Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 3. Poetic Technique
Greek and Latin Classical Metres

Acclimatisation of Classical Metres in English

In the attempt to acclimatise the classical scansions in English, everything depends on whether they are acclimatised or not. That is to say, there must be a spontaneous, natural, seemingly native-born singing or flowing or subtly moving rhythm. The lines must glide or run or walk easily or, if you like, execute a complex dance, stately or light, but not stumble, not shamble and not walk like the Commander’s statue suddenly endowed with life but stiff and stony in its march. Now the last is just what happens to classical metres in English when they are not acclimatised, naturalised, made to seem even natively English, although new. It is like cardboard cut into measures, there is no life or movement of life.... It was this inability to naturalise that ruined the chances of the admission of classic metres in the attempts of earlier poets — we must avoid that mistake.

23 November 1933