Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 2. On Poets and Poetry
Twentieth-Century Poetry

Yeats and A. E. [1]

I do not think I have been unduly enthusiastic over Yeats, but one must recognise his great artistry in language and verse in which he is far superior to A.E. — just as A.E. as a man and a seer was far superior to Yeats. Yeats never got beyond a beautiful mid-world of the vital antarikṣa, he has not penetrated beyond to spiritual-mental heights as A. E. did. But all the same, when one speaks of poetry, it is the poetical element to which one must give the most importance. What Yeats expressed, he expressed with great poetical beauty, perfection and power and he has, besides, a creative imagination. A. E. had an unequalled profundity of vision and power and range in the spiritual and psychic field. A. E.’s thought and way of seeing and saying things is much more sympathetic to me than Yeats’ who only touches a brilliant floating skirt-edge of the truth of things — but I cannot allow that to influence me when I have to judge of the poetic side of their respective achievements.