Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Remarks on English Pronunciation

Some Problems of Stress Accent [2]

In your sonnet Man the Enigma occurs the magnificent line:

His heart is a chaos and an empyrean.

But I am very much saddened by the fact that the rhythm of these words gets spoiled at the end by a mis-stressing in “empyrean”. “Empyrean” is stressed in the penultimate syllable, thus: “empyrean”. Your line puts the stress on the second syllable. It is in the adjective “empyreal” that the second syllable is stressed, but the noun is never stressed that way, so far as I know.

First of all let me deal with your charge against my “empyrean”. I find in the Chambers Dictionary the noun “empyrean” is given two alternative pronunciations, each with a different stress,— first, “empyrean” and secondly,“empyrean”. Actually in the book the accent seems to fall on the consonant “r” instead of the vowel. That must be a mistake in printing; it is evident that it is meant to fall on the second vowel. If that is so, my variation is justified and needs no further defence. The adjective “empyreal” the dictionary gives as having the same alternative accentuation as the noun, that is to say, either “empyreal” with the accent on the long “e” or “empyreal” with the accent on the second syllable, but the “e” although unaccented still keeps its long pronunciation. Then? But even if I had no justification from the dictionary and the noun “empyrean” were only an Aurobindonian freak and a wilful shifting of the accent, I would refuse to change it; for the rhythm here is an essential part of whatever beauty there is in the line.

P.S. Your view is supported by the small Oxford Dictionary which, I suppose, gives the present usage, Chambers being an older authority. But Chambers must represent a former usage and I am entitled to revive even a past or archaic form if I choose to do so.

4 August 1949