... pieces that follow, all written at different times, are each connected in some way with the text of The Future Poetry . Appendix I is an incomplete review of James Cousins' book New Ways in English Literature . Written in November 1917, the review was abandoned when Sri Aurobindo decided to make his consideration of Cousins' book the starting-point for a presentation of his own ideas on poetry. The... the later stage of his revision of the book, probably in 1950. It is all that was written of a new chapter meant to replace the first chapter of The Future Poetry . Appendix I: New Ways in English Literature Amid the commonplace, vapid and undiscriminating stuff which mostly does duty for literary criticism in India, here is at last a work of the first order, something in which the soul can take... miracle in its environment, but the miracle disappears when we know the name of the author; Mr. James Cousins is one of the leading spirits of the Irish movement which has given contemporary English literature its two greatest poets. This book therefore comes to us from Ireland, although it is published in India. One would like to see a significant link in this circumstance of Mr. Cousins' presence ...
... all savour. I preferred reading other books and spent most of my time studying various other subjects. Thus, during the last three years of school, I read not only all the available books in English literature, but also those in French and other European literature. Naturally, my school studies suffered somewhat. I remember reading Shelley's long poem The Revolt of Islam several times, I enjoyed it... man should have been able to do this and at the same time to keep up his I.C.S. work, proves very unusual industry and capacity. Besides his classical scholarship, he possessed a knowledge of English literature far beyond the average of undergraduates, and wrote a much better English style than most Englishmen. That a man of this calibre should be lost to the Indian government merely because he failed... of French literature, they would master the grammatical rules of the language by themselves." "Didn't you teach English poetry at the Baroda College?" asked Vikas. "Not just poetry, but English literature in general." "It appears that the students greatly enjoyed your lectures." "Lectures?" "Your classes, that is." "Oh! Well, that was their affair. I was not so conscientious a professor ...
... fruitfulness, Mr. James Cousins' New Ways in English Literature , is eminently of this kind. It raises thought which goes beyond the strict limits of the author's subject and suggests the whole question of the future of poetry in the age which is coming upon us, the higher functions open to it—as yet very imperfectly fulfilled,—and the part which English literature on the one side and the Indian mind and... and temperament on the other are likely to take in determining the new trend. The author is himself a poet, a writer of considerable force in the Irish movement which has given contemporary English literature its two greatest poets, and the book on every page attracts and satisfies by its living force of style, its almost perfect measure, its delicacy of touch, its fineness and depth of observation and... mind with regard to its subject. Such touch as in the intellectual remoteness of India I have been able to keep up with the times, had been with contemporary continental rather than contemporary English literature. With the latter all vital connection came to a dead stop with my departure from England a quarter of a century ago; it had for its last events the discovery of Meredith as a poet, in his Modern ...
... or eighteenth-century style? In what sense is it less poetical than the poetry of Wordsworth & Shelley? The poetry of the eighteenth century differs entirely from that of another period in English literature. It differs alike in subject-matter, in spirit and in form. Many modern critics have denied the name of poetry to it altogether. Matthew Arnold calls Pope and Dryden classics not of poetry, but... a uniform & mechanical pattern. Cowper said that Pope Made poetry a mere mechanic art; And every warbler has his tune by heart and Taine has expanded the charge in his History of English Literature, II p. 194, "One would say that the verse had been fabricated by a machine, so uniform is the make." The charge though exaggerated is well founded; there is a tendency to a uniform construction ...
... of Indo-Anglian literature within the larger 1. The Mahratta, 18.6.1937.i think it was published from Pune in those days, I am not sure. Page 167 framework of English literature. Reviewing V.N. Bhushan's Horizons he wrote on 31.12.1937: The future of the Indo-Anglians is uncertain. The Hindi movement may in due course succeed in killing English in India. Having... Indian Spirit (1986) contains some of the letters exchanged between Kathleen Raine and Amal Kiran in 1961 and 1962. The background is of course Raine's love for India and Amal Kiran's love for English literature and the love both have for William Blake. The correspondence begins with Amal Kiran's manuscript of Blake studies which had been sent to Kathleen Raine by Sir Geoffrey Keynes. K.R. Srinivasa ...
... ', whom we can imagine actually meeting and conversing with. So Sri Aurobindo, by fulfilling the Indian archetype of Kavi and Rishi, has done something quite outside the mainstream of English literature. In this sense it is true to say that what he has done is foreign to the English spirit. But in doing this he has not done violence to the English language. On the contrary: he has fulfilled... the world. To overlook this important fact is to miss an essential element of Sri Aurobindo's poetic technique—a technique which precisely mirrors the unique quality of his vision. In English literature, metaphor and simile have normally been used to illuminate the writer's theme, sometimes merely to ornament or embellish it, but in any case to make something more graspable, living and vivid ...
... vision. I do not know the technique, of course, but I can catch it at once if anybody with knowledge speaks of it. That would have been impossible to me before. Suppose you had not studied English literature; would it be still possible for you to say something about it by Yogic experience? Only by cultivating a special siddhi, 20 which would be much too bothersome to go after. But I suppose... instrumentation of the Divine Life—It is of importance only if one accepts that aim and even so, not of importance to everybody. It is not necessary for instance for everybody to have a mastery of English literature or to be a poet or a scientist or acquainted with all science (an encyclopaedia in knowledge). What is more important is to have an instrument of knowledge that will apply itself accurately, ...
... as 'Fit for Standard III' and 'How have you come to the College ?' "I was in the B.A. Class in 1906. At that time he was giving us (students of Jr. B.A. with voluntary English) notes on English literature. The College started at 11.00 A.M., but Sri Aravind Babu came exactly at 11.30, went straight to his room and began teaching. We eight students used to sit in his office. Before beginning he... photo of Principal Tait on the wall in front. He had no books or notes with him; everything was extempore. This procedure went on for one and a half hours. These notes were on the Augustan Age of English literature. "That same year agitation began in Bengal and his attention turned to it." The College students decided to have a photograph taken with their Professor before he left for good. Each of ...
... book New Ways in English Literature and even before it, there had already begun to collect a considerable body of literature, including poetry, written in English by Indians. For some time it was called "Indo-English literature" but since the popularity and the great triumph of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali which earned him world-recognition, the course of English literature has been more and ...
