Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 2. On Poets and Poetry
Indian Poetry in English

Writing in a Learned Language [2]

What do you think of Yeats’ letter to Purohit Swami, in which he says: “Write in your mother tongues. Choose that smaller audience. You cannot have style and vigour in English. You did not learn it at your mother’s knee.... It is not your fault that you are under a curse. It is the fault of wicked policy. Defeat this policy. Write and speak Marathi, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil.... ”

All very well for those who can write in some language of India and don’t know English intimately. But what of those who think and write naturally in English? Why didn’t Yeats write in Gaelic?

17 September 1936