Upload
others
View
2
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
C _ E ! i P T E E - L
T G ! ! S E E S T H E S E L R I T U A Z -
TO'dARDS THE SPIRITUAL -- A spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Natter in a constant developing self formation till the form can reveal the indwelling Spirit, is then the keynote, the central significant motive of the terres- trial existence. This significance is concealed at the outset by the involution of the Spirit, the Divine Reality, in a dense material Inconscience, a veil of insensibility of Matter hides the universal C O ~ S C ~ O U S - ness-Force which works within it, so that the energy, which is the first form the Force of creation assumes in the physical universe, appears to be itself incon- sclent and yet does the works of a vast occult Intelligence.1
Concept g Evolution
Man has been on a very long journey, which has taken him
from a primary identification with his body, through an identifl-
cation with his emotions on to an identification with his mind.
But, the general movement of human consciousness, obeying its
innate tendency to transcendence will lead man to an identifica-
tion with that which is beyond the mind, namely the Supermind. In
other words, we see that man is continually growing in conscious
ness and therefore will one day reach the complete and perfect
consciousness.
According to Sri Aurobindo, "the growth of consciousness is
the supreme secret of llfe,the master key to earthly evolution."2
The baeis of Sri Aurobindo's thought arises from the teaching
of tha ancient sages of India who experienced a Reality, e con
-sciournees, a Self of all things, one and eternal behind the
appearances of the universe. It is a seperativity of con-
sciousness that crzates a division of ell beings from being
united in that One Self and Reality. Man is ignorant of his true
Self in the mind, life and body. But .it is possible by a
certain psychological discipline,to remove this veil of
seperative consclcusness and become aware of the true Self,the
Divinity within us and a11".3
Evolution is the process by which, this One Being and
Consciousness which is lnvolved here in Master, liberates or
unfolds itself. Evolution then, is the reverse of the movement
towards lnvolutlon or creation. It is because the highest
consclousness of the Spirit has descended into mind, life and
matter that it follows the ascending movement towards the higher
regions of the Spirit. Originally the Spirit or Consciousness was
engulfed/within what appears as inconscient Matter. But once
liberating Itself. is impelled to transcendence and develop
towards a higher, a larger and greater perfection. Life evolved
out of Matter, first in the form of plants, then as animals with
the first stirrings of consclousness. Then in Man, consciousness
appeared in the form of the Mind.
If the movement has been from Matter to Life to Mind, then
a release into something beyond the mind is awaited, namely a
consciousness of the spirit or spiritual consciousness. So long
evolution was a spontaneous process or a process thrrlugh igno-
rance, but now when evolution/consciousness moves beyond the
mind it becomes a process through knowledge, because "in man,
Ratura becomes able to evolve by a conscious will in the
instrument.4" However, this process of growth beyond the mind
caaaot be wholly done by the mental will alone, for the nature
of the mind is to move in a circle after having reached a point.
*A conversion has to be made, a turning 2f the consciousness by
which mind has to change into the higher principle,"5 or into the
higher consciousness or the spiritual consciousness.
The same process takes place in our society. According to
Sri Aurobindo, as expounded in The Human Cycle, not only does the
individual evolve, but the whole society, groups, nations evolve.
While he attached great importance to the evolution of the
individual, he also seized the real sense and direction of the
changes in society - the continuous streaming forward of human life in the channels of time, their true law and aim. Thus he
talks about the emergence of the family, the group, the class,
the city - state, the nation and shows how each one of these entities has a distinct soul which manifests itself as in the
development of the individual first in the form of an ego, then
as psyche. The nations too as individuals must pass beyond their
ego and learn to look upon themselves as contributing to the
total harmony and thus make human unity into a reality.
S~irituality or Mysticism For the individual the 'catalyst' for such a process of
conversion is the psychological discipline and practice af yoga
in India, or the adherance to the Mystic Way in the West, (of
which helyn Underhill elaborates in her book Mysticism)
a certain psychological discipline laid down by any r e w o n
for the realisation of God. In the past, this bas been
attempted generally by rithdrnwing away from the world into a
state of meditation on the One Self or Spirit. But,
spirituality according to Sri Aurobindo is not an escape from
life but it is to transform life through a change of
consciousness.
