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

Translation: Practice   Remarks on Some Translations   I do not think it is the ideas that make the distinction between European and Indian tongues ―it is the turn of the language. By taking over the English turn of language into Bengali one may very well fail to produce the effect of the original because this turn will seem outlandish in the new tongue, but one can always by giving a right turn of language more easily acceptable to the Bengali mind and ear make the idea as natural and effective as in the original; or even if the idea is strange to the Bengali mind one can by the turn of language acclimatise it, make it acceptable. The

The Poet and the Poem    Power of Expression and Spiritual Experience   All depends on the power of expression of the poet. A poet like Shakespeare or Shelley or Wordsworth though without spiritual experience may in an inspired moment become the medium of an expression of spiritual Truth which is beyond him and the expression, as it is not that of his own mind, may be very powerful and living, not merely aesthetically agreeable. On the other hand a poet with spiritual experience may be hampered by his medium or by his transcribing brain or by an insufficient mastery of language and rhythm and give an expression which may mean much to him but not