Letters on poetry and other forms of literature, on painting and the other arts, on beauty and aesthetics, and on their relation to the practice of yoga.
On Poetry Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
Letters on poetry and other forms of literature, on painting and the other arts, on beauty and aesthetics, and on their relation to the practice of yoga. Most of these letters were written by Sri Aurobindo in the 1930 and 1940s to members of his ashram. Around one sixth of them were published during his lifetime; the rest were transcribed from his manuscripts after his passing. Many are being published for the first time in this volume.
THEME/S
It is not very clear why the dictum about বৎসর should not apply to হৃৎপাত্রে and মৃৎপাত্রে. My own feeling is against this extra syllable in such words (দিক্প্রান্তে seems to me different, because দিক্ is a separate word in Bengali), but neither feeling nor logic can stand against usage. A language is like an absolute queen; you have to obey her laws, reasonable or unreasonable, and not only her laws, but her caprices—so long as they last,—unless you are one of her acknowledged favourites and then you can make hay of her laws and (sometimes) defy even her caprices provided you are quite sure of the favour. In this case, Tagore perhaps feels the absoluteness of some usage with regard to these particular words? But one can always break through law and usage and even pass over the judgment of an "arbiter of elegances",—at one's own risk.
26 January 1932
Funny thing—this word-coinage! Sometimes people accept it, sometimes they reject.
After all when one coins a new word, one has to take the chance. If the word is properly formed and not ugly or unintelligible, it seems to me all right to venture.
If it is not accepted it will remain a blot in the poem. Tagore coined the word তৃণাঞ্চিত but he laments that people have not accepted it.
Why a blot? There are many words in Greek poetry which occur only once in the whole literature, but that is not considered a defect in the poem. It is called a hapax legomenon, "a once spoken
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word" and that's all. তৃণাঞ্চিত for instance is a fine word and can adorn, not blot Tagore's poetry even if no one else uses it. I think Shakespeare has many words coined by him or at least some that do not occur elsewhere.
16 January 1937
Will it be a narrowness on the part of the Calcutta University if it does not include foreign words for the enrichment of Bengali literature?
It is a matter of opinion and tastes differ. But I don't see how a University can change the language. A language grows and is not made, except in so far as it is the great poets and prose writers who make it.
15 July 1937
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