Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 3. Literature, Art, Beauty and Yoga
Section 1. Appreciation of Poetry and the Arts
Appreciation of the Arts in General

Poetic and Artistic Value and Popular Appeal [1]

I do not know why your correspondent puts so much value on general understanding and acceptance. Really it is only the few that can be trusted to discern the true value of things in poetry and art and if the “general” run accept it is usually because acceptance is sooner or later imposed or induced in their minds at first by the authority of the few and afterwards by the verdict of Time. There are exceptions of course of a wide spontaneous acceptance because something that is really good happens to meet a taste or a demand in the general mind of the moment. Poetic and artistic value does not necessarily command mass understanding and acceptance.

24 October 1936