Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 2. On Poets and Poetry
Philosophers, Intellectuals, Novelists and Musicians

Shaw’s Personality and Place in Literature [3]

Why do you want Shaw to be tied to some intellectual dogma and square all his acts, views and sullies to it? He is too penetrating and sincere a mind to be a stiff partisan — when he sees something which qualifies the “ism” — even that on whose side he is standing — he says so; that need not weaken the ideal behind, it is likely to make it more plastic and practicable. However, enough of Shaw; I have to answer Amal’s question and that ought to finish with him. I will only add that whatever his manner, it does not appear to me that he writes merely to shock but to expose in a vivid way the stupidity of the human mind in taking established things and ideas for granted. If he does it in a striking and amusing way, why so much the livelier and the better!

9 September 1932