Comments on Some Examples of W   Comments on Some Examples of Western Poetry (up to 1900) Catullus   Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Ravide, agit praecipitem in meos iambos? quis deus tibi non bene advocatus vecordem parat excitare rixam? an ut pervenias in ora vulgi? quid vis? qualubet esse notus optas? eris, quandoquidem meos amores cum longa voluisti amare poena.   Unless meos amores is purposely vague, at least two objects of Catullus's affections must be in question? Would you say that this piece is in a vein of good-humoured banter?   I do not think meos amores ne

English Metres   Octosyllabic Metre   The regular octosyllabic metre is at once the easiest to write and the most difficult to justify by a strong and original rhythmic treatment; it may be that it is only by filling it with very original thought-substance and image and the deeper tones and sound significances which these would bring that it could be saved from its besetting obviousness. On the other hand, the melody to which it lends itself, if raised to a certain intensity, can be fraught with a rescuing charm that makes us forget the obviousness of the metre.     4 February 1932   Iambic Pentameter   An inspirat

Examples of Grades of Perfectio Examples of Grades of Perfection in Poetic Style   Examples from Classical and Mediaeval Writers   Would you please tell me where in Homer the "descent of Apollo" occurs?1   It is in the first fifty or a hundred lines of the first book of the Iliad.2   I don't suppose Chapman or Pope have rendered it adequately.   Of course not ―nobody could translate that ―they have surely made a mess of it. Homer's passage translated into English would sound perfectly ordinary. He gets the best part of his effect from his rhythm. Translated it would run merely like this, "And he descended from the peaks of

Painting Painting, Music, Dance and Yoga   Yoga and the Arts   In the new creation would there not be great musicians, painters, poets, athletes etc. created from the Ashram?   All kinds that are needed for the work or the manifestation would, I suppose, come. 24 May 1933   Painting and Sadhana   Painting also is sadhana; so it is perfectly possible to make them one. It is a matter of dedicating the painting and feeling the force that makes you paint as the Mother's force. 4 September 1935   *   Of course everybody is here for Yoga and not for painting. Painting or any other activity has to be m

Substance, Style, Diction   Form and Substance   On the general question [of rhythm vs. substance] the truth seems to me to be very simple. It may be quite true that fine or telling rhythms without substance (substance of idea, suggestion, feeling) are hardly poetry at all, even if they make good verse. But that is no ground for belittling beauty or excellence of form or ignoring its supreme importance for poetic perfection. Poetry is after all an art and a poet ought to be an artist of word and rhythm, even though, necessarily, like other artists, he must also be something more than that, even much more. I hold therefore that harshness and roughne

  Note on the Texts     Note on the Texts   LETTERS ON POETRY AND ART includes most of the letters on poetry, literature, art and aesthetics that Sri Aurobindo wrote between 1929 and 1950. During these years he was living in retirement in his ashram in Pondicherry and had no direct contact with others, but he carried on an enormous correspondence with the members of his ashram as well as outsiders. Most of the letters he wrote at this time were concerned with the recipients' practice of yoga and day-to-day life. But a significant number were about literary and artistic matters. The most important of such letters are publish

Comments on Some Remarks by a Critic   You have asked me to comment on your friend Mendonca's comments on my poetry and especially on Savitri. But, first of all, it is not usual for a poet to criticise the criticisms of his critics though a few perhaps have done so; the poet writes for his own satisfaction, his own delight in poetical creation or to express himself and he leaves his work for the world, and rather for posterity than for the contemporary world, to recognise or to ignore, to judge and value according to its perception or its pleasure. As for the contemporary world he might be said rather to throw his poem in its face and leave it to res

Part Two On His Own and Others' Poetry       Section One   On His Poetry and Poetic Method   Inspiration, Effort, Development   Writing and Rewriting   It will be valuable knowledge to learn how Six Poems were written and the three recent sonnets and how Savitri is being led forward to its consummation.   There is no invariable how ―except that I receive from above my head and receive changes and corrections from above without any initiation by myself or labour of the brain. Even if I change a hundred times, the mind does not work at that, it only receives. Formerly it used n

Section Four   Literature, Art, Music and the Practice of Yoga     Literature and Yoga   Poetry and Sadhana   Can one gain as much profit (I mean spiritually) from writing poems, etc. as from devoting one's time to sadhana ―meditation, etc. In other words, can literary activity be taken as part of one's sadhana?   Any activity can be taken as part of the sadhana if it is offered to the Divine or done with the consciousness or faith that it is done by the Divine Power. That is the important point. 29 March 1934   *   It is obvious that poetry cannot be a

Section Three Section Three   Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers   Guidance in Writing Poetry   Three Essentials for Writing Poetry   I have gone through your poems. For poetry three things are necessary. First, there must be emotional sincerity and poetical feeling and this your poems show that you possess. Next, a mastery over language and a faculty of rhythm perfected by a knowledge of the technique of poetic and rhythmic expression; here the technique is imperfect, some faculty is there but in the rough and there is not yet an original and native style. Finally, there must be the power of inspiratio