A few D.R. workers remain to be vaccinated: N, S, I.K., etc.Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1937
Letter ID: 1925
Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar
April 29, 1937
“What1 cheer brothers or bothers!” Never heard of such a phrase, Sir! Most 21st century, I am sure. Even Wodehouse hasn’t that!
It is both. You don’t know the story of Pavitra and Khitish and the bother? Pavitra who had just come here with a rather French pronunciation of English, said to K “I am a brother to you all” and Khitish cried out “Oh, no, no!” Pavitra insisted, but Khitish still cried out with pain and politeness in his voice “Oh, no! no! no!” It turned out K had heard all through “I am a bother to you all”! so brothers are bothers and bothers are constant brothers to us, insisting on inhabiting the Asram – or at least visiting it, like the vaccination, P’s needle etc.
[April 30, 1937 ?]
“Why revived?” [K’s swelling in the ankle.] God knows! If I know, it is her dancing gait that has brought it by some twist there. Bone injury indeed!
She has been weeping and saying nobody cares for her because you said it was nothing and I didn’t jump to her bone suggestion. So Mother gave her Siju to embalm her wounded feelings.
A few D.R. workers remain to be vaccinated: N, S, I.K., etc.
Not very eager to have them bitten – what will become of D.R. kitchen if they go over? You don’t want to eat?
...Vaccination today – if you allow Krishnayya.
Allowed.
Here is an English poem2 written between dozes!
Compliments! you have reached the summit with one bound! Magnificent.
Don’t quite follow what you meant by “magnify” and “smite again”.
Refer back to “magnificent” images and “smiting” lines3.
This poem [J’s] is sent as an illustration of what follows.
Tonight there is a mass of correspondence and I have not been able to deal with even half of it. So tomorrow.
J asks why it should be called blank verse. Is it simply because rhymes are absent?
Yes.
Blank verse means verse without rhyme; it is applied usually in English to the unrhymed pentameter.
Is this absence of rhyme made up for by other things?
That is a question of the success of the blank verse as poetry – not of the metrical category into which a poem falls.
Is there a variation of pauses?
In English variation of pauses is not indispensable to blank verse. There is much blank verse of the first quality in which it is eschewed or minimised, much also of the first quality in which it is freely used. Shakespeare has both kinds.
Where is this poem different from a sonnet, except in rhymes lacking?
That is because the sonnet turn or flow has been used without the rhyme which is an essential part of the sonnet structure.
J says she doesn’t think she is really a poet. By Mother’s pressure she has been led to write things.
Mother’s pressure means what? She wanted to write poetry and attempted, at first without much success. Afterwards the channel opened as it did with others.
If she were a poet, she wouldn’t write with so much difficulty. She would spontaneously go on writing like a well gushing out.
Every poet does not write like that. Some of the greatest have written with labour and constant self-correction.
She adds that she would not always fear Mother’s displeasure if she didn’t write etc., etc.
Why should Mother be displeased if she didn’t write? Is it a task that Mother or I have set her against her will?
She says that with the difficulty of blank verse, the dissatisfaction has grown to such a height that she feels like giving up poetry.
Whether to write blank verse or not or to write poetry or not, is purely a matter for her choice. She asked for poetic inspiration and it was given her. Now she seems to complain because it has been given her – it is not her own, therefore not valuable.
Well, Sir, she was saying that before writing today, she had some fear, a lack of confidence lest the blank verse become again unsuccessful.
Why? The one hope of doing well is to write in a cheerful attitude, without too much mental insistence and open herself to the Inspiration quietly and confidently till it comes. Fretting and fuming can only block the passage.
Please give the factors that make blank verse successful. We have read your letter to Amal. Is that all?
I don’t know any factors by which blank verse can be built up. When good blank verse comes one can analyse it and assign certain elements of technique, but these come in the course of the formation of the verse. Each poet finds his own technique – that of Shakespeare differs from Marlowe’s, both from Milton’s and all from Keats’. In English I can say that variations of rhythm, of lengths of syllable, of caesura, of the structure of lines help and neglect of them hinders – so too with pause variations if used; but to explain all that would mean a treatise. Nor could anyone make himself a great blank verse writer by following the instructions deliberately and constructing his verse. Only if he knows, the inspiration answers better and if there is failure in the inspiration he can see and call again and the thing will come. But I am no expert in Bengali blank verse.
1 Except for the first reply, all the others must have been given on April 30, 1937.
2 “First Word”, Sun-Blossoms, p. 8.
3 p. 919