Sri Aurobindo

Early Cultural Writings

(1890 — 1910)

Part Two. On Literature
On Poetry and Literature

Marginalia on Madhusudan Dutt’s Virangana Kavya [2]

The Epistle of Tara is perhaps less satisfactory; the fiery outbursts of a monstrous and lawless passion needed a stronger imagination than Madhusudan’s¹ to conceive and execute them. The elegances of the Epistle, with its graceful rephrasing of outworn classical images and its stately love-conceits is out of place where the volcanic sheerness of a Webster could alone have been appropriate. Nevertheless the passage in which Tara complains of the unclean love she cannot avoid or control is not without a noble dignity of passion; and shows with what charm the poet could invest the plainest and most hackneyed images. And there are lines in this latter part which have the true note of that terrific passion, [for example]² her cry (deha bhikṣā, deha bhikṣā)  the magnificent distichs (kalandhī śaśāndha) etc. and (likhinu lekhana) etc. and the powerful closing line have all a dramatic simplicity, fire and force which belong to the highest poetry only. Would that Madhusudan had written not only stray lines, distichs, passages, but whole poems in this spirit. The deplorable want of a discerning criticism and false conceptions of poetry early imbibed have done untold harm to our best and most promising writers.

Earlier edition of this work: Archives and Research: A biannual journal.- Volume 7, No1 (1983, April)

¹ A&R, 1983, April: Madhousudan’s

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² A&R, 1983, April: [e.g.]

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