... " Some of his poems have been incorporated in a few anthologies of English verse, published in England, and George Sampson, writing about him in his book, The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, says: "Manmohan (1867-1924) is the most remarkable of Indian poets who write in English. He was educated at Oxford, where he was the contemporary and friend of Laurence Binyon, Stephen Phillips... with the Maharaja at the Palace and stayed on to do this work." Sri Aurobindo was loved and highly revered by his students 13 at Baroda College, not only for his profound knowledge of English literature and his brilliant and often original interpretations of English poetry, but for his saintly character and gentle and gracious manners. There was a magnetism in his personality, and an impalpable... educated Bengalis in his Young India: "He (the Bengali Babu) began to live as the Britisher lives; English life, English manners and customs, became his ideal. Gradually he became very fond of English literature and began to think as an Englishman thought. The Bengalees were the first to send their sons to England for their education and to compete for the I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service) and the I.M.S ...
... god to struggle for ever with the dust and the darkness, and to drag from them, by the force of his longing for the divine, more life and more light.' Now here is the use we are looking for in English literature itself and by one of the most modern minds. What is equally striking is that - but for the small d - the utterance might have come from a book of Sri Aurobindo's! 1. P. 292 of the... review of Early Poussain Exhibition in the weekly from London, The Times Literary Supplement, October 28-November 2, 1988, p. 1204. If you run into any helpful phrase - preferably in English literature - bearing on the bone of contention, do pass it on to me. I am waiting for our friend's reply. 2 (9.12.1988) 2. The friend was gracious enough to close the discussion by ...
... published serially in the monthly review Arya between December 1917 and July 1920 in thirty-two instalments. The starting-point for these chapters was a book by James H. Cousins, New Ways in English Literature (Ganesh & Co., Madras, preface dated November 1917). A copy of this book was sent to Sri Aurobindo shortly after its publication for review in the Arya . He began a review (see Appendix I)... quotations are given in a table in the reference volume. He seems to have quoted from the works of older poets largely from memory; for contemporary writers he relied mostly on Cousins' New Ways in English Literature . The editors have reproduced the quotations as they appear in the Arya except when a misprint obviously occurred. Page 400 On Quantitative Metre . Sri Aurobindo wrote ...
... race some enthusiastic outburst or some calm august action of this intuitive power, intermediary of the inspirations of the spirit or its revelations, that make the great ages of poetry. In English literature this period was the Elizabethan. Then the speech of poetry got into it a ring and turn of direct intuitive power, a spontaneous fullness of vision and divine fashion in its utterance which it... his When God goes by with white footfall. Page 190 This is a style and substance which recovers something that had been lost and yet is new and pregnant of new things in English literature. It is sufficient at present to indicate this new power of language. But we must see whence it arises and to what possibility it points in the widening of the realms of poetic interpretation ...
... print and not even in his own possession. Previous to this article, only two short notices attempting critical evaluation had come out: James Cousins' "The Philosopher as Poet" in New Ways in English Literature and a review of Sri Aurobindo's Songs to Myrtilla by Harindranath Chattopadhyaya in the Madras periodical, Sh'ama. The present article was read by Sri Aurobindo before publication and it... really find what it seeks or succeed in liberating its soul in the highest perfection of speech unless it transfuses the rhythms of its exquisite moods into a sustained spiritual experience. English literature has not been utterly barren in Page 28 this kind of direct revelatory speech; here and there the veil has been lustrously rent, but there has been no secure possession of the ...
... intuitive power, intermediary of the inspiration of the spirit or its revelations, that make the great ages of poetry." 1 4 By way of illustrating his statement Sri Aurobindo 15 tells us: "In English literature this period was the Elizabethan. Then the speech of poetry got into it a ring and turn of direct intuitive power, a spontaneous fullness of vision and divine fashion in its utterance which it... Page 13 References 1. The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal (Cambridge), First Edition 1936; Latest Edition 1954, p. 4. 2. Ibid., pp. 9-14. 3. An Outline of English Literature (London), 1956, p. 171. 4.Lucas, op. cit., pp. 24-25. 5.Lucas, op. cit., p. 28. 6. Ibid., p. 55. 7. Ibid, p. 56. 8. Ibid, pp. 20-21. 9. Ibid., p. 30. ...
... termed as overhead poetry. This is an epic, the longest in English literature (about 24000 lines), a prophetic vision of the future. Sri Aurobindo has written a number of other short and long poems, among which Ilion (extending over 100 pages) is an innovative experimentation in an epic in quantitative hexameters in the history of English literature. Sri Aurobindo has also written five dramas, Perseus ...
... the West. But since the advent of Chaucer in English literature, the day we heard him say about his dearest Italian poet Petrarch "Whose rethorike swete" Enlumynd all Ytaille of Poetrie, what a new life and novel tune has appeared in English poetry, what a unique resplendence has illumined its firmament! Chaucer elevated English literature as from a mundane to the spiritual level. He is ...
... [Oct. 1887] .. . We started from Paddington, my brother and myself, at – I think it was 10 a.m.... Page 20 Besides his classical scholarship he possessed a knowledge of English literature far beyond the average of undergraduates, and wrote a much better English style than most young Englishmen." ¹ Coming from one of the senior tutors of King's this unsolicited testimonial... disappointment that he obtained a post in H. H. the Gaekwar of Baroda's service, from which he was, I believe, transferred to the Baroda Educational service as Professor or Lecturer in English Literature, a post for which, I should think, his natural tastes and disposition, as well as his high literary accomplishments and scholarship, fitted him much better than for the laborious routine ...
... symbolic legends of the Puranas and one of these is the subject of Kalidasa's greatest epic poem. The Birth of the War-God stands on the same height in classical Sanskrit as the Paradise Lost in English literature: it is the masterpiece and magnum opus of the age on the epic level. The central idea of this great unfinished poem, the marriage of Siva and Parvati, typified in its original idea the union ...
... closely with its natural rhythm; it only regulates and intensifies into metrical pitch and tone the cadence that is already there even in prose, even in daily speech. If we take passages from English literature which were written as prose but with some intensity of rhythm, its movement can be at once detected. E.g. or again, Page 566 or again, from Shakespeare's prose, ...
... "training", but by the spontaneous opening and widening and perfecting of the consciousness in the sadhana. 4 November 1936 Yoga and Literary Expression Suppose you had not studied English literature; would it be still possible for you to say something about it by Yogic experience? Only by cultivating a special siddhi, which would be much too bothersome to go after. But I suppose if I ...
... Europe. In British India this superstructure has been formed by the use of English as a common language of the educated classes and by the study of English political ideas and institutions and English literature: in French India the superstructure is French, it is the French language through which there has been communication and a common public life between the Bengalees, Tamils, Andhras and Malayalees ...
