inescapable. If pressed to choose on the side either of occult or of
\n\tmystic implication, I would incline towards the latter: the intuition of
\n\tMaya is so strong that the implicit
\n\tsignificance may very well be some vague shadow of its
\n\tUpanishadic complement, and the word
\n\t"sleep"
\n\tmay be a ‘far hint of some rapt,
\n\tremote, self-absorbed superconsciousness.
\n\tThe whole thing is vague and far-looming because in Shakespeare’s
\n\tcase a mystic inspiration would be mostly accidental and his was not a mind
\n\tthat would transmit it easily. The difficulty would be increased since this
\n\tinspiration was mystic rather in the Indian than the Christian way. Only in
\n\tthat line and a half about the prophetic soul did an ultra-Christian mystic
\n\tintuition come out more or less explicit \u2014 a miracle not to be expected
\n\talways.<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tI may be quite at fault in all this complex impression
\n\tand if you tell me again after considering the points I have broached that
\n\tit is absolutely off the mark I shall at once scrap it.<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA: <\/b>One can read anything into anything. But Shakespeare
\n\tsays nothing about the material world or there being a base some\u00adwhere else
\n\tor of our being projected into a dream. He says, "We are <\/i>such stuff." The spirits vanish into air, into
\n\tthin air, as Shakespeare emphasises by repetition, which means to any plain<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 336<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tinterpretation that they too are unreal, only dream-stuff; he does not say
\n\tthat they disappear from view but are there behind all the time. The whole
\n\tstress is on the unreality and insubstantiality
\n\tof existence, whether of a pageant or of the spirits or of ourselves
\n\t\u2014 there is no stress anywhere, no mention or hint of an eternal spiritual
\n\texistence. Shakespeare’s idea here as everywhere is the expression of a mood
\n\tof the vital mind, it is not a reasoned philosophical conclusion. However,
\n\tif you like to argue that, logically, this or that is the true philosophical
\n\tconsequence of what Shakespeare says and that therefore the Daemon who
\n\tinspired him must have meant that, I have no objection. I am simply
\n\tinterpreting the passage as Shakespeare’s transcribing mind has put it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t9-3-1934<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tQ: Just
\n\ta word more about that passage. If it is taken in
\n\tvacuo, there is no internal
\n\tjustification for my idea which turns on^the
\n\tsurvival of the spirits after the pageant has faded. But almost immediately
\n\tafter the stage indication: "…to a
\n\tstrange, hollow and confused noise, they heavily vanish",
\n\toccurs this aside on the part of Prospero:
\n\t(To the Spirits)
\n\t"Well done; avoid; no more."
\n\tThe quoted passage follows a little later. Then again Prospero says
\n\tafter Ferdinand and Miranda are gone:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t"Come
\n\twith a thought: \u2014 I thank you: \u2014 Ariel, come."
\n\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThereupon Ariel enters.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAriel: Thy thoughts I cleave to. What’s
\n\tthy pleasure? Spirit, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tProspero: We must prepare to meet with Caliban.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tWhat do you make of all this
\n\t? And when Ariel reports how he has lured Prosperous
\n\tenemies into a "foul lake", Prospero
\n\tcommends him:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThis was well done, my bird. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThy shape invisible retain
\n\tthou still.<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 337<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t
\n\tStill later, comes another stage-direction:
\n\t"A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers
\n\tSpirits, in shape of hounds…; <\/span><\/i>Prospero
\n\tand Ariel setting them on.’" Even if
\n\tthis is taken to refer to Spirits other than those who produce that masque,
\n\tthe previous quotations are sufficient to prove that only the visible shapes
\n\tand formations vanished\u2014 the entities themselves remained behind all
\n\tthe time. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tTo echo X: "Qu’en dites
\n\tvous?"<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tA: <\/b>I
\n\tdon’t see what all that has to do with the meaning of the passage in
\n\tquestion which plainly insists that nothing endures. Obviously Ariel had an
\n\tinvisible shape \u2014 invisible to human eyes, but the point of the passage is
\n\tthat all shapes and substances and beings disappear into nothingness. We are
\n\tconcerned with Prospero’s meaning, not
\n\twith what actually happened to the spirits or for that matter to the pageant
\n\tin total which we might conceive also of having an invisible source or
\n\tmaterial. He uses the disappearance of the pageant and the spirits as a base
\n\tfor the idea that all existence is an
\n\tillusion \u2014 it is the idea of the illusion that he enforces. If he had
\n\twanted to say, "We disappear, all disappears to view but the reality of us
\n\tand of all things persists in a greater immaterial reality", he would
\n\tsurely have said so or at least not left it to be inferred or reasoned out
\n\tby you in the twentieth century. I repeat, however, that this is my view of
\n\tShakespeare’s meaning and does not affect any possibility of reading into it
\n\tsomething that Shakespeare’s outer mind did not receive or else did not
\n\texpress.<\/span> \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t10-3-1935<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tH. BELLOC<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ: <\/b>I
\n\tthink what Belloc meant in crediting
\n\tVirgil with the power to give us a sense of the Unknown Country was that
\n\tVirgil specialises in a kind of wistful vision of things across great
\n\tdistances in space or time, which renders them dream-like and invests them
\n\twith an air of ideality. He mentions as an instance the passage (perhaps in
\n\tthe<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 338<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t
\n\tsixth book of the Aeneid)
\n\twhere the swimmer sees all Italy from the top of a wave:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tProspexi Italiam
\n\tsumma sublimis ab undo.
