Savitri

   XIII

Savitri and Faust

      A poem like Savitri that was, as we have seen, some fifty years a-growing, a poem that attempts to present at one and the same time a human and a cosmic drama, a poem besides that reveals some of the features of a tantalising palimpsest, must needs, as Sri Aurobindo himself has admitted, show traces of variations in tone and changes in style. In this respect, as also in others, Savitri challenges comparison with another great poetic masterpiece, Goethe's Faust,¹²² which was years a-growing. Sri Aurobindo greatly admired Goethe and once wrote to a disciple:

Yes, Goethe goes much deeper than Shakespeare; he had an

incomparably greater intellect than the English Poet and

sounded problems of life and thought Shakespeare had no means

of approaching even. But he was certainly not a greater poet;

I do not find myself very ready to admit either that he was

Shakespeare's equal. He wrote out of a high poetic intelligence

but his style and movement nowhere came near the poetic power,

the magic, the sovereign expression and profound or subtle rhythms

of Shakespeare... There is too a touch mostly wanting—the touch

of an absolute, an intensely inspired or revealing inevitability...¹²³

Sri Aurobindo thus knew his Faust even as he knew the Commedia intimately, and he might even have seen—as Kuno Fischer and others have—resemblances between the two poems. In the earliest version dating from 1773, Goethe seems to have laid the stress on the heroine, Gretchen, while Faust was no more than the Faust of the old legend. It was almost twenty-five years later that—perhaps under the influence of Schiller—the characterisation of Faust acquired deeper symbolic hues and that he was raised to a higher philosophical plane. The Second Part, written during the last eight years of his life when he enjoyed the friendship of Eckermann, gave the play a further dimension and made the whole work a philosophical poem of imperishable value, though there will always be people who prefer the First to the Second Part. For example, A.C. Bradley says,

Goethe himself could never have told the world what he was

going to express in the First Part of Faust: the poem told him, and

it is one of the world's greatest. He knew too well what he was

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going to express in the Second Part and with all its wisdom and

beauty it is scarcely a great poem.¹²⁴

As Faust added new dimensions in the Second Part, so did Savitri in its final revised form. These additions to Savitri and the new accent given to her character owe their origin, as already pointed out, partly to Sri Aurobindo's Yogic experiences and the philosophy that he outlined on their basis, and partly also to his association with the Mother during the last thirty years of his life. What Karl Breul says in his 'Introduction' to the Bohn's Series edition about Part II of Faust may also be said of Book II of Savitri: "...although sometimes difficult, yet by no means abstruse and incomprehensible, not a whit harder to understand in general motive and outline. "The Aurobindonian view that when right aspiration wells up from man's troubled or unsatisfied heart it is met by an answering response from Above, is also found enunciated towards the close of Goethe's poem at the climactic point of Faust's redemption:

Saved is this noble soul from ill,

Our spirit-peer. Who ever

Strives forward with unswerving will,—

Him can we aye deliver;

And if with him celestial love

Hath taken part,—to meet him

Come down the angels from above;

With cordial hail they greet him.¹²⁵

Besides, it is worth noting that, before his death, Faust realises that permanent happiness could come only if man works, not for himself, but for humanity. This is paralleled by the Aurobindonian view that one should work only for the Divine, the Divine, of course, including humanity also. Further, it is a striking parallelism between the Commedia and Faust that even as it is Beatrice who conducts Dante through Paradise, it is Gretchen who finally comes forward to guide Faust to the higher spheres:

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      To guide him, let-it be given to me;

      Still dazzles him, the new-born day.¹²⁶

 In Sri Aurobindo's epic, likewise, it is Savitri who saves Satyavan ('the Soul of the World') from the death-trap and guides him back to the world of man to greet another Dawn. Whether in the Commedia, Faust or Savitri, Woman—the blessed feminine—is the ultimate Redeemer; she is Love, she is Wisdom, and she is Strength.

      It will be clear, then, that the Faustian consciousness as presented by Goethe is verily an expanding and an evolving consciousness that tries to comprehend all ranges and gradation of human life; and it even extends, says Ronald Peacock, "to human experience over many centuries, since Goethe includes later in his play a deep vista of ancient culture and a sense of historical evolution.¹²⁷ Just as Faust tries to go beyond books and magic to explore the deep perennial springs of human life, so also Savitri, by exploring the "inner countries of the mind and heart", covers the whole gamut of possible human experience and penetrates to the secret Self that includes all and transcends all.

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