... ideas to ideas and words to ideas and words to one another. It can develop a certain skill in the mind, some capacity for discussion, description, amusement and wit. I haven't read much of English literature—I have gone through only a few hundred books. But I know French literature very well—I have read a whole library of it. And I can say that it has no great value in terms of Truth. Real knowledge ...
... Celtic nations again seem always to have had by nature a psychic delicacy and subtlety united with an instinctive turn for imaginative beauty to which we surely owe much of the finer strain in English literature. But there these spontaneous miracles of fusion end and in the mind of later peoples who come in and take possession with a less innate, a more derivative culture, the sense of beauty works with ...
... but it has for the most part only one highly lyrical note and a vein of riches that has been soon exhausted. Some of her lyrical work is likely, I think, to survive among the lasting things in English literature and by these, even if they are fine rather than great, she Page 446 may take her rank among the immortals. I know no other Indian poets who have published in English anything that ...
... rained to an exaggeration of half vital, half psychic motive. There is a purer and more delicate psychic intuition with a spiritual issue, that which has been brought by the Irish poets into English literature. The poetry of Whitman and his successors has been that of life, but of life broadened, raised and illumined by a strong intellectual intuition of the self of man and the large soul of humanity ...
... aya I can understand very well what Suhrawardy objects to in Harin's poetry, though his expression of it is absurdly exaggerated ("trash"), and he may be right in thinking it an exotic in English literature; but I am under the impression that Harin will stand in spite of that, though he has still to write something so sovereign in its own kind as to put all doubt out of court; but, even as it is ...
... definite conception of the difficulties to be solved and a consistent method in their solution. The poems of Clough and Longfellow are, I think, the only serious essays in the hexameter in English literature. Many have dallied with the problem, from the strange experiments of Spenser to the insufficient but carefully reasoned attempts of Matthew Arnold. But it is only by a long and sustained effort ...
... sedate or high-pitched, that we often encounter in the dramatic language of his contemporaries — even contemporaries who have something or other Shakespearean about them. The Cambridge History of English Literature says: "In the mechanical elements of poetic rhythm, Massinger comes very near to Shake-speare; but, when we look deeper, and come to the consideration of those features of style which do not ...
... which he recognises and proclaims his own essential oneness with all that Keats stood for and strove after. It was in the fitness of things that one out of the two most purely poetic minds in English literature should write the greatest of all elegies on the other, affirming with him his unity in death when the unity in life remained unrealised and seeing in a final vision his own death soon following ...
... Indeed, Shakespeare is the greatest Romantic poet in the world or, to be more precise, the greatest poet of Romantic drama. The only figure that approaches him in the same genre in English literature is his own contemporary Marlowe. Amidst the extremely rich but often patchy and disorderly poetry of the Elizabethan period, Marlowe, though mostly wanting in power of creating characters or ...
... association with other images from beyond the earth, com-poses a kaleidoscope of the mysticism lying in one form or another at the deepest heart of the second Romanticism. References 1.English Literature, Modern -1450-1939 (Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 90. 2. Edmund Wilson, Axel's Castle (Charles Scribner's Sons, London-New York, 1945), pp. 3-4. 3.Ibid., p. 5. 4.Science ...
... have, as a result, work of unprecedented depth as well as exuberance and power. Already in 1934, when he has joined Sri Aurobindo's Ashram, the bulk of his work is sure of a permanent place in English literature: he will hardly lie on a lower level than AE and Yeats; but they have come to the fading hour of life, all their triumphs lie behind them — Chattopadhyaya is still in mid-career and his future ...
... incapable of real and earnest work and it was thought that they would not be prepared for self-sacrifice of any kind. Bengali people were taken to be cowards. This idea had become part of the English literature and was taught to them in schools. The result was that the Bengalis themselves began to believe that they were cowards, that their ancestors were cowards and that their sons and grandsons would ...
... the same pride in a false show of breadth and the same confined and narrow scope. In our schools & colleges we were set to remember many things, but learned nothing. We had no real mastery of English literature, though Page 1102 we read Milton & Burke and quoted Byron & Shelley, nor of history though we talked about Magna Charta & Runnymede, nor of philosophy though we could mispronounce ...
... comparable to any in the world's best literature. Being blank verse, there is nothing in it of the ballad-tone whose facility as well as jerki-ness often lowers the inspiration of such pieces in English literature: it has a terse strong construction, often with a touch of Latinisation, reminiscent of Milton, and its movement is perfectly controlled and manoeuvred. Some of the turns are a little obscure ...
... Swinburne's Anactoria, where the poet voices Sappho's yearning in a mood of cruel and morbid exultation for the body of the girl Anactoria whom she loves — perhaps the most sadistic cry in English literature: I would find grievous ways to have thee slain, Intense device and superflux of pain; Vex thee with amorous agonies, and shake Life at thy lips and leave it there to ache; ...
... fn. 309 "Collective Unconscious" , 4, 142 Collected Poems of Sri Aurobindo , 4 fn. 7 Complete Writings of William Blake, The, 2 fn. l Confessions , 73 Critical Essays on English Literature, iv, fn. 1 "Daughters of Beulah", 228 David, 46, 49 "David and Goliath", 5 De Doctrina Christiana, 45, 100-02, 265 De Victoria Verbi Dei, 45 "deep", 14, 89, 90, 91, 120 ...
... (Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago). St. Paul Colossians, I. Sampson, John Blake's Poetical Works (Oxford), 1904. Seturaman, V. (Editor) Critical Essays on English Literature (Orient Longman, Madras), 1965. Shakespeare, W. King Henry the Fifth, Act III, Scene 1. Swinburne, A. C. William Blake (Chatto & Windus). Wickstead, Joseph H ...
... we studied (an euphemism rather) with Amal over many Page 303 years after Sri Aurobindo's passing. I thought also that the classes had helped me in teaching English literature. We were just a few in number and hung on for many years. The class was by no means of an academic type. Our emphasis was to have a general knowledge of English poetic literature, English ...
... Pantulu was a scholar. By training and profession he was an engineer, but his mind was not to be fenced in in that field only. It ranged far and wide in the fields of Sanskrit, Telugu and English literature (of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo). He translated many works of Sri Aurobindo into Telugu and started the magazine Arka in that language (printed in our Ashram Press ...
