-004_Sri Aurobindo—the Poet.htm SRI AUROBINDO — THE POET * To see a star of the first literary magnitude swim into our ken makes one of the rarest and richest moments of life. But there are thrills and thrills; and while it may strike us dumb to discover all of a sudden "deep-brow'd" Homer's "demesne", it may prove difficult to stand Silent, upon a peak in Darien, if we find that a mare magnum already familiar to us had all along a shade of glory we had never distinguished—that, for instance, it was Homer who also wrote Plato or that the author of the Republic was the true wizard who even here in the world of Impermanence had made the phenomenal ill-fate of Ilium almost a divine Idea

POETRY IN SRI AUROBINDO'S VISION * LIGHTS FROM PASSAGES IN SAVITRI We have said a good deal about Sri Aurobindo the Poet. And we have looked upon Savitri as the peak—or rather the many-peaked Himalaya—of Aurobindonian poetry. Also, in dealing with the supreme altitudes as well as the inferior heights we have given glimpses of the Poet's view of the poetic phenomenon both in its essence and in its progression. It may not be amiss to dwell at a little more length on some of the fundamentals involved. The easiest way to do so would be to string together or else paraphrase a number of passages from Sri Aurobindo's literary criticism. But I should

-002_Publisher^s Note.htm PUBLISHER'S NOTE We are very happy to publish this research work of Mr. K. D. Sethna, As explained in the author's Introductory Note, it is a companion volume to his earlier study, The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo. Himself a poet as well as a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, Mr. Sethna may be said to bring an inside knowledge of the art with which the present book is concerned. The papers collected here are the result of a penetrating search for the soul of poetry and the possibilities of its highest expression. We are sure the readers will find in this volume critical perceptions which will enable them to come into an intimate contact with Sri Aurobindo's poetry in all it

THE LONGEST SENTENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY The longest sentence in English poetry—143 words and, if a compound is counted as two, 144—is in Savitri, Book IV, Conto III, P.426. We must understand, of course, that true sentence-length does not really depend on putting a full-stop as late as possible and substituting commas and semi-colons and colons for it wherever we can. The true length is organic. The construction is such that the components, however independent-seeming, are grammatically inseparable. Many of them are really subordinate clauses or else contain words that internally link them together, as against mere external linkage by means of

SRI AUROBINDO'S LETTERS ON SAVITRI* A PERSONAL RECOLLECTION Sri Aurobindo intended to write a long Introduction to Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol Together with the final revision he seems to have had in mind of a few parts of his epic, the eagerly awaited Introduction never got under way. But, as some compensation, we have a substantial number of letters by Sri Aurobindo on what can be called, if any one achievement by so vastly and variously creative a genius can lay claim to the tide, his literary lifework. They have been arranged to make an introductory ensemble—necessarily in certain places more informal, personal, unreserved, focused on details, quick-s

-022_Some Notes on Sri Aurobindo^s Poems.htm SOME NOTES ON SRI AUROBINDO'S POEMS * I Annotation in the strict sense can be of two kinds. One directly illuminates lines of poetry by correctly construing them or suggesting their right interpretation or setting them beside similar ones found elsewhere or analysing their technical qualities. The other provides the background of event and circumstance from which they get projected. From the strictly artistic viewpoint exact information relating to this background is superfluous: the verse stands by itself, making its own statement or story, picture or symbol, and requires no comparison with real life to add to its intrinsic value. Thus,

SRI AUROBINDO — THE POET SRI AUROBINDO—THE POET K. D. SETHNA SRI AUROBINDO INTERNATIONAL CENTRE OF EDUCATION PONDICHERRY First Edition : 1970 March 1970 Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1970 Published by Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA

II SRI AUROBINDO AND THE HEXAMETER       1       Blank verse, ever since Shakespeare and Milton gave it the shape of their genius, has been the mould par excellence of English poetry. Its unrhymed lines of five feet, variously modulating on the iambic base of a light unstressed syllable followed by a heavy stressed one (x/), have proved capable of equalling the epic effects of the Greek and Latin hexameter. English poets, however, have been haunted by the cadences of the ancient world and have often tried to transfer into their language the hexameter itself — the "heroic" blank verse of Greece and Rome. The mould which Shakespear

  . THE POETIC GENIUS OF SRI AUROBINDO           THE POETIC GENIUS OF SRI AUROBINDO     K. D. SETHNA (Amal Kiran)             CLEAR RAY TRUST PUDUCHERRY - INDIA © Clear Ray Trust, Puducherry - 605 012 First Edition: 1947 Revised Second Edition: 1974 Third Edition: 2008                   ISBN 978-81-87916-07-9 Price: Rs. 125.00 Printed at All India Press, Puducherry - 605 0

III SRI AUROBINDO -A NEW AGE OF MYSTICAL POETRY 1         Every poet is in essence a Platonist. No poet but feels he is serving a sacred mission beyond his own self, the mission of some perfect beauty waiting to be revealed. He may be as poignantly personal and fired with the body's hunger as Sappho and Catullus, yet the urge to his lyrical self-expression is not merely the joys and griefs of a personal libido: it is also an aspiration for a flawless magic of verbal form. Sappho and Catullus were not lovers grown vocal and nothing more: they were pre-eminently idealists of speech, their passion was for an irreproachable