We meet here two common enough errors, to one of whic]
the ordinary unistructed mind is most liable, to the othe the too instructed
critic or the too intellectually conscientiou artist or craftsman. To the
ordinary mind, judging poetr without reaIly entering into it, it looks as if it
were nothinl more than aesthetic pleasure of the imagination, the intellec and
the ear, a sort of elevated pastime. If that were all, W4 need not have wasted
time in seeking for its spirit, its i~e: aim, its deeper law. Anything pretty,
pleasant and melodiou: with a beautiful idea in it, would serve our turn. ,
..Pleasure certainly, we expect from poetry as from all art; but th( external
sensible and even the inner imaginative pleasurc are only first elements;
refined in order to meet the highesl requirements of the intelligence, the
imagination and the ear, they have to be still further heightened and in their
.nature raised beyond even their own noblest levels.
For neither the intelligence, the imagination nor the ear are the true
recipients of the poetic delight, even as they are
the large interpretive idea, the life, the power, the
emotion , of things packed into its original creative vision,-such spiritual
joy is that which the soul of the poet feels and which, when he can conquer the
human difficulties of his task, he succeeds in pouring also into all those who
are prepared to receive it. And this delight is not merely a godlike pastime ;
it is a grea~ form~tive and illuminative power .
The critic-of a certain type--or the intellectually
con- scientious artist will, on the other hand, often talk as if poetry were
mainly a matter of a faultlessly correct or at most an exquisite technique.
Certainly, in all art, good technique is the first step towards perfection; but
there are so many other steps, there is a whole world beyond before you can get
near to what we seek; so much so that even a deficient cor- rectness of
execution will not prevent an intense ~nd gifted
soul from creating great poetry which keeps its hold
on the j l c~nturies. Moreover, techni~ue, however i~dispensable, occu- ! ' \
pies a smaller field perhaps In poetry than In any other art,- ; ~ first,
because its instrument, the rhythmic word, is full
Ii:
: of subtle and immaterial elements ; then because, the most I t complex,
flexible, variously suggestive of all the instruments Ic I of the artistic
creator, it has more infinite possibilities in' I many directions than any
other. The rhythmic word has a subtly sensible element, its sound value, a
quite immaterial element, its significance or thought-value, ~nd both of these
again, its sound and its sense, have separately and together a soul-value, a
direct spiritual power, which is infinitely the
most important thing about them. And though this come!
birth with a small element subject to the laws of tec4niq yet almost
immediately, almost at the beginning -Qf its fli~ its power soars up beyond the
province of any laws ofmec nical construction.
Rather it determines itself its own form. The poet le
of all artists needs to create with his eye fixed anxiously
i ~; the technique of his art. He has to possess it,
no doubt; 1 ili in the heat of creation the intellectual sense of it become!
t~r::;" subordinate action or even a mere undertone in his mil f' E: ! :
and in his best moments he is permitted, in a way, to for!
'
!'
t': it altogether. For then the perfection of his sound-movemt
c t. ; and style come entirely as the spontaneous form
of his SOl :fJ :~ : that utters itself in an in.spired rhythm and an innate, a
rev.eal n ~ ,~ .word, ~ven as the U nIversal Soul created the harmonIes :rc ..0
t~e ~nIv~rse out ?f the power of ~he word secret and ete.rl1 ;1 i ~: Wlthln
hIm, leavlmg the mechanIcal work to be done In :1 c ~: surge of hidden
spiritual excitement by the subcoIlScie f 00=.:. part ofhis Nature. It
is this highest speech which is the suprel1 ,. poetic utterance, the immortal
element in his poetry, and ;.; little of it is enough to save the rest of his
work from oblivio il Swalpam apyasya dharmasya!
..; ...It does this partly by a stress on the image
replacir the old sensational concreteness, partly by a greater at tel tion to
the suggestive force of the sound, its life, i power, the mental impression it
carries. It associates th with the definitive thought value contributed by tlJ
intelligence ~nd increases both by each other. In that wa it succeeds at the
same time in carrying up the pOWt of speech to the direct expression of a
higher reach of e> perience than the intellectual or vital. For it brings
out nc only the definitive intellectual value of the word, not onl its power of
emotion and sensation, its vital suggestion, bu through and beyond these its
soul-suggestion, its spirit. Si poetry arrives at the indication of infinite
meanings beyoru the finite intellectual meaning the word carries. It expresse
not only the life-soul of man as did the primitive word, no only the ideas of
his intelligence for which speech now usuall~
I serves,
but the experience, the vision, the ideas, as we ma~ say, of the higher and
wider soul in him. Making them rea
f .
