Sri Aurobindo's principal work of literary criticism where he outlines the history of English poetry and explores the possibility of a spiritual poetry in the future.
On Poetry
Sri Aurobindo's principal work of literary criticism. In this work, Sri Aurobindo outlines the history of English poetry and explores the possibility of a spiritual poetry in the future. It was first published in a series of essays between 1917 and 1920; parts were later revised for publication as a book.
THEME/S
I do not know why your correspondent puts so much value on general understanding and acceptance. Really it is only the few that can be trusted to discern the true value of things in poetry and art and if the "general" run accept, it is usually because acceptance is sooner or later imposed or induced in their minds by the authority of the few and afterwards by the verdict of Time. There are exceptions, of course, of a wide spontaneous acceptance because something that is really good happens to suit a taste or a demand in the general mind of the moment. Poetic and artistic value does not necessarily command mass understanding
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and acceptance.
What does he mean? that you can't write mathematics in verse? I suppose not, it was not meant to be. You can't start off
Oh, two by three plus four plus seven! To add things is to be in heaven.
But all the same, if one thinks it worth while to take the trouble, one can express the mathematician's delight in discovery, or the grammarian's in grammatising or the engineer's in planning a bridge or a house. What about Browning's Grammarian's Funeral? The reason why these subjects do not easily get into poetry is because they do not lend themselves to poetic handling, their substance being intellectual and abstract and their language also, not as the substance and language of poetry must be, emotional and intuitive. It is not because they appeal only to a few people and not to the general run of humanity. A good dinner appeals not to a few people but to the general run of humanity, but it would all the same be a little difficult to write an epic or a lyric on the greatness of cooking and fine dishes or the joys of the palate and the belly. Spiritual subjects on the other hand can lend themselves to poetic handling because they can be expressed in the language of high emotion and radiant intuition. How many people will appreciate it is a question which is irrelevant to the merit of the poetry. More people have appreciated sincerely Macaulay's Lays or Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads than ever really appreciated Timon of Athens or Paradise Regained—but that does not determine the relative value or appropriateness of these things as poetry. Artistic or poetic value cannot be reckoned by the plaudits or the reactions of the greatest number.
2.11.1936
It is quite true that all art and poetry is largely dependent on
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the vital for its activity and if there is no force of vitality in the poetry then it cannot be strong or great. But it does not follow that the vital element in poetry will appeal to everybody or a great number of people; it depends on the kind of vital movement that is there. The forceful but inferior sort of vital energy that you find in Kipling's ballads appeals to a large mass of people; the vital element in Milton which is very powerful affects only a few in comparison, the rest take him on trust because he is a great classic but have not the true intense enjoyment of him as of Kipling. Yet Milton's greatness will endure—that cannot be said certainly of Kipling's ballads. The problem therefore remains where it was. Spiritual poetry also needs the vital force for expression; mere spiritual philosophy without the uplifting poetic force in its expression (which needs the vital energy for its action) cannot appeal to anybody. But all the same in spiritual poetry the vital element adopts a turn which may not go home to many, unless it takes a popular religious form which has a general appeal. There I do not follow quite X's position—does he contend that one ought to suit one's poetry to the mentality of others so that it may have a general appeal, not keeping to its natural purpose of expressing what is felt and seen by the poet according to the truth of the inspiration within him? Surely that cannot be recommended; but if it is not done, the possibility of reaching (at first, of course) only a few remains uneliminated. It is not that a poet deliberately sets out to be appreciated by a few only; he sets out to be himself in his poetry and the rest follows. But consider a poet like Mallarmé. In writing his strange enigmatic profound style which turned the whole structure of French upside down he cannot have expected or cared to be read and appreciated even by that part of the general public which is interested in and appreciative of poetry. Yet there is no one who had more influence on modern French poets—he helped to create Verlaine, Valéry and a number of others who rank among the great ones in French literature and he himself too now ranks very high though he must still, I should think, be read only by a comparatively small though select audience; yet he has practically turned the current of French poetry. So there is something to be said for writing for oneself even if that implies writing only
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for the few and not for the many.
As for the actor, that is quite a different art, meant for the public, depending on its breath of applause, ineffective if its public is not moved or captured. A poet publishes, but he can take his chance; if he does not succeed in commanding widespread attention, he can still continue to write; there is something in him which maintains its energy and will to create. If he seeks acknowledged greatness and success—though that is a secondary matter to the force that makes him write—he can still sustain himself on the hope of a future greatness with posterity; there are plenty of illustrious examples to console him.
