Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Third Series

Fragment ID: 20966

There is probably a defect in your solar plexus which makes it refuse to thrill unless it receives a Strong punch from poetry – an ornamental, romantic or pathetic punch. But there is also a poetry which expresses things with. an absolute truth but without effort, simply and easily, without a word in excess or any laying on of colour, only just the necessary. That kind of achievement is considered as among the greatest things poetry can do.

A phrase, word or line may be quite simple and ordinary and yet taken with another phrase, line or word become the perfect thing.

A line like “Life that is deep and wonder-vast” has what I have called the inevitable quality; with a perfect simplicity and straightforwardness it expresses something in a definite and perfect way that cannot be surpassed; so does “lost in a breath of sound” with less simplicity but with the same inevitability. I do not mean that highly coloured poetry cannot be absolutely inevitable, it can, e.g. Shakespeare’s “In cradle of the rude imperious? surge” and many others. But most often highly coloured poetry attracts too much attention to the colour and its brilliance so that the thing in itself is less felt than the magnificence of its dress. All kinds are legitimate in poetry; poetry can be great or perfect even if it uses simple or ordinary expressions, e.g. Dante simply says “In His will is our peace” and in writing that in Italian produces one of the greatest lines in all poetic utterance.