Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 3. Poetic Technique
Metrical Experiments in Bengali

Gadya-chanda

I can’t say that I have studied or even read Bengali গদ্যছন্দ [gadyachanda], so I am unable to pronounce. In fact what is গদ্যছন্দ [gadyachanda]? Is it the equivalent of European free verse? But there the essence of the thing is that you model each line freely as you like — regularity of any kind is out of court there. Is it Nishikanta’s aim to create a kind of rhymed prose metre? On what principle? He seems to want a movement which will give more volume, strength and sonority than Bengali verse can succeed in creating but which is yet poetry, not prose arranged in lines and not even, at the best, poetic prose cut into lines of different lengths. All things can be tried — the test is success, true poetic excellence. Nishikanta has sent me some of his গদ্যছন্দ [gadyachanda] before. It seemed to me to have much flow and energy, but there is something hanging on to it which weighs, almost drags — is it the ghost of prose? But that is only a personal impression; as I have said, on this subject I am not a qualified judge.

29 September 1936