Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

CWSA 27

Fragment ID: 6933

Comments on Specific Lines and Passages of the Poem [49]

Knowledge was rebuilt from cells of inference

Into a fixed body flasque and perishable; [p. 267]

“Flasque” is a French word meaning “slack”, “loose”, “flaccid” etc. I have more than once tried to thrust in a French word like this, for instance, “A harlot empress in a bouge” – somewhat after the manner of Eliot and Ezra Pound.

1946