Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 1. The Sources of Poetry
Examples of Overhead Poetry

Evaluations of 1932 – 1935 [1]

Does Wordsworth’s ode on immortality contain any trace, however vague, of the Overmind inspiration?

I don’t remember, but I think not.

And what about the rhythm and substance of

solitary thinkings; such as dodge

Conception to the very bourne of heaven.

No. The substance may be overmind, but the rhythm is ordinary and the expression intellectual and imaginative.

and of

I come, O Sea,

To measure my enormous self with thee.

No; the poem “To the Sea” was produced by a collaboration of the dynamic poetic intelligence with the higher vital urge.

April 1932