Appendixes Appendixes     APPENDIX I   The Problem of the Hexameter   The perfection of the hexameter is one of the unsolved problems of English prosody. Either the problem is insoluble, the noble rhythm so satisfying in Greek and Latin unsuited to the brief Saxon vocables ―or else the secret of a successful measure has not yet been discovered. Even were the solution found, there are many obstacles in the way of its acceptation. Yet a new metrical movement is felt to be a necessity and half-unconsciously strained after by the modern mind in poetry. If one could be found that, without admitting too wide a licence, without breaking down the

Examples of Overhead Poetry   Examples from Various Poets Evaluations of 1932 ­ 1935   Does Wordsworth's ode on immortality contain any trace, however vague, of the Overmind inspiration?   I don't remember, but I think not.   And what about the rhythm and substance of   solitary thinkings; such as dodge Conception to the very bourne of heaven.   No. The substance may be overmind, but the rhythm is ordinary and the expression intellectual and imaginative.   and of   I come, O Sea, To measure my enormous self with thee.   No; the poem "To the Sea" w

Problems of the Painter Problems of the Painter   Nature and the Human Figure   The Mother had told you once that in your human figures you did not seem to be in contact with the right Influence and you had said that you felt the contact with an eternal Beauty in Nature but had not the same contact with regard to the human figure. It will be better then, now that you are practising the Yoga and to be in contact with right Influences only is very important, to avoid dealing with the human face and figure at present. In Yoga what may seem to the mind a detail may yet open the door to things that have strong effects on the consciousness, distu

Metrical Experiments   The Genesis of In Horis Aeternum   Is there some way of keeping the loose swinging gait of anapaests within bounds? If one has used them freely in one or more lines, does it sound too abrupt to close with a strict iambic line ―as in the final Alexandrine of:   The wind hush comes, the varied colours westward stream: Were they joy-tinted coral, or song-light seen-heard in a shell fitfully, Drifted ashore by the hours as a waif from the day-wide sea Of Loveliness that smites awake our sorrow-dream?   It is perhaps a pity that the rhyth

Greek and Latin Classical Metres   Acclimatisation of Classical Metres in English   In the attempt to acclimatise the classical scansions in English, everything depends on whether they are acclimatised or not. That is to say, there must be a spontaneous, natural, seemingly native-born singing or flowing or subtly moving rhythm. The lines must glide or run or walk easily or, if you like, execute a complex dance, stately or light, but not stumble, not shamble and not walk like the Commander's statue suddenly endowed with life but stiff and stony in its march. Now the last is just what happens to classical metres in English when they are

Philosophers, Intellectuals, Novelists and Musicians   Western Notions of the History of Philosophy   It is very strange that in books on philosophy by European writers, even in standard textbooks like Alfred Weber's History of Philosophy,1 there is no mention of any of the Indian philosophies. To the Western writer philosophy means only European philosophy ―they begin with the Greek Thales and Anaximander, as if human thinking began with them.   That is the old style European mind. It used to be the same in Art and other matters. Now Chinese and Japanese art is recognised and to a less degree the art of India, Pers

  Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry Part One Poetry and Its Creation

On Poems Published in Ahana and Other Poems   On Two Translations of Revelation   The rendering of Revelation is even better than the two others, well inspired from beginning to end; the colouring is not quite the same as in my poem, but that is hardly avoidable in a poetic version in another language. To alter it, as you propose, would be to spoil it. There is no point in rendering literally "wind-blown locks", and it would be a pity to throw out , for it is just the touch needed to avoid the suggestion of a merely human figure. It is needed ―for readers are often dense. An Indian critic (very competent

Comments on Examples of Twenti Comments on Examples of Twentieth-Century Poetry   W. B. Yeats   DECTORA: No. Take this sword And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael. . . . The sword is in the rope ― The rope's in two ―it falls into the sea, It whirls into the foam. O ancient worm, Dragon that loved the world and held us to it, You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts away, And I am left alone with my beloved, Who cannot put me from his sight for ever. We are alone for ever, and I laugh, Forgael, because you cannot put me from you. The mist has covered the heavens