... by the excellent English teachers who taught there. She told me that she excelled academically achieving the highest marks as she had an innate and natural ability to concentrate. She studied English literature at Saint Xavier’s College in Bombay and was taught there by many of the Jesuit fathers. She obtained degrees at Bombay University. After graduation she taught literature at Sophia College in ...
... with diverse types of writings in more than one literature, he may be expected to be objective and dispassionate in his estimate of any literary form or poet or period in the history of English literature. Not many critics who have undertaken to compare Shelley and Keats have been absolutely fair to both. Keats easily winning their sympathy and admiration for various reasons, Shelley would ...
... curriculum, by following which he made rapid progress in Latin, Greek and French, he also taught himself Italian, German and Spanish to read Dante, Goethe and Cervantes in the original. As to English literature, he showed much interest in the Elizabethan theatre and for the great romantic poetry, particularly that of Keats, Shelley and Byron. He was also fascinated by Jeanne d’Arc, Mazzini and other ...
... is not said but only suggested, but it is obviously the spirit of the poem,— and it is this spirit in it that made me write to Amal the other day that it would be perhaps impossible to find in English literature a more perfect example of psychic inspiration than these eight lines you have translated....As to the tail, I doubt whether your last line brings out the sense of 'something afar from the sphere ...
... directly in the upper fifth form … [He] taught him the rudiments of Greek … Before long Aurobindo was studying the Latin and Greek classics, writing poetry and prose in both languages, and reading English literature, ‘divinity’ (Bible studies), and French.’ 9 It is generally believed that Aravinda did not study mathematics and science, but this seems to be a misconception. For ‘Sri Aurobindo not ...
... which would be stitched on the dress, and a small bead-bag the Mother might carry when she went for her outing in a car. Apart from this work I attended in the morning for a short time the English literature and poetry class taken by Norman Dowsett. The most touching and amusing thing he told us in the class was: " Savitri is so absorbing that one day during the recess I started reading it and forgot ...
... suddenly interrupting the expected metrical run. At the line's end comes another surprise, a noun made out of an adjective packed with tremendous significance. I believe that it is the first time in English literature that "Omniscient" is used as a noun with an indefinite article. Apart from that singularity is the question: "Why is 'omniscience' not used?" The habitual noun would indicate a state of all-knowledge ...
... lived, could have talked with Sri Aurobindo almost as equals on English poetry and drawn out many intricate movements on rhythm, overhead poetry, etc., which are now a permanent treasure in English literature." 43 We should indeed be quite thankful to Amal Kiran for these invaluable letters most of which now form the Letters-section of Savitri. After completing 42 Savitri, p. 631 ...
... A good poet adds to it the expressive power of the ineffable transcendent, coming in rhythms of its calm and silent delight. Such indeed is the Savitri given to us by the Rishi. Nowhere in English literature is to be seen such restrained dignity and such poetic completeness as we have in this little episode. The theme is universal, the poetry is epic, the style is impersonal and bare, the diction ...
... the good fortune to see Sri Aurobindo and speak with him on Saturday night. Sometimes, on the Sunday night also, he would have a talk with Sri Aurobindo for half an hour, solely or mostly on English literature. It was Nambiar who, for the first time, made arrangements to borrow books in his own name from the Madras University Library and Connemera Library for Sri Aurobindo! He is no more — he died ...
... the end, what is the Divine? The Divine can be lived, but not defined. 1 Next, a redoubtable response from Emily Dickinson, one of the great foursome of classical American-English literature (the other three being Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman.) Asked how she would define poetry, Miss Dickinson replied: "If I read a book, and it makes my body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I ...
... educational policy of the foreign rulers there and to spread in our country the literature of his own, including Milton's epic. He was perhaps not altogether gracious in the way he pushed English literature forward at the expense of indigenous writing. But now as he stood on that pitching and tossing deck of the frail merchantman he seemed almost to shadow out something of the heavenly Power that ...
... providing courses and programmes not related directly to the needs of the job market nor to the demands of the fulfilment of intrinsic human ends. An individual who gets a bit of training in English literature finds a job in a pharmaceutical shop, and a scientist may get a job in a factory that produces spectacles. The relationship of training with work and the relationship of work with the deeper ...
... of Indian history; (f) Detailed information regarding modem art, modem music, greatest contemporary poets; or (g) Detailed information regarding Sanskrit, Gujarati, Hindi and English literature, etc. 2. Contemporary Global World: This course may have two components (Annexure II). The first component may consist of the study of: 1. Greek Culture, Renaissance and ...
... alone is quite enough for most undergraduates), and at the same time keep up his ICS work proves very unusual industry and capacity. Besides his classical scholarship he possessed a knowledge of English Literature far beyond the average of undergraduates, and wrote a much better English style than most young Englishmen. That a man of this calibre should be lost to the Indian Government merely because he ...
... appealed to her compassion. Rough and hard was not the way she adopted when dealing with anyone, especially children. Lastly a battle royal raged among the teachers with regard to the study of English literature in the Higher Course. Some wanted it to be made compulsory for the Art students, others for making it optional. The decision was finally left to the Mother, Hearing both sides, she wrote: ...
... own books and papers packed in two or three trunks. It was felt we might afford to spend ten rupees every month for the purchase of books. We began our purchases with the main classics of English literature, especially the series published in the Home University Library and the World Classics editions. Today you see what a fine Library we have, not indeed one but many, for there is a Library of ...
... philosopher has almost succeeded being a great poet – I am referring to Lucretius and his De Rerum Natura. Neither Shakespeare nor Homer had anything ¹ James H. Cousins in his New Ways in English Literature describes Sri Aurobindo as "the philosopher as poet." Page 52 like philosophy in their poetic creation. And in spite of some inclination to philosophy and philosophical ideas ...
... speaks in superlatives. But he seems to be a great figure. He has many admirers and followers in South India. NIRODBARAN: You must have seen in yesterday's Hindu the review of an annual of English literature. It is a symposium of many writers of the British Empire. From India four names have been chosen—one Kashi Prasad Ghose, Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu and yourself . Do you know this Kashi Prasad ...
... alive, could have discussed with Sri Aurobindo almost as equals on English poetry and drawn out many intricate expositions on rhythm, overhead poetry, etc., which are now a permanent treasure in English literature. Sri Aurobindo's quotations from memory from Homer, Shakespeare, Milton and others which he said should be verified were, in most cases, correct. When I read Homer's lines trying to imitate ...