The meaning of spirituality is a new and greater inner life of man founded in the consc:ousness of his true, his in-most, highest and largest self and spirit by which he receives the whole of existence ab a progressive manifestation of the self in the universe and his own life as a field of a possible transformatian in which its divine sense will be found, its potmtialitie highly evolved, the now imperfect forms changed into an image of the divine perfection, and an effort not only to see but to live out these greater possiblities of the bein "And this consciousness of his true self and spirit must bring with it a consciousness too of the oneness of the individual and the race and a harmonious unity of the life of man with the spirit in Nature and the spirit of the universe.6"
Mysticism is the essence of all spiritual experience found in
its intensive form in all religion.Encyc1opedea Britannica de-
fines mysticism as "the immediate experience of oneness with
ulitmate Reality. (E.B.Vol.15, p.1129) To use Bnersonian terms,
it is the yearning of the soul for the oversoul. According to
Evelyn Underhill, mysticism is "the expreSSi0n of the innate
tendency of the human spirit towards complete harmony with the
transcendental order.?' It represents an intense quest and
direct communion with Absolute Truth, God, Divine or Transcendent
Reality. Although the mystic's experience is colored and
conditioned by his o m temperament and by his theological
education, his essential spiritual experience rises above all
creed m d is shared by other mystics as well. It is the
cormnunlcation of the human soul with the Divine, not necessarily
in any religious form. but enlightened by a sense of the Inflnite
and the nernal.
According to Chambers Dictionary, mystic means "sacredly
obscure or secret, involving a sacred or a secret meaning hl&%er*
from the eyes of the ordinary person, only revealed to a spiritu-
ally enlightened mind." (C.D.p.708) This suggests that the mystic
ordinary mind. In distinguishing the mystic approach to life
from ours, Sri Aurobindo says:
The mystic feels real and present, even ever-present to his experience, intimate to his being, truths which to the ordinary reader are intellectual abstractions or metaphysical speculations ... He uses words and images in order to convey to the mind some perceptin, some figure of that which is beyond thought. To the mystic there is no such thing as an abstraction...The mystical poet can only describe what he has felt or seen or experienced through exact vision, close contact or identity and leave it to the general reader to understand or not to understand or misunderstand according to his capacity.8
But one must remember that mysticism being in its pure
form "the science of union with the Absolute "entails not a
sharpline but rather an infinite series of gradations between
sensual experience extending itself into supersensual experience
and finally passing into that state where the distinction of
subject and object collapses and perfect union is attained." g
The mystic attains to this union; the poet is in the
process. All life being touched by the mystical feeling is
fundamentally the source of all arts which essentially seek to
express a deeper truth of life. The mystic dwells in it, the
artist who i~ touched by the mystical hovers back and forth and
glimpees'the Real and fuLctions as mediator between humanity
and the vision of Divinity.
Mysticism then means all moments where the spiritual is experienced by the innermost in man and apprehended with a sense of identity of one's self with the One Self or Spirlt which brings concrete knowledge of the Real. The luminous spark of the Divlne consciousness within us reaches out and manifests the higher, unified spiritual consciousness beymd the mind.
Poets, since time immemorial have expressed through image
and rhyme the highest of man's mystical experience. The Vedic
verses are the best examples of the highest spiritual experience
of man being expressed in poetry, but in terms of the physical.
Today, mystical experience or mystical perception, by which is
meant "a certain kind of inner seeing and feeling of things, a
way which to the intellect would aeem occult and visionaryn,10
has to be and is being expressed in terms of modern experience.
Evolution today, is at that point of time nhere the poet a8
part of an age, is involved in a kind of seeing, if not experi-
encing, of the inmost things in man, lLie and nature, of the
Divinity or man and his oneness with the Spirit In Nature and +be
Spirit of the Universe. In other words, if we take the progess
of poetry as an index of an advance of the cultural mind of
tnuprnlty which has enlarged its scope by a constant ratsing af
the scale of the soul's experience, then It "has now risen to a
height and breadth of intellectual vision and activitym.ll beyond
the purely mental, which often borders on tne mystical
Poetic Theory.
In this framework let us redefine the nature of poetry
according to Sri Aurobindo. The systematic presentation of Srl
Aurobindo's aesthetic theory as evolved in The Future Poetlg
gives us an insight into a credo of poetic criticism and aesthet-
ics which is based on his formulations on life which according to
him, is constantly manifesting itself in a progressive and evolu-
tionary manner. This movement is reflected in poetry and shows
itself in a sort of evolution from the objective to the inward
and from the inward to the inmost, the spiritual. Before
elaborating upon the process of poetic evolution, let us define
according to him, the essential nature and law of poetry.
