Indian Poets and English Poetry

Introduction

The Collection of letters - The English Language and the Indian Spirit - preceding the present one was appreciated by "an audience fit though few" interested in the adventure of India's contribution to the varied world of English poetry. This audience is expected to welcome the cut and thrust of two idealistic friends on a much larger scale covering a greater field of literary reference fanning out essentially from the same central theme as before. This theme is the poetic vision and work of Sri Aurobindo, mostly exemplified in his epic Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol.

In the course of the main discussion a diversity of subjects, both personal and general, came up because of the wide-ranging minds of the two correspondents. This intrusion has not been rebuffed in the interests of a single-tracked concentrated controversy. Life in a broad sense, sweeping over both present-day issues and past history, has formed, along with literature itself in an extensive context, the subject of the letters.

It is with the glad permission of Miss Raine that her side of the correspondence no less than mine, running over nearly three years, has been brought out. In her letter of 2.3.1988 she said: "By all means publish whatever you like of our exchanges".

The sharing of these exchanges with the public has suddenly been achieved after a long wait, thanks to the remarkable enthusiasm of one reader of the earlier correspondence. I met him for the first time during his flying visit to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram on his way from England to East Africa. The topic of the old exchanges which he had happened to enjoy came up. I told him of the new ones which had stretched over more than double the length. He asked: "Why don't you bring them out?" My answer was: "Lack of finance." At once he exclaimed: "Why not let me have the privilege of standing the cost?"

I cannot be sufficiently grateful for this spontaneous burst of instant generosity bespeaking the heart of an ardent lover of literary quests - especially those bearing on a multi-creative spiritual figure he deeply revered.

K.D. Sethna