-05_Sri Aurobindo's 72nd Birthday.htm Sri Aurobindo's 72nd Birthday On the fifteenth of this month, August, Sri Aurobindo reaches the age of seventy-two. But immediately we state that fact our minds are filled with a sense of contradiction. We used to speak of Tagore advancing in years and we speak now of Gandhi growing old: nothing strange is felt by us in our utterances. Sri Aurobindo, however, makes any calculation in terms of age a falsity. Fundamentallly such a calculation errs because of Sri Aurobindo's mysticism. Both Tagore and Gandhi can be called great, but their greatness is of the human and not the divine type. The essence of Tagore is the poet, of Gandhi the moralist, of Sri Aurobindo t

The Muse and the Mystic A bright young man, himself a budding poet, wrote to me about my own poetry, appreciating certain pieces of a bold and pungent type, but deploring my general mystical trend as unmodern, divorced from hard facts like slums and brothels, flying away from the delights of sense, out of tune with the revelations of science, unhelpful towards "breasting" life's miseries, a stumbling-block to a true fulfilment of the poetic urge as well as a bar to a true rapport between author and reader. I am glad my "modern" and "realistic" friend made his position so clear to me. But I am afraid that what he has made me see most clearly is that his position is rat

A Poet on Poetry By far the boldest definition of poetry is A.E. Housman's in that much-in-little of a book, The Name and Nature of Poetry, which I have recently read again. Yes, the boldest - and yet it seems to be both natural and penetrating, a logical completion of the hints thrown out by other poets concerning their own art. Wordsworth's is well-known: "All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." Byron, with his usual turn for rhetoric, expresses this spontaneity and power in a more impressive, almost threatening manner: "Poetry is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake." Shelley has a less psychoanalytic idea and prefers a p

Critics' Complaints Not all can sup with satisfaction on poetry and when poetry is mystical the stomach and the palate are still more disgruntled. Even good critics come out with various complaints. I happen to be addicted to the mystical Muse and have received quite an assortment of criticisms, a part of which it might be of interest to consider in brief for the literary or psychological questions raised. The Regret About "Preciousness" There was the English professor who, though giving high praise, regretted "the tendency to be precious and not simple enough". But can mystical and spiritual poetry that is deeply dyed in the unknown be ever simple? No matter how bare

The Peacock Lute Sarojini Naidu flashed out that phrase in a poem - Professor Bhushan has caught it on the title-page of his excellent new anthology of poems written in English by Indians. Both are acts of inspiration. The fine phrase becomes a focus of special significance when applied to Indian poetry in any form. A peacock is commonly known for three things: the abundant colour of its plumes, its keen dancing - and its look of vanity. But the vision of the East has not found the peacock invariably vain: to be self-delighted has for the Indian a profound sense as well as a superficial one, since self-delight can stand for an independence of outward objects or occasions for

The Fetish of Theory I am sometimes asked what my "theory" is about the writing of a poem. The question finds me at a loss how properly to understand it. For, about the writing of a poem I have no theory if by that term is meant any notion that a poem should be in a certain style and make use of a particular type of words and concern itself with a limited field of themes. I know a poem to be just this: intensity of vision, intensity of word, intensity of rhythm plus the act of being a harmonious whole. The language may be common or kingly, the style simple or complex, the thought plain or picturesque, the emotion day-to-day or once-in-a-blue-moon. It does not matter what them

"That Vulgar Squashy Word" It was the word "loveliness" recurring in a book of poems by Yeats that drew from a modernist reviewer this sneering phrase. To talk of loveliness seemed a sign of utter "low brow", a display of backboneless gush. We must be cerebral, cynical, psychoanalytic: we must not run after outmoded things like beauty. Ingenuity and scepticism and an itch in the genitals mark the truly advanced mind. Of course, vulgar and squashy things still interest people, but these people are relics of a regrettable past and stand pretty near the bottom in the modernist scale. The developed intelligence is bored by idealism, the search for a divine spirit shining thro

Two Packets of Poetry and a Prose Cutting Two slim packets of poetry have been put in my hands by a friend - one in typescript, the other in print - both re-comended with warm admiration; while a prose cutting from The Times Literary Supplement has been given me with disgust and disapproval. The printed booklet is entitled "Magnificat" and its writer is S.I.M., a woman. It makes pleasant reading. The general poetic atmosphere is good - the sentiment in which the verse lives and moves is touched with the mystery of life's birth and growth and of the one Force variously creative everywhere. I think it is this general atmosphere, this prevailing sentime

-07_A Poet's Sincerity.htm A Poet's Sincerity "All writing of poetry," says AE, "should be preceded by a passionate desire for truth and when the poet is writing he should continually ask himself, 'Do I really believe this? Is this truly what I feel?'" AE was himself a poet — but I am afraid his dictum must not be taken at its face-value. We must not ignore the fact that a dramatist can be a poet. A dramatist speaks through a multitude of characters. No doubt, he often packs them with responses he has personally made to the world, yet nowhere does he write an accurate story of his own attitudes, and he writes great poetry through his villains no less than his heroes. Surely he cannot be be

A Book of Love A friend of mine put Havelock Ellis's autobiography into my hands and asked me to read it and pay a tribute to its author. My friend is right in assuming that a tribute is deserved by Havelock Ellis. Perhaps the best tribute is to utter the paradox that the passing of Havelock Ellis leaves no gap in the world. It is the life either frustrated or cut short before fulfilling itself that leaves a gap. What is here left behind is a sense of rich plenitude - an achievement splendid in its calm completeness. Yes, the two characteristics of this man as embodied in his work were an unassuming poise and a thoroughgoing wide-sweeping efficiency. That combination gave him a str