Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 3. Poetic Technique
Substance, Style, Diction

Austerity and Exuberance [3]

I said that Aeschylus like Milton was austere au fond — there is as in Dante a high serious restrained power behind all they write; but the outward form in Milton is grandiose, copious, lavish of strength and sweep, in Aeschylus bold, high-imaged, strong in colour, in Dante full of concise, packed and significantly forceful turn and phrase. These external riches might seem not restrained enough to the purists of austerity: they want the manner and not the fond only to be impeccably austere. I did not mean that Dante reached the summit of austerity in this sense; in fact I said he stood between the two extremes of bare austerity and sumptuosity of language. But even in his language there is a sense of tapasyā, of concentrated restraint in his expressive force. Amal in his translation [from Dante] has let himself go in the direction of eloquence more than Dante who is too succinct for eloquence, and he uses also a mystical turn of phrase which is not Dante’s — yet he has got something of the spirit in the language, something of Dante’s concentrated force of expression into his lines. You have spread yourself out more even than Amal, but still there is the Dantesque in your lines also,— very much so, I should say; with only this difference that Dante would have put it into fewer words than you do. It is the Dantesque stretching itself out a little — more large-limbed, permitting itself more space.

Aeschylus’ manner cannot be described as ucchvāsa, at least in the sense given to it in my letter. He is not carefully restrained and succinct in his language like Dante, but there is a certain royal measure even in his boldness of colour and image which has in it the strength of tapasyā and cannot be called ucchvāsa. I suppose in Bengali this term is used a little indiscriminately for things that are not quite the same in spirit. If mere use of bold image and fullness of expression, epithet, colour, splendour of phrase is ucchvāsa, apart from the manner of their use, I would say that austerity and ucchvāsa of a certain kind are perfectly compatible. At any rate two-thirds of the poetry hitherto recognised as the best in different literatures comes of a combination of these two elements. If I find time I shall one day try to explain this point with texts to support it.

I don’t know the Bengali for austerity. গাম্ভীর্য [gāmbhīrya] and other kindred things are or can be elements of austerity, but are not austerity itself. Anucchvāsa is not accurate; one can be free from উচ্ছ্বাস [ucchbāsa] without being austere. The soul of austerity in poetry as in Yoga is আত্মসংযম [ātmasaṃyama] all the rest is variable, the outward quality of the austerity itself may be variable.

9 October 1932