Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1936

Letter ID: 1684

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

July 24, 1936

D says: “If you want to publish your literary work, you must see that people understand it – not the public at large, but, as Virginia Woolf says, a select public. Otherwise don’t publish at all. The very idea of publication means an appreciation, and how can one appreciate an unintelligible thing?”

What is not understood or appreciated by one select circle may be understood or appreciated by another select circle or in the future like Blake’s poetry. Nobody appreciated Blake in his own time – now he ranks as a great poet – more poetic than Shakespeare, says Housman. Tagore wrote he could not appreciate D’s poetry because it is too “Yogic” for him. Is Tagore then unselect, one of the public at large?

D says that your case is different, because you don’t care for publication!

It is not for that reason.

Any light on the issue of the publication, and the public being the judge?

I don’t agree at all with not publishing because you won’t be understood. At that rate many great poets would have remained unpublished. What about the unintelligible Mallarmé who had such a great influence on later French poetry?

S still feels weak. His bile colour is improving. Shall I give him some iron and nux vomica?

Not iron as yet – let the bile go out first – Nux vomica yes.