Poetry is neither a mere pleasure of the imagination nor matter of faultless technique. It is; A divine Ananda, a delight interpretative, creative, revealing, formative, one might say an inverse reflection of the joy which the universal soul has felt in its great release of energy when it rang out into the rhythic forms of the universe, the spiritual truth, the l u g e interpretative idea. the life, the power, the original creative vision. such spiritual joy is that which the s o ~ l of the poet reels and which, when he can conquer the huaun difficultiea of his task he succeeds in pouring also into all those who are prepared to receive it. And thir delight is not merely a godlike pastime, it is r great formative and illuminative power.12
The true creator of poetry is the soul and not the Frrtelli-
eence, the imagination or tho ear which serve only as lnstru-
ments. It is through the rhythmic word that th? poet expresses
his self vision and world vision which extends itself to all
experience. What we have lost is the power or poetic force af
words to raise vibrations, though language seems to have "galneb
in precision, clarity, dtility.13" Poetry then must regain that
original element in language and make pcssible a erect
expression of an experience which is beyond the emotional or the
intellectual.
Poetry then, is the expression and movement of a spiritual
excitement caused by a vision in the soul. The vision may be of
anything - Nature, Man or God. In the case of the highest kind of poetry it is the soul which sees and the eye, sense, heart, mind
are its passlve instruments. When the excitement is other than
spiritual, be it intellectual or emotional and its expression is
not transmuted by the spiritual, then a different kind of poetry
is created.
There is a distinction made between two elements in poetic
speech--the outward or instrumental and the inner or spiritual.
In thought there is the intellectual idea which is precise and
definite and the soul idea which exceeds the whole reality of the
thing expressed. Similarly in emotion there is a soul of emotion
which 18 the very experience oi the soul. Lastly in the poetical
men114 of object6 the inner 18 expressed in terme of ths truth of
life and truth of nature which -bodies at once beauty and truth.
But it is only the higher cadences of poetry that bring us close
to these inner dim~nsions and not merely the outer flawless style
of poetry. This then is the source of that intensity which is the
stamp of h i ~ h poetical speech.
The highest poetic expression of the deepest spiritual reality is
possible only when the three highest intensities meet and become
indissolubly one. The hlghest Intensity of rhythmic movement, of
verbal form, of style and of thought and lastly the intensity of
the soul's vision of truth. It is the inefficiency of any one of
these which mark the inequalities ln the work of poets.Hence the
highest kind of poetry is rare because it is a matter of these
three intensities merging on a certain level. It is in t W s sense
that a series of gradations of perfection in poetry is achieved
- such as adequateness, effectivity, illumination of language, purity of insplratlon or finally that of inevitability of langu-
age. The last kind of speech -that of inevitability -is a speech
pure and true and is quint essentially the essence of convincing-
ly perfect utterance.Sr1 Aurobindo cites a few instances of lines *
in earlier poetry as examples-Keats'Charmed magic casements,open-
ing on the foam/Of perilious seas in faery lands forlornm; Words-
worth's *The Winds come to me from the fields of sleepn, and
Shakespeare's "Macbeth has murdered sleepnand lines from origirul
Homer. To work more freely from such a level of intensity or
inspiration is a thing that has not been done very olten. but
certain tendenciea of modern poetry seem to express unconsciourly
such an attempt to prepare for that vision beyond the a l n d .
Poetic Evolution: - Sri Aurobindo talks about how poetic vision too follo*S the
evolution of the human mind. The evolution cf English poetry is
singled out because *it follows w s t faithfully the natural
ascending curve of the human spirit." Though the fundmnental
nature, function and law of poetry are the same, it evolves in t?rr
dense that it brings out increasingly the latent powers and forms
and develops them from the simple to the more complex, the
superficial to the more profound. In the beginning the mlnd of
man takes up physicality and life and develops and enriches them
urrtil it exseeds itself in them. 81s view is turned on the
outward physical world and on his o m life of outward action. All
his emotions, his thoughts and even his religious ideas are
expressed in forms and figures of the physical life and physical
Nature. The poets who wrote the story of life in such a manner
are Homer and Chaucer. Chaucer's is the poetic observation of
ordinary life and character in good humour. He does not seek to
make a deeper study of the characters involved. In other words,
there is no interpretation, there is a clear and lucid
presentation, a vivid reflection of the external life of man.