... articles that Sri Aurobindo contributed to the Arya from December 1917 to August 1920 under the general caption 'The Future Poetry' began as a critical review of Dr. James H. Cousin's New Ways in English Literature. The review, however, was only a starting-point. The rest was drawn from Sri Aurobindo's ideas and his already conceived view of Art and Life. And, ultimately, the "review" became a treatise ...
... of poems and purity of poetic expression: the unescapable subjective element in all criticism of poetry: the quantitative metre in English: on translating poetry: the place of Bernard Shaw in English literature: the Overmind inspiration in poetry: the poetry of Shahid Suhrawardy, of Amal, of Dilip, of Armando, Menezes, of Auden, of Spender, of Hopkins, of Bharati Sarabhai, of Harindranath, of Arjava ...
... brothers. One of his tutors, G.M.Prothero, certified that, as a student, Sri Aurobindo displayed, "very unusual industry and capacity...Besides his classical scholarship he possessed a knowledge of English literature far beyond the average of undergraduates and wrote a much better English than most young Englishmen." 10 Oscar Browning remarked that, although he had examined papers at thirteen ...
... in spite of his later disclaimer, Aravinda A. Ghose was able to win the Bedford Prize in History. In 1889 he was awarded the Second Prize in the Butterworth Prize Examination "for knowledge of English Literature, especially Shakespeare." Only Shakespeare? No, no! He participated with distinction in a debate on 'the inconsistency of Swift's political views.' This was on 5 November 1889 at the meeting ...
... quite enough for most undergraduates), and at the same time to keep up his I.C.S. works, proves very unusual industry and capacity. Besides his classical scholarships he possessed a knowledge of English Literature far beyond the average of undergraduates, and wrote a much better English style than most young Englishmen. That a man of this calibre should be lost to Indian Government merely because he failed ...
... young men. Almost the first need they felt was therefore for books. "Sri Aurobindo had fixed Rs. 10 a month for buying books. He himself used to select the books—mostly they were classics of English literature ... especially the series published in the Home University Library and the World Classic editions," Nolini specified to me. Sri Aurobindo took up the young men's education from where he ...
... delivered the Memorial Address. "First, I looked upon poet Manmohan Ghose's maternal grandfather as one very near to me. It was from him that in my boyhood I first heard an interpretation of English literature, and he it was who first taught me how to rank and place English poets. Although there was a good deal of disparity between us in age, yet for a long time we maintained contact with each other ...
... could confuse it with Valmekie's own work; the difference as is always the case in imitations of great poetry, is as palpable as the similarity. 1 Some familiar examples may be taken from English literature. Crude as is the composition & treatment of the three parts [of] King Henry VI, its style unformed & everywhere full of echoes, yet when we get such lines as Thrice is he armed that hath ...
... competitors, and the fine critical taste of Iswara Chandra easily discovered in this obscure student a great and splendid genius. Like Madhu Sudan Dutt Bankim began by an ambition to excel in English literature, and he wrote a novel in English called Rajmohan's Wife . But, again like Madhu Sudan, he at once realised his mistake. The language which a man speaks and which he has never learned, is the ...
... While we insist on passing our students through a rigid & cast-iron course of knowledge in everything, we give them real knowledge in nothing. [What does an average Bombay graduate who has taken English Literature for Page 361 his optional subject, know of that literature? He has read a novel of Jane Austen or the Vicar of Wakefield, a poem of Tennyson or a book of Milton, at most two plays ...
... tics of Augustan Poetry. In the manuscript, "First Lecture" is written above the title. This piece and the following one were written by Sri Aurobindo while he was working as a professor of English literature at Baroda College between 1898 and 1901. The authors and periods covered by the two lectures were those assigned by the Bombay University for the "voluntary" section of the English B. A. examination ...
... trial of Warren Hastings is an excellent example of this dominant instinct. Twenty-seven years after the impeachment, sixteen years after the death of Burke had left his orations as a classic to English literature,—a scene was enacted in the House of Commons similar in spirit to the unanimous acclamation of Mr. Morley's speech. Warren Hastings—an old man of eighty—appeared at the bar to give evidence in ...
... good fortune to see Sri Aurobindo and speak with him on Saturday night itself; and sometimes on Sunday night also. He would have a talk with Sri Aurobindo for half an hour, solely or mostly on English literature. It was Nambiar who, for the first time, made arrangements to borrow books in his own name from the Madras University Library and Connemara Library for Sri Aurobindo! He is no more — he died ...
... mystical poetry written hitherto in English or for that matter any language save Sanskrit. No poet has proved a constant channel of its peculiar intensity. It is sporadic, almost accidental, in English literature. Where, however, it appears, it bears an.unmistakable halo. It may not mention even the name of God, it may speak of things that lie about us every day, and yet we recognise in it a spiritual ...
... the two kinds; these things have to be felt and perceived by experience. I would prefer to give examples. I suppose it would not be easy to find a more perfect example of psychic inspiration in English literature than Shelley's well-known lines, Page 68 I can give not what men call love, But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject ...
... The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow. ("To-") Sri Aurobindo remarks that "it would not be easy to find a more perfect example of psychic inspiration in English literature" than these lines. And he adds that they possess "the true rhythm, expression and substance of poetry full of the psychic influence." 5 5. Ibid . Page 348 ...
... Sethna strives to prove his case. We are strongly reminded of his correspondence with Kathleen Raine where he exerts every intellectual sinew to convince her that Aurobindonian poetry is great English literature - but fails. With the NT, too, the final decision will have to rest with the reader of these books. 3. " Karpasa" in Prehistoric India: A Chronological and Cultural clue , New ...
... drops in vain Froze in his locks or crusted all his garb. For he lived only with his passionate heart. These lines, written by a mere stripling make one of the grandest passages in English literature. As love's language they are a masterly expression of a grief that is like a god — Pururavus aches and yearns through gigantic vistas and realises in himself a massive passion which absorbs him ...
... always write to her. Often when I would ask Mother a question she would say to me, “Do you want me to say yes, or do you want my opinion.” I soon was teaching full-time. I taught French and English literature. Then I gradually moved on to teaching Sri Aurobindo’s works. Savitri , Life Divine and Mother’s Entretiens . Tell me about what teaching is like for you in Knowledge, the higher course ...
... objectives around him. Apart from creating a special literary effect on the surface, he triggers off underneath it a mystic significance. It may be said that in the past, specifically in English literature, precious metals and stones have enjoyed a place of pride. The English poets may not have treated these metals and stones seriously as portents of good or evil. However, they did feel a sense ...
