Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 1. On His Poetry and Poetic Method
On Savitri

On the Composition of the Poem. Letters of 1931 – 1936 [8]

I shall consider it such a great favour if you will give me an instance in English of the inspiration of the pure Overmind — I don’t mean just a line (like Milton’s “Those thoughts ... ” or Wordsworth’s “Voyaging ... ”) which has only a touch of it, but something sustained and plenary.... Please don’t disappoint me by saying that, as no English writer has a passage of this kind, you cannot do anything for me.

Good Heavens! how am I to avoid saying that when it is the only possible answer — at least so far as I can remember. Perhaps if I went through English poetry again with my present consciousness I might find more intimations like the line of Wordsworth, but a passage sustained and plenary? These surely are things yet to come — the “future poetry” perhaps, but not the past.

22 October 1936