Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3

Letter ID: 880

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

December 15, 1936

Anilkumar asks me to send you his poem [Naba Jagaran – New Awakening] enclosed, with my comments thereon. I don’t think they are at all necessary as the poem is a fine one and will speak for itself. Naturally it is more difficult to treat such a theme poetically than the customary ones and therefore the poem did sound heavy (even prosaic and theological at places) – originally. But he accepted the friendly suggestions of Nishikanta and myself with a decided improvement of the poetic aspect of it. As it now stands, it is, I feel, quite purged of its occasional prosaic associations except in two or three places but chiefly in panchabhuta etc. (page 2 and at the bottom lines on page 3 marked in red), I suspect!

But with tribhāva [triple-idea or triple-emotion], parivyāpti [all-pervading], svayambhū [self-originating or self-born] and pūmatattva [complete philosophical knowledge] it could hardly have poetic wings, what?

svayambhū can be given wings, but not if you load it down with pūmatattva and parivyāpti.

But this is surely of minor importance (though I wish he had worked hard at this part too – which he is, regrettably, somewhat unwilling to do) – what is remarkable is that such flow or rhythm and language has come in the poem fairly often as it has. At one or two places I have marked the rhythm is surely magistral. At others a fairly decent level of poetic eminence has been preserved which is surely no small achievement for a poet who has not written in all more than a dozen poems or thereabouts. But lo, I am spinning out: I mustn’t. Surely you will be very pleased with the poem and its treatment now. That is all that matters, surely.

It seems to me a remarkably fine poem. There are the defects noted by you in the passages marked, but in the rest the difficulties of the subject have been overcome and the paramatattva [the supreme principle or knowledge] – if not the pumatattvamade poetically sublime and epic. It is a considerable poetic achievement.