... Vinci. A good poet adds to it the expressive power of the ineffable transcendent, coming in rhythms of its calm and silent delight. Such indeed is the Savitri given to us by the Rishi. Nowhere in English literature is to be seen such restrained dignity and such poetic completeness as we have in this little episode. The theme is universal, the poetry is epic, the style is impersonal and bare, the diction ...
... over the vast continent not only as a medium of instruction but also as a vehicle of literary expression by its most advanced writers and thinkers. This gave rise to what has been termed Indo-English literature*, and has led to a curious literary phenomenon which is a very hopeful prelude to the cultural unification of mankind. While the creative spirit of European nations is showing distinct ...
... with Sri Aurobindo almost as equals on English poetry and drawn out many intricate movements on rhythm, overhead Page 80 poetry, etc., which is now a permanent treasure in English literature. Sri Aurobindo's quotations from memory from Homer, Shakespeare, Milton and others which he said should be verified, were, in most cases, correct. When I read Homer's lines trying to ...
... would dedicate my life to a similar world-change and take part in it.” 948 In 1885 Aravinda went to the esteemed St Paul’s School in London. He became proficient in Greek and Latin, and in English literature. He also studied “divinity” (the Bible), French and mathematics. His reports show that these subjects provided him with no difficulty, and he found time to study on the side Italian, German and ...
... corpses to reach romantic freedom; now there is a rehabilitation. But all this is something of an illusion—for mark that even at the worst Pope and Dryden retained a place among the great names of English literature. No controversy, no depreciation could take that away from them. This proves my contention that there is an abiding intuition of poetic and artistic greatness. The attempts at comparison by ...
... I can understand very well what Suhrawardy objects to in Harin's poetry, though his expression of it is absurdly exaggerated ("trash"), and he may be right in thinking it an exotic [?] in English literature; but I am under the impression that Harin will stand in spite of that, though he has still to write something so sovereign in its own kind as to put all doubt out of court; but, even as it is ...
... mountain-soars and valley-dips, winding rivers and rhythmic seas, stretches of tremulous greenery, sweeps of swaying blooms. Wordsworth was the first high-priest of this Nature-communion in English literature - an intimacy either by a vast single peaceful en-foldment or by a multiplicity of mood-touches soothing or stirring. You may remember his rapturous response to a field of dancing daffodils ...
... pleasure in English flowers and landscapes and there is an unforgettable prolonged revelling in the memory of the English countryside in an essay by him on translating Kalidasa. Throughout his life English literature - English poetry in particular - was a living presence, and a speech in Baroda evinces an appreciative recollection of the temper of "liberal education" at the great English universities. But ...
... aspiring world, My spirit's liberty I ask for all. [p. 649] What is specially notable about Sri Aurobindo's epic is that it attempts to open up a new dimension of poetic expression. In English literature we have the Shakespearian accent of the thrilled rapid life-force, the Miltonic tone of the majestically thinking mind, the deep or colourful cry of the idealistic imagination as in Wordsworth ...
... near. And it is the satisfied nearness which imparts to his verse the Spirit-appeal peculiar to it. There is a more intimate, more effulgent poetry possible, but this is the first expression in English literature of a close relationship with some sovereign Splendour through a poetic yoga transfiguring both thought and image. Almost the whole mood of AE's mystical desire is summed up in his ...
... cities one W.F. Morgan as writing; "I always confuse between him and Orion." Evidently, a wide acquaintance with modern English idiom is not all-sufficing and even a good knowledge of English literature through the ages can fall short. But, among other parts they play, they are valuable in helping one to distinguish the typical Englishness of certain expressions. Indians who believe themselves ...
... I entered the huge building of the LTC and met its authorised people. They saw the recommendation paper given by my principal and arranged for my study from January to July 1960. I chose English literature, poetry, business management and typing. Sudha and I had also chosen to join one of the educational institutions run by the London County Council. We went to the office of the institution ...
... break out through the form of drama. Shakespeare stands out alone, both in his own age when so many were drawn to the form and circumstances were favourable to this kind of genius, and in all English literature, as the one great and genuine dramatic poet; but this one is indeed equal to a host. He stands out too as quite unique in his spirit, method and quality. For his contemporaries resemble him only ...
... that importance for everybody. In ordinary life no particular pursuit or study can be imposed as necessary for everybody; it cannot be positively necessary for everybody to have a mastery of English literature or to be a reader of poetry or a scientist or acquainted with all the sciences (or encyclopaedia of knowledge). What is important is to have an instrument of knowledge that will apply itself ...
... g point reached in the closing couplet. The first is the Miltonic, the second the Shakespearean form of the sonnet. Other forms can be made but these are the two classic sonnet structures in English literature. Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats are the greatest sonnet writers in English. You can find the best sonnets in the Golden Treasury . There are others also who have written sonnets of ...
... the two kinds: these things have to be felt and perceived by experience. I would prefer to give examples. I suppose it would not be easy to find a more perfect example of psychic inspiration in English literature than Shelley's well-known lines, I can give not what men call love, But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not,— The desire of the ...
... has been done. There have been a few exceptions like Swinburne's magnificent sapphics; but these are isolated triumphs, there has been no considerable body of such poems that could stand out in English literature as a new form perfectly accomplished and accepted. This may be perhaps because the attempt was always made as a sort of leisure exercise and no writer of great genius like Spenser, Tennyson or ...
... done long before that as the above account will show. It appears that, when he was in full charge of the College, he used to lecture for ten hours per week, and he taught, in addition to English Literature, British, Greek and Roman History also. Not correct, should be omitted. ...
... changed their old way of seeing and teaching. Without that, my work is at a standstill. 2 16 December 1959 ( There was disagreement among the teachers about whether the study of English literature should be made Page 170 compulsory or optional for literature students of the Higher Course. When the matter was referred to the Mother for decision, she replied:) To the teachers: ...
... Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, April 22, 1962. 1. These chapters have since been published in a commemorative volume in honour of Professor M.S. Duraiswamy, Critical Essays on English Literature, edited by V. Seturaman (Orient Longmans, Madras, 1965). - K.D.S. (1976) iv ...
... two kinds; these things have to be felt and perceived by experience. I would prefer to give examples. I suppose it would not be easy to find a more perfect example of psychic inspiration in English literature than Shelley's well-known lines, I can give not what men call love, But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not,— The desire of ...
