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

Appreciation of the Arts in General   Poetic and Artistic Value and Popular Appeal   I do not know why your correspondent puts so much value on general understanding and acceptance. Really it is only the few that can be trusted to discern the true value of things in poetry and art and if the "general" run accept it is usually because acceptance is sooner or later imposed or induced in their minds at first by the authority of the few and afterwards by the verdict of Time. There are exceptions of course of a wide spontaneous acceptance because something that is really good happens to meet a taste or a demand in the general mind of t

Section Three    Poetic Technique   Technique, Inspiration, Artistry   Inspiration and Technique   You do not need at all to afflict your inspiration by studying metrical technique ―you have all the technique you need, within you. I have never studied prosody myself ―in English, at least, ―what I know I know by reading and writing and following my ear and using my intelligence. If one is interested in the technical study of prosody for its own sake, that is another matter ―but it is not at all indispensable. 28 April 1934    Knowledge of Technique and Intuitive Cognition   As for the technique, there

Section Two   On the Visual Arts         General Remarks on the Visual Arts   Art and Nature   There is no incompatibility between the inspiration from within and the dependence on Nature. The essence of the inspiration always comes from within but the forms of expression are based on Nature though developed and modified by the selective or interpretative sight of the artist. 6 September 1933 *   A painter can certainly bring home the aspects of the sea and the beauty of Nature, but he does it as an artist, in the way of Art. He does it by representation and suggestion, not by

Part Three   Literature, Art, Beauty and Yoga     Section One   Appreciation of Poetry and the Arts   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 "eminent" critics. All is relative here, Art and Beauty also, and our view of things and our appreciation of them depends on the consciousness which views and appreciates. Some critics recognise this and go in frankly for a purely subjec

Indian Poetry in English Indian Poetry in English   Writing in a Learned Language   I was surprised last night how les mots justes sprang ready to the pen's call. Alas I can't say the same thing for my English poetry, where I always fumble so.   One cannot expect to seize in poetry the finer and more elusive tones, which are so important, in a learned language, however well-learnt, as in one's native or natural tongue. Unless of course one succeeds in making it natural, if not native. 5 December 1935 *   What do you think of Yeats' letter to Purohit Swami, in which he says: "Write in your

Metrical Experiments in Bengali   New Metres in Bengali   Of course, Prabodh Sen is right. I suppose what Buddhadev means is that none of the very great poets invented a metre ―they were all too lazy and preferred stealing other people's rhythms and polishing them up to perfection, just as Shakespeare stole all his plots from wherever he could find any worth stealing. But all the same, if that applies to Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, what about Alcaeus, Sappho, Catallus, Horace? they did a good deal of inventing or of transferring ―introducing Greek metres into Latin, for example. I can't spot a precedent in modern European

Painting in the Ashram Painting in the Ashram   A General Remark   What you write about the expression of beauty through painting and the limitations of the work as yet done here, is quite accurate. The painters here have capacity and disposition, but as yet the work done ranks more as studies and sketches, some well done, some less well, than as great or finished art. What they need is not to be easily satisfied because they have put their ideas or imaginations in colour or because they have done some good work, but always to see what has not been yet achieved and train vision and execution-power till they have reached a truly high power of thems

Section Two Section Two   On Poets and Poetry   Great Poets of the World   The World's Greatest Poets   Goethe certainly goes much deeper than Shakespeare; he had an incomparably greater intellect than the English poet and sounded problems of life and thought Shakespeare had no means of approaching even. But he was certainly not a greater poet; I do not find myself very ready to admit either that he was Shakespeare's equal. He wrote out of a high poetic intelligence, but his style and movement nowhere come near the poetic power, the magic, the sovereign expression and profound or subtle rhythms of Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a supr