\n\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tI dare say \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tSternitur infelix
\n\talieno volnere coelumque <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAspicit et dulces moriens
\n\treminiscitur Argos1<\/sup><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tas well as<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tTendebantque manus ripae ulterioris
\n\tamore2<\/sup><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tbelong
\n\tto the same category. To an ordinary Roman Catholic mind like
\n\tBelloc, which is not conscious of the
\n\tsubtle hierarchy of unseen worlds, whatever is vaguely or remotely appealing
\n\t\u2014 in short, beautifully misty \u2014 is mystical, and
\n\t"revelatory"
\n\tof the native land of the soul. Add to this that Virgil’s
\n\trhythm is exquisitely euphonious and it is no wonder Belloc should feel as
\n\tif the very harps of heaven were echoed by the
\n\tMantuan.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHe couples Shakespeare with Virgil as a master of (to put
\n\tit in a phrase of X) "earth-transforming
\n\tgramarye". The quotations he gives from
\n\tShakespeare struck me as rather peculiar in the context: I don’t
\n\texactly remember them but something in the style of<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tNights tapers3<\/sup>
\n\tare burnt out and jocund day <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tStands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tseems to give him a wonderful flash of the Unknown
\n\tCountry!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t1<\/span><\/sup>
\n\t"Unhappy, he fell by a stranger’s wound and looked
\n\tat the sky and, dying, remembered sweet
\n\tArgos."<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t2<\/span><\/sup>
\n\t"They stretched their hands for love of the other shore"
\n\t(Flecker’s translation.)<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t3<\/span><\/sup>
\n\tThe word in the original is "candles".<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 339<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t
\n\tHe also alludes to the four magical lines of Keats about
\n\tRuth "amid the alien corn"
\n\tand Victor Hugo’s
\n\tat-least-for-once truly delicate,
\n\tunrhetorical passage on the same theme
\n\tin "La
\n\tL\u00e9gende des Si\u00e8cles’\\
\n\tI wonder if you recollect the passage: its last two stanzas are especially
\n\tenchanting:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tTout reposait dans
\n\tUr et
\n\tdans J\u00e9rimadeth;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tLes astres \u00e9maillaient le ciel profond et
\n\tsombre;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tLe
\n\tcroissant fin et clair parmi
\n\tces fleurs de l’ombre <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tBrillait \u00e0
\n\tV accident, et Ruth
\n\tse demandait,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tImmobile, ouvrant l’\u0153il \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 sous
\n\tses voiles,
\n\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQuel dieu, quel
\n\tmoissonneur de l’\u00e9 ternel \u00e9t\u00e9 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAvail,
\n\ten s’en
\n\tallant, n\u00e9gligemment jet\u00e9 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tCette
\n\tfaucille d’or dans le champ des \u00e9toiles.1<\/sup><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tWhat do you think of them ?<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tA: <\/b>If
\n\tthat is Belloc’s idea of the mystic, I
\n\tcan’t put much value on his Roman Catholic mind! Shakespeare’s lines and
\n\tHugo’s also are good poetry and may be very enchanting, as you say, but
\n\tthere is nothing in the least deep or mystic about them. Night’s tapers are
\n\tthe usual poetic metaphor, Hugo’s moissonneur <\/i>and faucille d’or
\n\t<\/i>are an
\n\tingenious fancy \u2014 there is nothing true behind it, not the least shadow of a
\n\tmystical experience. The lines quoted from Virgil are exceedingly moving and
\n\tpoetic, but it is pathos of the life plane, not anything more \u2014 Virgil would
\n\thave stared if he had been told that his
\n\tripae ulterioris <\/i>was
\n\trevelatory of the native land of the soul. These sentimental modern
\n\tintellectuals are terrible: they will read anything into anything; that is
\n\tbecause they have no touch on the Truth, so they make up for it by a
\n\tgambolling fancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t1-4-1932<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t1<\/span><\/sup>
\n\t"All were asleep in Ur and in Jerimadeth; the stars enamelled the deep and
\n\tsombre sky; the thin clear
\n\tcrescent shone in the West among these flowers of the darkness, and Ruth,
\n\tstanding still and gazing through her half-parted veils, asked herself:
\n\t‘What god, what reaper of the eternal
\n\tsummer has thrown, while going home, this sickle of gold in the starry field?’"<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 340<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tSAMAIN AND FLECKER<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ: <\/b>I am
\n\tsending you two poems\u2014one is Albert Samain’s
\n\tfamous "Pannyre
\n\taux talons (for"
\n\tand the other is Fleckers much-praised