... Aurobindo calls "overhead", because it comes as if by a wide sweeping descent from an ether of superhuman being, high above our mind's centre in the brain. It has not been absent from English literature: Vaughan, Wordsworth, Shelley, Francis Thompson and AE have it perhaps morefrequendy, but no English poet has proved continually a channel of its peculiar intensity. For that matter it is no ...
... apply all the more to English poetry by the very nature of the language concerned, the plasticity to which Sri Aurobindo has referred. We may be struck by this plasticity in the diverse styles English literature teems with - the individual element at almost riotous play as between author and author (Sir Thomas Browne, Addison, Gibbon, Ruskin, Carlyle, Meredith, Arnold, Chesterton, Shaw, etc.) with no ...
... according to both the nature of the medium and the ability of the artist. There is no questioning the extraordinary flexibility of English. Its proof is the very variety of the individual voice in English literature, the profusion of distinct manners strikingly answering to diverse moods, as though each author had his own tongue, an English exclusive to himself thrilling out of the mass of a common heritage ...
... Prasanthinilayam and Anantapur house several post-graduate programmes viz. MBA, MFM, M.Tech. (Computer Sciences), M.Sc. (Physics, Chemistry, Biosciences, Mathematics, and Home-Science), M.A. (English Literature, Economics) besides the regular under-graduate programmes. The institute offers Honours programmes at the under-graduate level. The students come from all over India and even from other countries ...
... The trouble in general with Indian poets writing in English that they may be successful poets but it is not as if the very man spoke. Their work gives the impression of one who has studied English literature and spun out something. I read Jehangir Vakil's poem. The same difficulty. Mrs. Naidu wrote something fine at times and she had a power of expression but her range was small. Harin and Amal ...
... enable the student to study the literature of the concerned language. Most of the books meant for the study of English demand a great part of the time Page 137 for the study of English literature. The argument is that the more one studies the literature, the greater is the proficiency in the concerned language. This argument has indeed considerable force. But experiments show that a large ...
... father in regard to his studies. He was a bright young man, and I used to like him very much because of his pleasing manners and his intellectual gifts. He used to tell me a great deal about English literature, - about Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelly and Tennyson. He himself was a poet and used to explain to me how to write poems. None in our family or in his family came to know of the developing ...
... inquiry rather than from the standpoint of imparting the right answers to questions. Here, again, examinations are to blame. The young person who has to pass (say) an elementary examination in English literature will probably be well advised to read no single word of any of the great writers, but to learn by heart some manual giving all the information except what is worth having. For the sake of ex ...
... y, 120, 125, 240, 244, 276 Coleridge, 84, 235 -Kubla Khan, 84 Commonwealth, 284, 290 Communism (Sovietic), 253 Confucius, 281 Cousins, James H., 52n -New Ways in English Literature, 52n DANDAKARANYA,276 Dante, 53, 60-1, 71, 85, 169, 176,219 -Inferno, 53, 60n., 149, 169n -Paradiso, 53, 71, 149 Danton, 103 Delille, 85 Denmark,175 Descartes ...
... even the expression of that poetry through the vehicle of the English language. It is also remarkable that Sri Aurobindo himself wrote his great epic savitri, which is the longest poem in English literature, to embody and to give full expression to mantric poetry in which the vedic poetics is fully illustrated. It is thus opportune that we ourselves who are students of the Vedic literature turn ...
... his own books and papers packed in two or three trunks. It was felt we might afford to spend ten rupees every month for the purchase of books. We began our purchases with the main classics of English literature, especially the series published in the Home University Library and the World Classics editions. Today you see what a fine Library we have, not indeed one but many, for there is a Library of ...
... good fortune to see Sri Aurobindo and speak with him on the Saturday night. Sometimes, on the Sunday night also, he would have a talk with Sri Aurobindo for half an hour, solely or mostly on English literature. It was Nambiar who, for the first time, made arrangements to borrow books in his own name from the Madras University Library and Connemera Library for Sri Aurobindo! He is no more—he died ...
... over the vast continent not only as a medium of instruction but also as a vehicle of literary expression by its most advanced writers and thinkers. This gave rise to what has been termed Indo-English literature, and has led to a curious literary phenomenon which is a very hopeful prelude to the cultural unification of mankind. While the creative spirit of European nations is showing distinct signs ...
... serve to enrich the language, not impoverish it. As a writer declared in the Times Literary Supplement, the 'centre of gravity' had shifted and "while we are busy 'consolidating', a brand new 'English' literature will be appearing in Johannesburg or Sydney or Vancouver or Madras." 5 He might have added "or Pondicherry". Another writer, Ronald Nixon (now Sri Krishnaprern), has also expressed ...
... (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Delhi Branch, 1958). Smith, G.C. Moore. (Ed.) Essays and Studies, Vol. VIII (The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1922). Spurgeon, Caroline E. Mysticism in English Literature (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1927). Stace, WT. Time and Eternity : An Essay in the Philosophy of Religion (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1952). ...
... a great man. . . . Another important thing I observed about him was his total absence of love for money, for which he never seemed to care. We all know that he was working as Professor of English Literature in the Baroda College. He was getting a decent salary of Rs.500 a month. It was his practise to receive his salary once in three months. In those days, payment was made in cash and not in currency ...
... has recently made a strong plea in favour of the classical terminology: "... it is surely time to re-avail ourselves of the enormous advantages which the classical terms offer." '(A Review of English Literature, January 1960, p. 49). 73. Collected Poems and Plays, Vol. II, pp. 303-4. 74. ibid., p. 334. 75. ibid., pp. 160-1. 76. Ilion, p. 6. ...
... but I mean quite another thing. For instance, if Milton had not written Paradise Lost he would have still been a great poet, but he could not have occupied so great a place as he does in English literature. Keats, some people say, would have been as great as Shakespeare, had he lived. At least there was the promise in him, but it was not fulfilled. Disciple : Some people have demanded ...
... for most undergraduates), and at the same time to keep up his I. C. S. work, proves very unusual industry and capacity. Besides his classical scholarship he possessed a knowledge of English Literature far beyond the average of undergraduates, and wrote a much better English style than most young Englishmen. That a man of this calibre should be lost to the Indian Government merely because ...
... Dante.** This was also the period when they felt they might indulge a little in the luxury of buying books. With a lavish provision of Rs. 10 per month, they were able to get some of the best English literature in the World's Classics and other popular series. They also secured in two volumes the original text of the Rig Veda for Sri Aurobindo who at that time was deeply interested in this scripture ...
