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
Remarks on English Usage

On Some Words and Expressions Used by Writers of the Ashram [3]

Of course the big dictionary in the library mentions “gloam” — and not just as an archaism or obsolecism: it does it the honour, which it more than deserves, of calling it a variant of “gloaming”. Etymologically too, there can be no objection: “gloaming” and “gloom” derive from the same Anglo-Saxon “glōm,” so if “gloom” is legitimate, “gloam” is a fortiori so.

Not necessarily — if one proceeded in that argument, the English language would soon be a chaos.

Besides, at least twice before it has passed under your eyes and you have never demurred: I used it over a year ago in Pointers:

From the sea rise up

Fingers of foam

Trying to pierce through

The veil of gloam

And I remember Harin’s use of it:

In me, the timeless, time forgets to roam,

Drunk with my poise, grown sudden unaware,

Offering up its noontide and its gloam

Withdrawn in a lost attitude of prayer.

If it were an obscure uglification, I could understand your objection; but as you admit its rare beauty and cannot doubt its sense nor its etymological coinability, and still reiterate your remark about the necessity of my justifying it I conjecture some solid principle behind your diffidence. Why should one hesitate to enrich the language?

It did not strike me in your poem. As for Harin, I never object to what he may invent in language or in grammar, because so much mastery of language carries with it a right to take liberties with it. But I am more severe with myself and others. However, if it is in the big dictionary, that is sufficient. Even if it had been an archaism, it would have been worth reviving. But if it had been a new invention, it would have been more doubtful — one could invent hundreds of beautiful words but the liberty to do so would end in a language like Joyce’s which is not desirable.

25 September 1934