Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

CWSA 27

Fragment ID: 6793

James Cousins on In the Moonlight and The Rishi [1]

I hear that James Cousins said about your poem The Rishi that it was only spiritual philosophy, not poetry.

I never heard that. If I had I would have noted that Cousins had no capacity for appreciating intellectual poetry. But that I knew already – just as he had no liking for epic poetry either, only for poetic “jewellery”. His criticism was of In the Moonlight which he condemned as brain-stuff only except the early stanzas for which he had high praise. That criticism was of great use to me – though I did not agree with it. But the positive part of it helped me to develop towards a supra-intellectual style. As Love and Death was poetry of the vital, so Ahana [Ahana and other Poems] is mostly work of the poetic intelligence. Cousins’ criticism helped me to go a stage farther.

11 November 1936