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 the Publication of His Poetry

On Two Proposals to Publish Love and Death in England [2]

I am afraid you are under an illusion as to the success of Love and Death in England. Love and Death dates,— it belongs to the time when Meredith and Phillips were still writing and Yeats and A.E. were only in bud if not in ovo. Since then the wind has changed and even Yeats and A.E. are already a little high and dry on the sands of the past, while the form, manner, characteristics of Love and Death are just the things that are anathema to the post-war writers and literary critics. I fear it would be, if not altogether ignored which is most likely, regarded as a feeble and belated Indian imitation of an exploded literary model dead and buried long ago. I don’t regard it in that light myself, but it is not my opinion that counts for success but that of the modern highbrows. If it had been published when it was written, it might have been a success — but now! Of course, I know that there are many people still in England, if it got into their hands, who would read it with enthusiasm, but I don’t think it would get into their hands at all. As for the other poems, they could not go with Love and Death. When the time comes for publication, the sonnets will have to be published in a separate book of Sonnets and the others in another separate book of (mainly) lyrical poems — so it cannot be now. That at least is my present idea. It is not that I am against publication for all time, but my idea was to wait for the proper time rather than do anything premature.

One thing however could be done. Prithwi Singh could send his friend Love and Death and perhaps the Six Poems and sound the publishers as to whether the publication, in their eyes, would be worthwhile from their point of view. That would at least give a clue.

24 October 1934