Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 2. On Poets and Poetry
Comments on the Work of Poets of the Ashram

Harindranath Chattopadhyaya [9]

Harin has sent me your remarks about his Forgiveness and Reverie... Forgiveness seems to suffer by an omission of a line or two which might give its psychic perception a force even in the domain of the outer mind. Harin perhaps tried to give this force in the “clod” – “God” conclusion, but the words there are not only bathetic but also insufficiently suggestive — they do not suggest however crudely that it is the Divine who is “forgiving” man through everything, or better still, that it is the Divine in everything who is forgiving man. What do you think?

I do not at all agree with what you say. For the truth of the poem it is not necessary to bring in the Divine — the two last lines are quite unnecessary — it is sufficient to know that there is a consciousness in things even the most material. There is no question of imagination — except in the reader who ought to have sufficient imagination to feel the profundities behind — it is a deep perception of an occult truth. I find the expression of it perfect.

Now Reverie. Is there any indication in the poem that the God spoken of is not the sole Divinity? ... For the time being there is no God but the jealous God — all Godhead is seen as a jealousy directed against human love and happiness. It was this that drew from A.E. that remark: he could find nowhere in the poem the distinction you make between the time and essential Godhead and a construction out of universal appearances.... Do you wish me to drop the sentence altogether?

If Harin had indicated that the God spoken of was not the sole Divinity, he would have spoiled the poem. For the purposes of the poem he has to be spoken of as the sole Divinity. Why must we take the poem as an exercise in philosophy? A poem is a poem, not a doctrine. It expresses something in the poet’s mind or his feeling. If it agrees with the total truth or the highest truth of the Universe, so much the better, but we cannot demand that of every poet and every poem. I do not ask you to expunge the sentence, if it expresses your feeling with regard to the Reverie. Much is given from the purely aesthetic standpoint even if a poet were to assert a false doctrine such as a malevolent God creating a painful universe. That is, if it were a fine poem, I would enjoy and praise it — although it would be there too an appearance of the universe but approached by putting it forward as a doctrine.

1 February 1935