Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 1. On His Poetry and Poetic Method
On the Publication of His Poetry

On an Early Publication Proposal

Here are my selections from your shorter poems. Dara wants me to send it to you so that you may judge whether I have selected rightly and whether it is what may be printed, as he suggests, by the Aligarh or Osmania University. But please tell me: is this Aligarh or Osmania University business a possible scheme? ...

What about Love and Death and Baji Prabhou? Are they to be printed in toto or in part?

I have not the least notion whether it is possible; I suppose that ordinarily no University in India would accept as text-book the (English) poems of a writer not yet consecrated (qua poet) by European fame. It is Dara’s idea; I don’t know if the Osmania or Aligarh Universities are really so original and unconventional as to do such a thing. I thought however that a selection of the kind might prove useful, if not for this, for some other purpose, and it would not be a bad thing to have one ready; for Dara’s idea of a selection is in itself a happy one. And I have often seen that circumstances arise and, because one is not ready with the materials, a chance is lost of getting something done.

Love and Death is too long for inclusion in a book of selections; passages would be sufficient. For Baji Prabhou that holds still more, since it has not so much poetic value as Love and Death.

As to your selections, it seems to me that you have chosen with judgment and taste; but the comparative judgment of a poet on his own writings is so often at fault that outside voices are needed for confirmation — even though I fancy I have a sufficient attitude of detachment towards my past work. But perhaps detachment is not enough.

P.S. I have altered the passage about Paris in two or three places where the rhythm is clumsy. At that time I had not evolved the “perfect hexameter”.

22 July 1932