... quite enough for most undergraduates), and at the same time to keep up his I.C.S. work, proves very unusual industry and capacity. Besides his classical scholarship he possessed a knowledge of English literature far beyond the average of undergraduates, and wrote a much better English style than most young Englishmen.... Moreover the man has not only ability but character. He has had a very hard ...
... 'Marching' for example. She always encouraged my study, and, in spite of my being not of an age when people normally study, she permitted me to complete the higher course, once in 1955 taking English Literature, and again in 1959 taking Sri Aurobindo's subjects. Though the students laughed behind my back, I knew I had the Mother's blessings. I did not, and even now do not, consider myself to be old ...
... present." Nolini Kanta, Subramania Bharati and Chandrasekhar attended the reading of the Rig Veda regularly. Chandrasekhar's younger brother, V. Chidanandan, who was then a student of English literature, saw Sri Aurobindo once or twice and sought his advice on his literary studies. He also Page 412 recorded some of the talks from day to day. A.B. Purani, who had been ...
... not so improbable as it may seem. But of Ghose's background I scarcely knew anything. His enthusiasm for literature sufficed my curiosity." Manmohan was already well versed in Greek and English literature when he joined St. Paul's School, London. Aravinda A. Ghose and Manmohan Ghose were both admitted to St. Paul's School in September 1884. The original site of the school, which was founded ...
... married Maloti Bannerjee, a girl of 16, in 1898, and had two daughters —Lotika, the younger one, was born in September 1902. Manmohan found himself a job before long (1895) as Professor of English Literature at Patna College. For the poet-at-heart it was a dull, tiring, ill-paid work. He was transferred to other places, including Dacca, where he was professor for some five years and "soon became ...
... and at Saint Paul's; but even at St Paul's in the last three years he simply went through his school course and spent most of his spare time in general reading, especially English poetry, literature and fiction, French literature and the history of ancient, mediaeval and modern Europe. He spent some time also over learning Italian, some German and a little Spanish. He spent much time too in writing... Aurobindo had thus achieved rare academic distinctions at a very early age. He had mastered Greek and Latin and English, and he had also acquired sufficient familiarity with continental languages like German, French and Italian.... [ Altered to: ] He had mastered Greek and Latin, English and French, and he had also acquired some familiarity with continental languages like German and Italian. ...
... Chapter VIII The Character of English Poetry - II What kind or quality of poetry should we naturally expect from a national mind so constituted? The Anglo-Saxon strain is dominant and in that circumstance there lay just a hazardous possibility that there might have been no poetical literature at all. The Teutonic nations have in this field been conspicuous... of style and rhythm, that sheer force of imaginative vision and that peculiar unseizable beauty of turn which are the highest qualities of English poetry. The varied commingling and separating of these two elements mark the whole later course of the literature and present as their effect a side of failure and defect and a side of achievement. There are evidently two opposite powers at work in the... motives. These reversals and revolutions of the spirit are not in themselves a defect or a disability; on the contrary, they open the door to large opportunities and unforeseen achievements. English poetical literature has been a series of bold experiments less shackled by the past than in countries which have a stronger sense of cultural tradition. Revolutions are distracting things, but they are often ...
... and too little of English sincerity to be of the first value. But it stands out well enough on its own lower summit and surveys well enough from that inferior eminence a reach of country that has, if not any beauty, its own interest, order and value. There we may leave it and turn to the next striking and always revolutionary outburst of this great stream of English poetic literature. Page 99 ... That was inevitable; for these have been the three typically intellectual nations of Europe. It is these three literatures that have achieved, each following its own different way and peculiar spirit, the best in form and substance that that kind of inspiration can produce. The English mind, not natively possessed of any inborn intellectual depth and subtlety, not trained to a fine classical lucidity... epic is the one supreme fruit left by the attempt of English poetry to seize the classical manner, achieve beauty of poetic expression disciplined by a high intellectual severity and forge a complete balance and measured perfection of architectonic form and structure. Paradise Lost is one of the few great epic poems in the world's literature; certain qualities in it reach heights which no other ...
... to reach romantic freedom; now there is a rehabilitation. But all this is something of an illusion—for mark that even at the worst Pope and Dryden retained a place among the great names of English poetic literature. No controversy, no depreciation could take that away from them. This proves my contention that there is an abiding intuition of poetic and artistic greatness. Page 665 The attempts... Literature, Art, Beauty and Yoga Literature, Art, Beauty and Yoga Appreciation of Poetry and the Arts Letters on Poetry and Art Appreciation of Poetry The Subjective Element All criticism of poetry is bound to have a strong subjective element in it and that is the source of the violent differences we find in the appreciation of any given author by equally... and appreciative of poetry. Yet there is no one who has had more influence on modern French poets—he helped to create Verlaine, Valery 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; Page 668 yet he has practically turned the current ...
... from "Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on The Mother”, published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Page 5 spent most of his spare time in general reading, especially English poetry, literature and fiction, French literature and the history of ancient, mediaeval and modern Europe. He spent some time also over learning Italian, some German and a little Spanish. He spent much time too in writing... labour over them any longer." Sri Aurobindo mastered French and learnt enough of Italian and German to be able to read Dante and Goethe in the original. His studies in the Classics, English and French literatures, and the entire history of Europe was not only extensive, but extraordinarily deep, ample evidence of which is found in his later voluminous writings, literary, historical, philosophical... West. He had travelled in the wide realms of classical thought, and delighted in the epic grandeur of its poetry. He had enjoyed and admired the splendour and beauty of English poetry, the grace and charm of French literature, the sublimity of Dante's creation, and the giant sweep of Goethe's mind. He had studied the historical development of Western religion, thought and civilisation. He had ...
... is no reason why we should lie about Heaven in our old age." But it is impossible to take seriously any detraction of Wordsworth's far-reaching spiritual quality. He was the first Seer in English poetic literature, answering in however limited a measure to the definition of seerhood current in the mystic Orient: one who has known by direct intuition and by intimate personal realisation and by concrete... this line from Tintern Abbey as the grandest in the entire range of English poetry. Perhaps Tennyson indulged in a little exaggeration, but part of the exaggeration consists in overlooking the fact that some other lines of Wordsworth himself merit to be ranked beside it among the greatest treasures of poetic expression in English: for example, The silence that is in the starry sky, The... none in love for my art. I therefore, labour at it with reverence, affection and industry. My main endeavour, as to style, is that my poems should be written in pure intelligible English." By "pure intelligible English" he was at one time inclined to denote "the real language of men in any situation", but later described it as, in his own words, "a selection of the real language of men in a state ...
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