\n\ttranslation of it. I shall be very much
\n\tinterested in your comparison of the two. Here is Samain:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tDans la salle en
\n\trumeur un
\n\tsilence a pass\u00e9…<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPannyre aux talons d’or s’avance pour
\n\tdanser.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tUn voile aux mille plis la cache tout
\n\tenti\u00e8re.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tD’un
\n\tlong trille
\n\td’argent la fl\u00fbte, la premi\u00e8re,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tU
\n\tinvite; elle s’\u00e9lance,
\n\tentre-croise ses pas,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tEt, du lent
\n\tmouvement imprim\u00e9 par ses bras,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tDonne un rythme bizarre \u00e0l’\u00e9toff nombreuse,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQui s’\u00e9largit,
\n\tondule, et se gonfle et se creuse,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tEt se d\u00e9ploie enfin en large
\n\ttourbillon…<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tEt Pannyre devient fleur,
\n\tflamme, papillon!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tTous se
\n\ttaisent;’
\n\tles yeux la
\n\tsuivent en
\n\textase.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPeu \u00e0peu la fureur de la
\n\tdanse l’embrase.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tElle tourne toujours;
\n\tvite! plus vite encor!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tLa flamme \u00e9perdument vacille aux flambeaux
\n\td’or!…<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPuis,
\n\tbrusque, elle s’arr\u00ea  te au milieu de la salle;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tEt le voile qui
\n\ttourne autour d’elle en
\n\tspirale, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tSuspendu dans sa course,
\n\tapaise ses long plis, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tEt se collant aux
\n\tseins aigus, aux
\n\tflancs
\n\tpolis, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tComme au travers d’une eau soyeuse et continue, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tDans un
\n\tdivin \u00e9clair,
\n\tmontre Pannyre
\n\tnue.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHere is Flecker:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe revel pauses, and the room is still, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe silver flute
\n\tinvites her with a trill, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAnd buried in her great veils, fold on fold, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tRises
\n\tto dance Pannyra, Heel of Gold. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHer
\n\tlight steps cross, her subtle arm impels <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe clinging drapery, it shrinks
\n\tand swells,<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 341<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t
\n\tHollows and floats, and bursts into a whirl;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tShe is a\/lower,
\n\ta moth, a flaming girl. All lips are silent; eyes are all in trance, She
\n\tslowly wakes the madness of the dance;<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tWindy and wild
\n\tthe golden torches burn;<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tShe turns, and
\n\tswifter yet she tries to turn, Then stops; a sudden marble stiff
\n\tshe stands, The veil that round her coiled its spiral bands, Checked in its
\n\tcourse, brings all its folds to rest, And clinging to bright limb and
\n\tpointed breast Shows, as beneath silk waters woven fine,
\n\tPannyra naked in a flash divine!<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAll
\n\there," says a critic,
\n\t"is bright and sparkling as the jewels
\n\ton the dancer’s breast, but there is one
\n\till-adjusted word \u2014 pointed breast \u2014 which is perhaps more
\n\tphysiological than poetic." Personally I
\n\tdon’t somehow react very happily to the
\n\tword "girl"
\n\tin line 8.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tA:<\/span><\/b>
\n\tSamain’s poem is a fine piece of work,
\n\tinspired and perfect; Flecker’s
\n\tis good only in substance, an adequate picture, one may say, but the
\n\texpression and verse are admirable within their limits. The difference is
\n\tthat the French has vision and the inspired movement that comes with vision
\n\t\u2014 all on the vital plane, of course, \u2014 but the English version has only
\n\tphysical sight, sometimes with a little glow in it, and the precision that
\n\tcomes with that sight. I don’t know why your critical sense objects to
\n\t"girl". This line,<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShe is a flower, a moth, a flaming girl,<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tand one other,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tWindy and wild the golden torches burn, <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tare the only
\n\ttwo that rise above the plane of physical sight. But<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 342<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tboth these poems have the distinction of being
\n\tperfectly satisfying in their own kind.<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tP.S.
