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

Comments on Specific Lines and Passages of the Poem [52]

Would it be an improvement if one of the two successive “it”s in

In the world which sprang from it it took no part [p. 283]

is avoided? Why not put something like “its depths” for the first “it”?

“Depths” will not do, since the meaning is not that it took no part in what came from the depths but did take part in what came from the shallows; the word would be merely a rhetorical flourish and take away the real sense. It would be easy in several ways to avoid the two “it”s coming together but the direct force would be lost. I think a comma at “it” and the slight pause it would bring in the reading would be sufficient. For instance, one could write “no part it took”, instead of “it took no part”, but the direct force I want would be lost.

1948