Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

SABCL 26

Fragment ID: 7985

Q: I have been waiting for a long time to take a look at A. E. Housman’s little book “The Name and Nature of Poetry”. It’s been with you for months now. Perhaps you could spare it for a while? How did you like it?

A: Here is the book. I kept it with the intention of noting down my own ideas on Housman’s theory, but all this time has elapsed without my being able to do it. Apart from the theory Housman, judging from the book, has a fine sense of poetic quality in others. For his own poetry, from the extracts I have seen, looks rather thin. I have read the book three or four times and always with satisfaction to my solar plexus.

18-9-1936