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

Arjava (J. A. Chadwick) [8]

The second stanza has “that” repeated in the first and third lines in the same metrical place; is this not a defect?

It is a slight defect, but it is a defect.

Though in practice I am still a long way from your subtly balanced rhythm, I think I see in theory one at least of the secrets. There must be very little partition of words between two feet — and still less of feet between two successive rhythmic phrases; that is to say, the pauses between successive rhythmic phrases must mark the ending of a complete foot, and in almost all cases the foot must end with the syllable at the end of a word.

Yes, you have seen the main principle.

Does the modulation in the second foot of line 3 (a third paeon in place of an amphibrach) interfere with the metrical movement I am in quest of?

It depends on the character of the rhythm you want to embody. If it is the purely lyrical as in the Trance, then it interferes — if it is a graver and slower movement, then not.

The whole difficulty of transferring classical metres or the classical quantitative system into English seems to me to hinge on this great difference that quantities and quantitative feet in Greek and Latin are clear-cut settled unmistakable things — while in English quantity is loose, uncertain, plastic. How to solve the problem? If we try to follow the same unmistakably exact quantitative system in English (which means a coincidence of feet and rhythmic phrases), will not monotony be inevitable? On the other hand if we allow plasticity, free modulations, etc., will not there be a metrical chaos and the absence of all clear character in the rhythm? It is the problem that has to be solved — how to get through between Scylla and Charybdis. My own line of approach is to try and reproduce the classical metres as exactly as possible in English first and then see what plasticity, what modulations, what devices to avoid monotony can be discovered — and how far they can be used without destroying the fundamental character of the metre. In Trance I avoided all experiments, using the pure form only — and the sole device used to prevent the effect of an unrelieved monotone was the use of rhyme. I tried even to accept the monotone and make it a part of the charm of the rhythm, by suiting it to the treatment of the subject — a single tone thrice repeated. This involved a purely lyrical treatment — the brevity was also essential. I not only observed the principle of equating the rhythmic phrases with the feet, but I was careful to use unmistakably short quantities for the classic shorts. Thus my closing anapaest was a true unmistakable anapaest in all the six lines where it came. In your last attempt (Twilight Hush) you have done the first and third lines perfectly and the effect is very good, but in the second line of the second stanza your “bend afar” does not give the effect of an anapaest because it comes after an unaccented syllable and one inevitably reads it as a cretic. There were many of these doubtful feet — doubtful on the classic principle — in your first two attempts. I state simply what has happened — and the problem underlying it. How to solve the problem completely I shall yet have to see. It can only come by experiment and observation — ambulando.