Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Fragment ID: 20291

Then a faint hesitating glimmer broke.

A slow miraculous gesture dimly came,

The persistent thrill of a transfiguring touch

Persuaded the inert black quietude

And beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God.

A wandering hand of pale enchanted light

That glowed along a fading moment’s brink

Fixed with gold panel and opalescent hinge

A gate of dreams ajar on mystery’s verge.

Can’t see the validity of any prohibition of double adjectives in abundance. If a slow wealth-burdened movement is the right thing, as it certainly is here¹ in my judgment, the necessary means have to be used to bring it about – and the double adjective is admirably suited for the purpose.... Do not forget that Savitri is an experiment in mystic poetry, spiritual poetry cast into a symbolic figure. Done on this rule, it is really a new attempt and cannot be hampered by old ideas of technique except when they are assimilable. Least of all by a standard proper to a mere intellectual and abstract poetry which makes “reason and taste” the supreme arbiters, aims at a harmonised poetic intellectual balanced expression of the sense, elegance in language, a sober and subtle use of imaginative decoration, a re-strained emotive element etc. The attempt at mystic spiritual poetry of the kind I am at demands above all a spiritual objectivity, an intense psycho-physical concreteness. I do not know what you mean exactly here by “obvious” and “subtle”. According to certain canons, epithets should be used sparingly, free use of them is rhetorical, an “obvious” device, a crowding of images is bad taste, there should be subtlety of art not displayed but severely concealed – Summa ars est celare artem. Very good for a certain standard of poetry, not so good or not good at all for others. Shakespeare kicks over these traces at every step, Aeschylus freely and frequently, Milton whenever he chooses. Such lines as

With hideous ruin and combustion, down

To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

In adamantine chains and penal fire²

or

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the shipboy’s eyes and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge³

(note two double adjectives in three lines in the last) – are not subtle or restrained, or careful to conceal their elements of powerful technique, they show rather a vivid richness or vehemence, forcing language to its utmost power of expression. That has to be done still more in this kind of mystic poetry. I cannot bring out the spiritual objectivity if I have to be miserly about epithets, images, or deny myself the use of all available resources of sound-significance. The double epithets are indispensable here and in the exact order in which they are arranged by me. You say the rich burdened movement can be secured by other means, but a rich burdened movement of any kind is not my primary object, it is desirable only because it is needed to express the spirit of the action here; and the double epithets are wanted because they are the best, not only one way of securing it. The “gesture” must be “slow miraculous” – if it is merely miraculous or merely slow, that does not create a picture of the thing as it is, but of something quite abstract and ordinary or concrete but ordinary – it is the combination that renders the exact nature of the mystic movement, with the “dimly came” supporting it, so that “gesture” is not here a metaphor, but a thing actually done. Equally a pale light or an enchanted light may be very pretty, but it is only the combination that renders the luminosity which is that of the hand acting tentatively in the darkness. That darkness itself is described as a quietude, which gives it a subjective spiritual character and brings out the thing symbolised, but the double epithet “inert black” gives it the needed concreteness so that the quietude ceases to be something abstract and becomes something concrete, objective, but still spiritually subjective.... Every word must be the right word, with the right atmosphere, the right relation to all the other words, just as every sound in its place and the whole sound together must bring out the imponderable significance which is beyond verbal expression. One can’t chop and change about on the principle that it is sufficient if the same mental sense or part of it is given with some poetical beauty or power. One can only change if the change brings out more perfectly the thing behind that is seeking for expression – brings out in full objectivity and also in the full mystic sense. If I can do that, well, other considerations have to take a back seat or seek their satisfaction elsewhere⁴.

1936

¹ The first two lines here are different from those that in the present version precede the rest of the passage (p. 3). The version on which Sri Aurobindo commented is that of 1936. But the comment which is concerned with the use of double adjectives does not lose its essential force when the place in which the passage now stands demands that it should begin:

Into a far-off nook of heaven there came

A slow miraculous gesture’s dim appeal.

Only one pair of adjectives out of four closely occurring “doubles” drops out.

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² Milton, Paradise Lost, I.46-48

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³ Shakespeare 2 Henry IV, III.i

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⁴ The point discussed by Sri Aurobindo is a genuine and important one but it may be mentioned that the question which elicited the discussion gave rise to this precise point by some carelessness of phrasing. As Sri Aurobindo himself was informed later, the slight suspicion of “obviousness of method” referred not to the closely repeated use of double adjectives but to the manner in which two epithets had been thus used – that is, without any separation of one from the other and immediately before a noun. An alternative – “A gesture slow, miraculous, dimly came” – was suggested, but admittedly the revelatory suspense in Sri Aurobindo’s line was spoiled by the “gesture” being mentioned too soon. Also, “Miraculous, slow, a gesture dimly came” would blurt out things in its own way. “Yes, that is it,” wrote Sri Aurobindo. And his general remark was: “The epithets are inseparable from the noun, they give a single impression which must not be broken up by giving a separate prominence to either noun or epithets.”

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