Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 2. On Poets and Poetry
Remarks on Individual Poets

Keats and Shelley [2]

With regard to Keats, is it not rather difficult to deny a great poet a possibility when his whole ambition is set towards acquiring it? If we didn’t have Hyperion, would we have thought it possible for him to strike the epic note? None of the poets round him had the least epical gift.

It can easily be seen from Keats’ earlier work. And with ripeness he could do great things in the narrative form. His dramatic attempt is rubbish. All these poets — Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats had the gift which if sublimated leads to epic power — none had the dramatic gift. The ambition to do a thing is not a proof that he can do it — now and here.

8 February 1935