-005_Chapter 004 (Page 166-Page 220).htm From Kathleen Raine We live in a very mysterious world, in which thoughts are realities that communicate in ways other than print. Of course any dream contains many elements but I have no doubt that there was indeed some meeting between us in yours. I enclose the book review in last week's TLS which as you see is extremely hostile and malicious (besides being a typical example of the decline in values in this country over the last years) and I was very distressed about it - more than I at my age should have been, but I had hoped that a review in the TLS might have made our work in Temenos better known to more people who might share our concern to restore true val

-007_Chapter 006 (Page 269-Page 291).htm From Kathleen Raine I have received and read your Blake's Tyger with delight. I must, I think, concede you the victory - your laying out of the whole map of Blake's inner world and its dynamics in the context of Milton's poem does convince. Whether when Blake wrote The Tyger he himself as yet saw that whole universe as a whole scarcely matters, since it was already implicit, as the oak within the acorn. You have woven every symbolic term into the complete pattern. Perhaps in the Milton chapter I was tempted to think that you had done little more than show that Blake uses a Miltonic vocabulary, that all those grand Miltonic words in The Tyger are simply that - a M

-002_Chapter 001 (Page 1-Page 70).htm From Kathleen Raine What a surprise and a pleasure to hear from you again after all these years, and I certainly thought the publication of our correspondence had been long forgotten. I look forward to re-reading your own letters but did quickly run through my side of the correspondence to see whether what I had then written was too foolish or far from what I now feel about these things.I found that on the whole I do think as I did, only with perhaps greater pessimism about the future of all the world and English as the world]-language not of Shakespeare and Wordsworth but of the television commercial. The vocabulary now in use in this country is I know

Indian Poets and English Poetry Indian Poets and English Poetry Correspondence between Kathleen Raine and K. D. Sethna Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry First Published 1594 (Typeset in Times 11/13) ISBN HI-7058-398-5 © Kathleen Raine & K. D. Sethna Published by and Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press Pondicherry 605002 PRINTED IN INDIA

-004_Chapter 003 (Page 119-Page 165).htm From K. D. Sethna I see that you want to cry halt to our discussion of Sri Aurobindo as poet. Very well. But some points about your general attitude to poetry and certain aspects of Sri Aurobindo seem to call for some comment from me. First, the mixing up of the romantic with the sentimental. Surely, sentimentalism and romanticism are not synonymous? Highly romantic is Shelley's Like a high-born maiden In a palace-tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower. Our modern taste for stronger meat, the more direct, the more down-to-earth may not relish such a vision

-003_Chapter 002 (Page 71-Page 118).htm From Kathleen Raine Although I might postpone this letter for weeks until I had read or re-read all Sri Aurobindo's works, I don't suppose I could answer it better than by sitting down now - the first of the dark evenings of our winter when the extra hour of evening daylight is curtailed and I have the evening hours before me. I will make a few reflections and then turn to your letter and see where I get with that. It is a remarkable letter, full of eloquent, true, beautiful things. Many of these are inspiring and illuminating to me and I am privileged to receive such a letter and to be able to exchange thoughts, even in the role of the Devil's Advo

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, cam

-006_Chapter 005 (Page 221-Page 268).htm From K.D. Sethna I have been a little slack in replying to you, but the procrastination has brought me to a very important day on which to launch my letter. August 15 has for India two far-reaching significances to commemorate. There is the birth of Sri Aurobindo whose fight for freedom was seminal in many respects, not least the first clear-cut demand for total independence, and to whom India's political freedom meant a chance for her to develop without any impediment or distraction a spiritual light for the world. According to him, this light has to gather together all the various past shades and generate the vision of an ultra-violet reaching out to the all-tr