Short prose pieces written between 1910 and 1950, but not published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime.
Short prose pieces written between 1910 and 1950, but not published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime. The material is arranged in four parts: (1) 'Essays Divine and Human', complete essays on yoga and related subjects, (2) 'From Man to Superman: Notes and Fragments on Philosophy, Psychology and Yoga'; (3) 'Notes and Fragments on Various Subjects', and (4) Thoughts and Aphorisms. (Some of this material was formally published under the title 'The Hour of God and Other Writings')
The greatest poets are usually those who arise either out of a large simple and puissant environment or out of a movement of mind that is grandiose, forceful & elemental. When man becomes excessively refined in intellect, curious in aesthetic sensibility or minute & exact in intellectual reasoning, it becomes more & more difficult to write great and powerful poetry. Ages of accomplished intellectuality & scholarship or of strong scientific rationality are not favourable to the birth of great poets or, if they are born, not favourable to the free & untrammelled action of their gifts. They remain great, but their greatness bends under a load; there is a lack of triumphant spontaneity and they do not draw as freely or directly from the sources of human action & character. An untameable elemental force is needed to overcome more than partially the denials of the environment. For poetry, even though it appeals in passing to the intellect & aesthetic sense, does not proceed from them but is in its nature an elemental power proceeding from the secret & elemental Power within which sees directly & creates sovereignly, & it passes at once to our vital & elemental parts. Intellect and the aesthetic faculties are necessary to the perfection of our critical enjoyment; but they were only assistants, not the direct agents of this divine birth.
Page 404
Circa 1912. Editorial title. In the manuscript the heading is “The Genius of Valmekie” (see the next piece).
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