Sri Aurobindo. An Answer to a Criticism // Collected Poems

Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

SABCL - Volume 5

V. Ilion

Milford accepts² the rule that two consonants after a short vowel make the short vowel long, even if they are outside the word and come in another word following it. To my mind that is an absurdity³. I shall go on pronouncing the y of frosty as short whether it has two consonants after it or only one or none; it remains frosty whether it is a frosty scalp or frosty top or a frosty anything. In no case have I pronounced it or could I consent to pronounce it as frostee⁴. My hexameters are intended to be read naturally as one would read any English sentence⁵. But if you admit a short syllable to be long whenever there are two consonants after it, then Bridges’ scansions are perfectly justified. Milford does not accept that conclusion; he says Bridges’ scansions are an absurdity⁶. But he bases this on his idea that quantitative length does not count in English verse. It is intonation that makes the metre, he says, high tones or low tones – not longs and shorts, and⁷ stress is there of the greatest importance⁸. On⁹ that ground he refuses to discuss my idea of weight or dwelling of the voice or admit quantity or anything else but tone as determinative of the metre and¹⁰ declares that there is no¹¹ such thing as metrical length¹². Perhaps also that is the reason why he counts frosty as a spondee before scalp; he thinks that it causes it to be intoned in a different way. I don’t see how it does that; for my part, I intone it just the same before top as before scalp. The ordinary theory is, I believe, that the sc of scalp acts as a sort of stile (because of the two consonants)¹³ which you take time to cross, so that ty must be considered as long because of this delay of the voice, while the t of top is merely a line across the path which gives no trouble. I don’t see it like that; at most, scalp is a slightly longer word than top and that affects perhaps the rhythm of the line but not the metre; it cannot lengthen the preceding syllable so as to turn a trochee into a spondee¹⁴. Sanskrit quantitation is irrelevant here (it is the same as Latin or Greek in this respect)¹⁵, for both Milford and I agree¹⁶ that the classical quantitative conventions are not reproducible in English: we both spew out Bridges’ eccentric rhythms.¹⁷

This answers also your question as to what Milford means by “fundamental confusion” regarding aridity. He refuses to accept the idea of metrical length. But I am concerned with metrical¹⁸ as well as natural vowel quantities¹⁹. My theory is that natural length in English depends, or can depend, on²⁰ the dwelling of the voice giving metrical value or weight to the syllable²¹; in quantitative verse one has to take account of all such dwelling or weight of the voice, both weight by ictus (stress)²² and weight by prolongation of the voice²³ (ordinary syllabic length); the two are different, but for²⁴ metrical purposes in a quantitative verse can rank as of equal value. I do not say that stress turns a short vowel into a long one²⁵.

Milford does not take the trouble to understand my²⁶ theory – he ignores the importance I give to modulations and treats cretics and antibacchii and molossi as if they were dactyls;²⁷ he ignores my objection to stressing short insignificant words like and, with, but, the – and thinks that I do that everywhere, which would be to ignore my theory. In fact I have scrupulously applied my theory in every detail of my practice. Take, for instance (Ahana, p. 523),

Art thou not heaven-bound even as I with the earth? Hast thou ended...²⁸

Here art is long by natural quantity though unstressed²⁹, which disproves Milford’s criticism that in practice I never put an unstressed long as the first syllable of a dactylic foot or spondee, as I should do by my theory. I don’t do it often because normally in English rhythm stress bears the foot – a fact to³⁰ which I have given full³¹ emphasis in my theory³². That is the reason why I condemn the Bridgesean³³ disregard of stress in the rhythm,– still I do it occasionally whenever it can come in quite naturally³⁴. My quantitative system, as I have shown at great length, is based on the natural movement of the English tongue, the same in prose and poetry, not on any artificial theory.

E.g. Opening tribrachs are very frequent in my hexameter. Cf. Ahana, [p. 524]³⁵.

Is he the | first? was there | none then before him? shall none come after?

But Milford thinks³⁶ I have stressed the first short syllable to make³⁷ them into dactyls – a thing I abhor. Cf. also Ahana, [p. 530 (initial anapaest):

In the hard | reckoning | made by the | grey-robed ac|countant at even

or p. 530 (two anapaests):

or again p. 532:

And we go | stumbling, maddened and thrilled to his dreadful embraces

or in my poem Ilion p. 393:

And the first | Argive fell | slain as he leaped on the Phrygian beaches.

There are even opening amphibrachs here and there. Cf. Ahana, p: 527:

Illumi|nations, | trance-seeds o f | silence, flowers of musing.

24-12-1942

Later edition of this work: The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo: Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 27.- Letters on Poetry and Art.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2004.- 769 p.

¹ Apropos of Ahana, an English critic made some comments on the poet’s system of “true English Quantity” as set forth in his essay “On Quantitative Metre”. Sri Aurobindo examines them in this letter replying to a disciple’s queries.