Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Poetry and Art
SABCL - Volume 27
Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 3. Poetic Technique
Substance, Style, Diction
Sensuousness and Vulgarity
পূর্ণকুম্ভ [pūrṇakumbha],
if it means the breasts, would be described in English as sensuous but not as
vulgar. The word vulgar is only used for coarse and crude expressions of the
sensual, trivial or ugly. But it does not seem
to me that it should naturally be taken = breast, but indicate the whole vital
and physical being regarded as a vessel or jar which can be filled with honey or
water or poison. Nothing vulgar in that.
30 January 1937