Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Guidance in Writing Poetry

An Epic Line

Do you think the blank verse here [in the poem Agni Jatavedas] has any epical ring?

No — there are sometimes epic or almost epic lines, but the whole or most of it has not the epic ring. There is one epic line

An infinite rapture veiled by infinite pain.

Perhaps the first three lines are near the epic — there may be one or two others.

19 May 1937