FOREWORD   The letters of Sri Aurobindo included in the present volume deal with a subject different from that of his letters already published in the first two volumes in this Series. These earlier volumes contained letters relating to the philosophy, psychology and practice of his system of Integral Toga; the present volume is confined only to letters dealing with literary topics, especially those connected with the creation and critical appreciation of poetry. Sri Aurobindo is now well known as a Master-mystic and philosopher and a great poet but very few know that he is also a literary critic of exceptionally fine discernment and unfailing judgment. The faculty of

SECTION FOUR TRANSLATION OF POETRY Two Ways of Translating Poetry THERE is no question of defective poetry or lines. There are two ways of rendering a poem from one language into another—one is to keep strictly to the manner and turn of the original, the other to take its spirit, sense and imagery and reproduce them freely so as to suit the new language. A's poem is exceedingly succinct, simply-direct and compact in word, form, rhythm, yet full of suggestion—it. would perhaps not be possible to do the same thing in Bengali; it is necessary to use an ampler form, and this is what you have done. Your translation is very beautiful; only, side by side with the original, one looks lik

letter'sofsa3rd263-.htm SECTION NINE POETS–MYSTICS–INTELLECTUALS   The Poet and the Yogi IT is quite natural for the poets to vaunt their métier as the highest reach of human capacity and themselves as the top of creation, it is also natural for the intellectuals to run down the Yogi or the Rishi who claims to reach a higher consciousness than that which they conceive to be the summit of human achievement. The poet lives still in the mind and is not yet a spiritual seer, but he represents. to the human intellect the highest point of mental seership where the imagination tries to figure and embody in words its intuition of things, though that stands far below the vision of things tha

letter's of sa.3rd 263-.htm SECTION EIGHT POETIC CREATION AND YOGA—UTILITY OF LITERATURE, ETC. IN SADHANA   Reading and Poetic Creation and Yoga A LITERARY man is one who loves literature and literary activities for their own separate sake. A Yogi who writes is not a literary man for he writes only what the inner Will and Word wants him to express. He is a channel and instrument of something greater than his own literary personality. Of course the literary man and the intellectual love reading—-books are their mind's food. But writing is another matter. There are plenty of people who never write a word in the literary way but are enormous readers. One reads for i

Sri Aurobindo is now universally recognised as a Master-mystic and philosopher and a great poet, but very few know that he is also a literary critic of exceptionally fine discernment and unfailing judgment, having at his command a wide and intimate knowledge of the literatures of India and Europe. His main work in this field is embodied in "The Future Poetry" but it lies embedded in the long defunct volumes of "Arya", a philosophical Journal which he conducted about a quarter Century ago. The letters on poetry and literature included in the present volume were written by him to a few of his poet-disciples in answer to their questions and though not intended to give any

SECTION ONE THE PROCESS, FORM AND SUBSTANCE OF POETRY   Three Elements of Poetic Creation.   POETRY, if it deserves the name at all, comes always from some subtle plane through the creative vital and uses the outer mind and other external instruments for transmission only. There are here three elements, the original source of inspiration, the vital force of creative beauty which gives its substance and impetus and determines the form, and the transmitting outer consciousness of the poet. The most genuine and perfect poetry is written when the original source is able to throw its inspiration pure and unalter

SECTION TWO SOURCES OF POETIC INSPIRATION AND VISION— MYSTIC AND SPIRITUAL POETRY   Sources of Poetic Inspiration   ALL poetry is mental or vital or both; sometimes with a psychic tinge; the power from above mind comes in only in rare lines and passages lifting up the mental and vital inspiration. towards its own light and power. To work freely from that hidden inspiration is a thing that has not been done though certain tendencies of modern poetry seem to be an unconscious attempt to prepare for that. But in the mind and vital there ? are many provinces and kingdoms and what you have been writing recently is by no means from. the ordinary

letter's of s.a. 3rd series 245-.htm SECTION SIX INDO-ENGLISH POETRY Achievement of Indo-English Poetry— Literary Decadence in Europe THE idea that Indians cannot succeed in English poetry is very much in the air just now but it cannot be taken as absolutely valid. Toru Dutt and Romesh of the same ilk prove nothing; Toru Dutt was an accomplished verse-builder with a delicate talent and some outbreaks of genius and she wrote things that were attractive and sometimes something that had a strong energy of language and a rhythmic force. Romesh was a smart imitator of English poetry of the second or third rank. What he wrote, if written by an Englishman,

SECTION FIVE MODERN POETRY Contemporary English Poetry (1) I ADMIT I have not read as much of "modern" (contemporary) poetry as I should have—but the little I have is mostly of the same fundamental quality. It is very carefully written and versified, often recherché in thought and expression; it lacks only two things, the inspired phrase and inevitable word and the rhythm that keeps a poem for ever alive. Speech carefully studied and made as perfect as it can be without reaching to inspiration verse as good as verse can be without rising to inspired rhythm—there seem to be an extraordinary number of poets writing like thi

SECTION THREE POETIC RHYTHM AND TECHNIQUE Two Factors in Poetic Rhythm IF your purpose is to acquire not only metrical skill but the sense and the power of rhythm, to study the poets may do something, but not all. There are two factors in poetic rhythm,—there is the technique (the variation of movement without spoiling the fundamental structure of the metre, right management of vowel and consonantal assonances and dissonances, the masterful combination of the musical element of stress with the less obvious element of quantity, etc.), and there is the secret soul of rhythm which uses but exceeds these things. The first you can learn, if you read with your ear a