\n\t<\/b>"Flaming girl" and "pointed breast" might be wrong in spirit as a
\n\ttranslation of the French \u2014 but that is just what Flecker’s poem is not, in spite of its
\n\tapparent or outward fidelity, it is in spirit quite a different poem.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t23-6-1932<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHOPKINS
\n\tAND KIPLING<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ: <\/b>I
\n\tshould like to have a few words from you on the poetic style and technique
\n\tof these two quotations. The first is an instance of
\n\tGerard
\n\tManley Hopkins’ polyphony
\n\t"at its most magnificent
\n\tand intricate":<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tEarnest, earthless,
\n\tequal, attuneable, \/ vaulty, voluminous…stupendous <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tEvening strains to be time’s
\n\tvast, \/ womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night. <\/i><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHer fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, \/ her wild hollow hoarlight
\n\thung to the height <\/i><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tWaste: her earliest stars, earl-stars, \/ stars <\/i>principal, overbend
\n\tus, <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tFire-featuring heaven. For earth her being has <\/span>
\n\tunbound, her dapple is at an end astray or aswarm, all <\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tthrough her in throngs;
\n\t\/ self in self steeped and pushed
\n\t\u2014 quite Disremembering, dismembering \/ all now. Heart, you round me right <\/span>
\n\t<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tWith: Our evening is over us;
\n\tour night whelms, whelms, and will end us….<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tThe next quotation illustrates Kipling’s
\n\tTommy’-Atkins-music at its most vivid
\n\tand onomatopoeic \u2014 lines considered by Lascelles Abercrombie to be a
\n\tmasterly fusion<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 343<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t
\n\tof all the elements necessary in poetic technique:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t‘Less
\n\tyou want your toes trod off you’d better
\n\tget back at once,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tFor the bullocks are walking
\n\ttwo by two, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe "byles" are walking two
\n\tby two, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe bullocks are walking two by two, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tAn’
\n\tthe elephants bring the guns!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHo! Yuss! <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tGreat \u2014 big
\n\t\u2014 long \u2014 black forty-pounder guns:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\tJiggery-jolty
\n\tto and fro, <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tEach as big as a launch in tow \u2014 <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tBlind \u2014 dumb \u2014 broad-breached
\n\tbeggars o’ <\/i><\/span>
\n\tbattering guns!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA: <\/b>My verdict on Kipling’s lines
\n\twould be that they are fit for the columns of The Illustrated Weekly of India
\n\t<\/i>and nowhere else. I refuse to accept this
\n\tjournalistic jingle as poetry. As for Abercrombie’s comment, \u2014 unspeakable rubbish, unhappily spoken!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tHopkins
\n\tis a different proposition; he is a poet, which Kipling never was nor could
\n\tbe. He has vision, power, origina\u00adlity; but his technique errs by excess; he
\n\tpiles on you his effects, repeats, exaggerates and in the end it is perhaps
\n\tgreat in effort, but not great in success. Much material is there, many new
\n\tsuggestions, but not a work realised, not a harmoniously perfect whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t30-12-1932<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tHOUSMAN<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ:<\/span><\/b>
\n\tI have been waiting for a long time to take a look at A.
\n\tE.