5.11.1936
Well, but did they not say the same thing about Mallarmé? And what of Blake? Contemporary opinion is a poor judge of what shall live or not live. The fact remains that the impressionist movement in poetry initiated by Mallarmé has proved to be the most powerful stream in France and its influence is not confined to that country. The whole thing is that it is a mistake to erect a mental theory and try to force into its narrow mould the infinite variety of the processes of Nature. Shakespeare may have so much vital force as to recommend himself to a large audience not so much for his poetry at first as for his dramatic vividness and power; it must be remembered that it was the German romantics two centuries later who brought about the apotheosis of Shakespeare—before that he had a much more limited circle of admirers. Other great poets have started with a more scanty recognition. Others have had a great popularity in their lifetime and sunk afterwards to a much lower level of fame. What is important is to preserve the right of the poet to write for himself, that is to say, for the Spirit that moves him, not to demand from him that he should write down to the level of the general or satisfy even the established taste and standard of the critics or connoisseurs of his time. For that would mean the end or decay of poetry—it would perish of its own debasement. A poet must be free to use his wings even if they carry him above the comprehension
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of the public of the day or of the general run of critics or lead him into lonely places. This is all that matters.
Tolstoy's logic is out of place. Nobody says that the value of the poet must be measured by the scantiness of his audience any more than it can be measured by the extent of his contemporary popularity. So there is no room for his reductio ad absurdum. What is contended is that it cannot be measured by either standard. It must be measured by the power of his vision, of his speech, of his feeling, by his rendering of the world within or the world without or of any world to which he has access. It may be the outer world that he portrays like Homer and Chaucer or a vivid life-world like Shakespeare or an inmost world of experience like Blake or other mystic poets. The recognition of that power will come first from the few who recognise good poetry when they see it and from those who can enter into his world; afterwards it can spread to the larger number who can recognise good poetry when it is shown to them; finally, the still larger public may come in who learn to appreciate by a slow education, not by instinct and nature. There was a sound principle in the opinion always held in former times that it is time alone that can test the enduring power of a poet's work, for contemporary opinion is not reliable.
There remains the case of the poets great or small or null who immediately command a general hearing. They have an element in them which catches at once the mind of the time: they are saying things which have a general appeal in a way that everybody can understand, in a language and rhythm that all can appreciate. As you say, there must be a vital element in the poetry of such a writer which gets him his public. The question is, has he anything else and, again what is the value of this vital element? If he has nothing else or not much of any high value, his aureole will not endure. If he has something but not of the best and highest, he will sink in the eyes of posterity, but not set out of sight. If he has in him something of the very greatest and best, his fame will grow and grow as time goes on—some of the elements that caught him his contemporary public may fade and lose their value, but the rest will shine with an increasing brightness. But even the vital and popular elements in the work
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may have different values—Shakespeare's vitality has the same appeal now as then; Tennyson's has got very much depreciated; Longfellow's is now recognised for the easily current copper coin that it always was. You must remember that when I speak of the vital force in a poet as something necessary, I am not speaking of something that need be low or fitted only to catch the general mind, not fit to appeal to a higher judgment, but something that can be very valuable from the highest point of view. When Milton writes
Fall'n Cherub, to be weak is miserable,
or describes the grandeur of the fallen archangel, there is a vital force there that is of the highest quality,—so is that of Shakespeare; so is that of many pieces of Blake. This vital energy makes the soul stir within you. Nothing can be more high and sublime than the vital energy in Arjuna's description of the Virat Purusha in the Gita.
6.11.1936
I remain convinced that fame is a fluke. Even a settled literary fame seems to be a very fluctuating affair. Who gave a thought to Blake or Donne in former times—when I was in England, for instance? But now they bid fair to be reckoned among the great poets. I see that Byron is in the depths, the quotations for Pope and Dryden are rising, it was very different in those days.
5.2.1932
What is not understood or appreciated by one select circle may be understood or appreciated by another select circle or in the future like Blake's poetry. Nobody appreciated Blake in his own time. Now he ranks as a great poet, more poetic than Shakespeare, says Housman. Tagore wrote he could not appreciate X's poetry because it is too "Yogic" for him. Is Tagore unselect, one of the public at large?
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I don't agree at all with not publishing because you won't be understood. At that rate many great poets would have remained unpublished. What about the unintelligible Mallarmé who had such a great influence on later French poetry?
24.7.1936
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