tto our life-soul as well as present to our intellect,
it opens to
~ us by the word the doors of the Spirit. 'ii Prose
style carries speech to a much higher power than its zordinary use, but it
differs from poetry in not making this 'yet greater attempt. For it takes its
stand firmly on the in-
"
tellectual value of the word. It uses rhythms which
ordinary
\ speech neglects, and aims at a general fluid harmony
of i movement. It seeks to associate .words agreeably and lumi- ?nously so as
at once to please and to clarify the intelligence. i,lt strives after a
more accurate, subtle, flexible and satisfying iexpression than the rough
methods of ordinary speech care to ~compass. A higher adequacy of speech is its
first object. 'tBeyond this adequacy it may aim at a greater forcefulness ~and
effectiveness by various devices of speech which are so ;Jmany rhetorical means
for heightening its force of intellectual ~appeal. ...If it goes beyond these
limits, approaches in its
measures a more striking rhythmic balance, uses images
for !i sheer vision, opens itself to a mightier breath of speech, prose
style passes beyond its province and approaches or even
"( enters the confines of poetry .It becomes poetical prose or . ,1e,:,en
,poetry itself using the apparent forms of prose. as a ::'~
disgUIse or a loose apparel. ~ But always, whether in
the search or the finding, the whole ;;:~
;, style and rhythm of poetry are the expression and
movement [ which come from us out of a certain spiritual excitement 'j caused
by a vision in the soul of which it is eager to ddiver , itself. The vision may
bt: of anything in Nature or God or
man or the life of creatures or the life of things; it
may be a vision, of force and action, or of sensible beauty, or of truth
.of thought, or of emotion and pleasure and pain, of
this life or the life beyond. It is sufficient that it is the soul which sees
and the eye, sense, heart and thought-mind become the passive instruments of
the soul. Then we get the real, the high poetry. But if it is too much an
excitement of the in- tellect, the imagination, the emotions, the vital
actiyjties, seeking rhythmical and forceful expression which acts, without
enough of the greater spiritual excitement embracing them, if all these are not
sufficiently sunk into the soul, steeped in it, fused in it and the expression
does not come out purified and uplifted by a sort of spiritual tra~n;lutation,
then we' fall
~
~"c=-- f
92 SRI AUROBINDO ON SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANI1'IES
to lower levels of poetry, and get work of a much more
do~ ful immoratality. And when the appeal is altogether to
.lower things in us, to the mere mind, we arrive
outside true domain of poetry; We approach the confines of pJ or get
prose itself masking in the apparent forms of poe and the work is distinguished
from prose style only or mai by its mechanical elements, a good verse form and
perh. a more compact, catching or energetic e;xpression thari
prose writer will ordinarily permit to the easier and
loo balance of his speech. That is to say, it will not have at or not
sufficiently the true essence of poetry.
For in all things that speech can express there are t'
elements, the outward or instrumental and the real or spj
tual. In thought, for instance, there is the
intellectual idt that which the intelligence makes precise and definite to 1
and the soul-idea, that which exceeds the intellectual aJ brings us into
nearness or identity with the whole reality
the thing expressed. Equally in emotion, it is not the
me emotion itself the poet seeks, but the soul of the emotio that in it for the
delight of which the soul in us and the wor desires or accepts emotional
experience. So too with t1 poetical sense of objects, the poet's attempt to
embody i his speech truth of life or truth of Nature. It is this greatl truth
and its delight and beauty for which he is seekinl beauty which is truth and
truth beauty and therefore a jc for ever, because it brings the delight of the
soul in the di covery of its Own deeper realities. This greater element tb more
timid and temperate speech of prose c.an sometimc shadow out to us, but the
heightened and fearless style ( poetry makes it close and living and the higher
cadences (
; poetry carry in on their wings what the style of
itself couL not bring. This is the Source of that intensity which is th stamp
of poetical speech and of the poetical movement. I comes from the stress of the
soul-vision behind the word it is the spiritual excitement of a rhyt~mic voyage
of self discovery among the magic islands of form and name in thesc
inner and outer worlds.l
1 Arya, "The Future Poetry", Vol. IV,
pp. 378-84, 1917-18.