\n\tHousman’s little book "The Name
\n\tand Nature of Poetry". It’s
\n\tbeen with you for months now. Perhaps you could spare it for a while
\n\t? How did you like it?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA:
\n\t<\/b>Here is the book. I kept it with the intention of noting down my own ideas
\n\ton Housman’s theory, but all this time
\n\thas elapsed<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 344<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

without
\n\tmy being able to do it. Apart from the theory
\n\tHousman, judging from the book, has a fine sense of poetic quality in
\n\tothers. For his own poetry, from the extracts I have seen, looks rather
\n\tthin. I have read the book three or four times and always with satisfaction
\n\tto my solar plexus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t18-9-1936<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tEDWARD SHANKS<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tQ: <\/b>I
\n\tam sending you a sonnet by Edward Shanks, considered to be "one of our best
\n\tyounger poets":<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tO Dearest, if the touch
\n\tof common things <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tCan taint our love or wither,
\n\tlet it die. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe freest-hearted lark that soars and sings <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tSoon after dawn
\n\tamid a dew-brushed sky<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tTakes song from love and knows well where love lies, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHid
\n\tin the grass, the dear domestic nest, <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe secret, splendid, common paradise.
\n\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe strangest joys are not the loveliest.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tPassion
\n\tfar-sought is dead when it is found<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tBut love
\n\tthat’s born of intimate common things
\n\t<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tCries with a voice of splendour, with a sound <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThat over stranger feeling
\n\tshakes and rings.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe best of love, the highest ecstasy <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tLies in the
\n\tintimate touch of you and me.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tA:<\/b> Shanks \u2014 Phoebus,
\n\twhat a name!! I am not in love with the
\n\tsonnet, though it is smoothly and musically rhythmed. The sentiment is rather namby-pamby, some of the lines
\n\tweak, others too emphatic, e.g. the twelfth. It just misses being a really
\n\tgood poem, or is so, like the curate’s egg, in parts: e.g. the two opening
\n\tlines of the third verse are excellent, but they are immediately spoiled by
\n\ttwo lines that shout and rattle. So too the last couplet<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 345<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tpromises well in its first line, but the last disappoints, it is too obvious
\n\ta turn and there is no fusion of the idea with the emotion that ought to be
\n\tthere and isn’t. Still, the writer is evidently a poet and the sonnet very
\n\timperfect but by no means negligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t12-6-1931<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tTAGORE<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTagore
\n\thas been a wayfarer towards the same goal as ours in his own way \u2014 that is
\n\tthe main thing, the exact stage of advance and putting of the steps are
\n\tminor matters. His exact position as a poet or a prophet or anything else
\n\twill be assigned by posterity and we need not be in haste to anticipate the
\n\tfinal verdict. The immediate verdict after his departure or soon after it
\n\tmay very well be a rough one, \u2014 for this is a generation that seems to take
\n\ta delight in trampling with an almost Nazi rudeness on the bodies of the
\n\tancestors, specially the immediate ancestors. I have read with an interested
\n\tsurprise that Napoleon was only a bustling and self-important nincompoop
\n\tall whose great achievements were done by others, that Shakespeare was "no
\n\tgreat things" and that most other great men were by no means so great as the
\n\tstupid respect and reverence of past ignorant ages made them out to be!
\n\tWhat chance has then Tagore ? But these
\n\tinjustices of the moment do not endure \u2014 in the end a wise and fair
\n\testimmate is formed and survives the
\n\tchanges of time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tTagore, of course, belonged to an age which had faith in
\n\tits ideas and whose very denials were creative affirmations. That makes an
\n\timmense difference. Your strictures on his later development may or may not
\n\tbe correct, but this mixture even was the note of the day and it expressed a
\n\ttangible hope of fusion into something new and true \u2014 therefore it could
\n\tcreate. Now all that idealism has been smashed to pieces by the immense
\n\tadverse event and everybody is busy exposing its weaknesses \u2014 but nobody
\n\tknows what to put in its place. A mixture of scepticism and slogans,
\n\t"Heil-Hitler" and the Fascist salute and
\n\tFive-Year-Plan and the beating of everybody into one amorphous shape, a
\n\tdisabused denial of all ideals on one side and on the other a blind<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 346<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t"shut-my-eyes
\n\tand shut-everybody’s-eyes" plunge into
\n\tthe bog in the hope of finding some firm foundation there, will not carry us
\n\tvery far. And what else is there ? Until
\n\tnew spiritual values are discovered, no great enduring creation is possible.<\/span> \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t24-3-1934<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 347<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Section Six THE POET AND THE CRITIC   READING AND POETIC CREATION AND YOGA   A literary man is one who loves literature and literary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-26-on-himself-volume-26","wpcat-11-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","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=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}