Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1938
Letter ID: 2101
Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar
May 15, 1938
You say “ন তত্র ভাতি চন্দ্রতারকাং”, that may be a spiritual experience, but to express it in poetry is rather difficult. Hariri has sun and moon in plenty. Amal has “stars” coming in almost every one of his poems, said his friend Saranagata.
That was Amal’s own preference, not the spiritual poems’ necessity. I read the other day a comment on Keats’ poetry that he always writes about stars and that there is a spiritual reason for it.
We haven’t had many of your poems to go by. This is one point against spiritual poetry. Another, it seems to me that spiritual poetry is bound to be limited in scope and less full of “রস বৈচিত্র্য”1 (to quote Tagore) and a little monotonous, every time soul, spirit, etc. coming in in slightly different garbs.
Ordinary poems (and novels) always write about love and similar things. Is it one point against ordinary (non-spiritual) poetry? If there is sameness of expression in spiritual poems, it is due either to the poet’s binding himself by the tradition of a fixed set of symbols (e.g. Vaishnava poets, Vedic poets) or to his having only a limited field of expression or imagination or to his deliberately limiting himself to certain experiences or emotions that are dear to him. To readers who feel these things it does not appear monotonous. Those who listen to Mirabai’s songs, don’t get tired of them, nor do I get tired of reading the Upanishads. The Greeks did not tire of reading Anacreon’s poems though he always wrote of wine and beautiful boys (an example of sameness in unspiritual poetry). The Vedic and Vaishnava poets remain immortal in spite of their sameness which is in another way like that of the poetry of the 
troubadours in mediaeval Europe, deliberately chosen. প্রেরণা [prepaṇā] is all very well, but it is the power of the poetry that really matters. After all every poet writes always in the same style, repeats the same vision of things in “different garbs”.
In connection with J’s poetry, you had said long ago that there is a danger of repeating in mystic poetry.
The danger but not the necessity.
You know when Sahana sent some of her poems to Tagore, he said that the world creation is full of a variety of rasa. The poet’s mind should not be confined to one single prepaṇā2, however vast it may be3.
[Sri Aurobindo underlined “however vast it may be”.]
But Tagore’s poetry is all from one প্রেরণা. He may write of different things, but it is always Tagore and his prerana repeating themselves interminably. Every poet does that.
He hints that only spiritual inspiration dealing with things spiritual and mystic should not bind a poet’s creation. Well?
Well and if a poet is a spiritual seeker what does Tagore want him to write about? Dancing girls? Amal has done that. Wine and women? Hafez has done that. But he can only use them as symbols as a rule. Must he write about politics,– communism, for instance, like modernist poets? Why should he describe the outer aspects of বিশ্ব প্রকৃতি4 for their own sake, when his vision is of something else within বিশ্ব প্রকৃতি or even apart from her? Merely for the sake of variety? He then becomes a mere littérateur. Of course if a man simply writes to get poetic fame and a lot of readers, if he is only a poet, Tagore’s advice may be good for him.
Nishikanta and Harin have more variety, perhaps. But on the whole don’t you think we are likely to be lacking in this rasa and variety?
It is not a necessity of spiritual poetry; but if it so happens, I don’t see that it matters so terribly.
Tagore says that it is unbecoming for a poet to mention that his discovery of a metre is new or difficult.
That is a matter of etiquette. Tagore popularised the স্বরবৃত্ত5 and there was a big row about it at first; he left it to his admirers to shout about it. Dilip being a prosodist prefers to do the fighting himself, that is all.
I wonder why one should not mention that a chhanda is new, if a poet discovers one. He may not say that it is difficult, but why shouldn’t he speak of its newness? For instance the discovery of your stress rhythm had to be mentioned in order to be grasped.
Obviously.
Tagore being a master of chhanda, says this?
Also an inventor of new metres.
Dilip seems to have made chhanda a mathematical business; that’s why many complain that his poems can’t be read.
Is it true?
Once Tagore wrote to Sahana that he couldn’t appreciate Dilipda’s language and style (didn’t say whether of prose or poetry).
Why did he praise him (to Dilip himself) now?
Can’t you send some of your poems? You owe me one, you know.
What poems? I am not writing any, except occasionally my long epic (Savitri) which cannot see the light of day in an embryonic state.
“The zephyr from an inscrutable height
Blowing like strains of a lyre...”
Zephyr from an inscrutable height? The zephyr is a sweet little romantic wind incapable of heights.
With difficulty I have avoided moon, stars, etc., but in one place I have put “sun” which I hope you will kick out.
Kicked!
1 rasa vaicitrya: a variety of sentiments or feelings.
2 preraṇā: inspiration.
3 Original in Bengali.
4 viśvaprakṛti: world nature.
5 svarabṛtta: one of the principal metres of Bengali poetry.