Special austerity and ojas needed for epic style, not necessary in other blank verse.Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1937
Letter ID: 1916
Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar
April 20, 1937
Why ask and exclaim “Not really”? You told us that sincerity is not indispensable in poetry, neither true facts. You should have appreciated the beautiful figure of expression in that line.
Well, it was not a question of reality, but of verisimilitude. And then the vision of you gone mad over a deer was a little upsetting.
I have changed the line to: “In the spring woods I get excited like the bees...”
Umph! This is less upsetting.
I don’t understand the poem. It says the swans, flowing in the shoreless vast, tumble into the sleep of creation. What is this sleep of creation? The swans don’t seem to have come into creation at all, as they are still asleep. Or is it that after aeonic travels high up, the soul comes down into this Ignorance of creation?
Confound it sir, it was when it was above creation that it was awake – in creation it is asleep and dreaming – as you are when you are vaccinating people, though you mayn’t think it – the vaccination is only an ugly dream. You were high up for ages in the Above and then you came down into the cosmic Dream to vaccinate people and write poetry. You are a Swan (or is it a Goose? হংস1 you know) who fell asleep in the moonlight and tumbled into a dream of medicine.
What is the epic style? What elements are required for successful blank verse?
I spoke of epic style because you talked of austerity and force. Special austerity and ojas needed for epic style, not necessary in other blank verse.
Speak of English blank verse, if you plead ignorance of Bengali.
Good Lord! you don’t want me to expatiate on all that now? I believe I wrote about it to Amal2 – I mean for English blank verse. For Bengali I decline all authority.
Greens seem to have no effect on D. He still has 4 or 5 motions, but no blood. We have to go into the details regarding his diet, the number of motions and their relation.
Yes. What about pastilles charbon both to help against diarrhoea and also to fix time taken for digestion?
I quite agree with you, Sir, about the beastly nastiness of vaccination, though in which way, we may disagree.
It is beastly and nastly in all ways, so there is no room for disagreement.
5 has been put out of the ring and so also Amal.
Then add Ishwarbhai and Madanlal to the Vaccinatory Untouchables.
1 haṃsa: swan; has: goose or duck in Bengali.
2 SABCL, vol. 9, pp. 456-457.