The poets who follow are the Elizabethans and what is expre-
ssed ln their poetry is the passion and romance,the joy and p i n ,
t h e wonder and t e r r o r , t he beauty and the ugl lnees of exis tence .
The poet " turns everything i n t o moved thooght and sentiment and
sensa t ion of the l i f e - s o u l , the d e s i r e soul ln him which f i r s t
fo rces i t s e l f on h i s i n t rospec t ion rtpn he %ins t o go lmmrd.*l
The general poetry of t he time s a t i s f i e d t h e reader througb
emotion and the ' e l an v i t a l -o r t he v i t a l / e a o t i o n a l p lay of
l i f e , f e e l i n g and th inking, t he joy of l i f e i s w h a t is powerfully
exprersed. Shakespeare no doubt s tands a t t h e top , and Marlowe and
Spenser a r e a s t e p above the r e s t i n the i n t e r p r e t a t i v e v i s i o n of
l i f e .
S r i Auroblneo wr i t e s abour Shakespeare: - H i s way indeed i s not so much the poet himself t h i n k i n about l i f e , a s l i f e th inldng i t s e l f ou t i n him througfl many months, In many moods and moments, wi th a r i c h throng of f i n e thought e f f e c t s , but no t f o r any c l e a r sum of i n t e l l e c t u a l v i s ion or t o any high power of e i t h e r i dea l o r s p i r i t u a l r e su l t . 15
What Shakespeare sees of man i s h i s cha rac te r , pass ion and
a c t i o n . what i s c r ea t ed i s a romantic world i n i ts t r u e sense-
f i l l e d with the power of l i f e .
The next immediate s t e p of English poetry i s when " the
thought-mind i s no longer ca r r i ed a long i n the wave of l i f e , bu t
detaches i t s e l f from i t t o observe and r e f l e c t upon i t . " The poe t
begins t o ques t ion th ings around him, r a t i o n a l l s e s and ana lyses
t h e workings of Nature and of himself. The i n t e l l e c t u a l c l a s s i c
form becomes t h e best mode of' expression. A t i t s very b e s t t h e
movement r l s e s t o the c l a s s i c a l pe r fec t ion of Milton end dur ing
other times into the poetry of Dryden and Pope. The hallmark of
this age of poetry Fs its supreme craftsmanship and its sheer
intellectvurlity cancernLng itself with the outer aspects of
thought and life.
The eighteenth century poetry aabodied brazen intellectual-
ism minus emotion and the following sge suung to the other side
and burst upon revealipa vision. A light from another, higher
sphere as it were, broke upon the poetic intelligence of the
time. The intellect was put to much greater use with the powers
of inspiration, imagination and i~tuition. The result ras a more
profound understanding and thereby interpretation of life, m,
Nature and Cod. This is the strain of Romantic poetry with its
wider and more comprehensive use of intelligence enctnu~jassing
more varied and greater expressions of truth.
Romantic poetry pierces beyond the mind and glimpses Into
the world beyond. In more ways than one the Romantic age and its
poetry are pointers towards the modern. It is the beginning of a
'pronounced and conscious subjectivity' in literature and poetry
in particular. Inspired by the ideas of the French Revolution,
the English Romantic poets voiced the new spirit of the times.
Eighteenth century Romanticism believed in an organic
vislon of Life conceiving history as an evolutionary process
manifesting successively or progressively the spirit that was at
its core which represented or embodied an absolute value. ~veryth;?
in, the World, Nature and the Cosmos are simply the mysterious m*b
worklrnr
ofthis totality, of this Unified Spirit behind man, nature and
the Universe which Wordsworth experiences and expresses so often
in his poetry.
Such are the first signs af 'self consciousness' expressed
in terms of the relation of subject to object. In greater momenta
of experience we see how the English Romsntic poets are able to
unify or even transcend the subject-object dichotomy with the
help of their imagination and intuition.
Romantic poetry, then, gave the first indications of the
characteristics of the poetry of the future by being able
to see and feel the One Self and Spirit behind all things; in
expressing - revealing the truths of the spirit. Though, essen- tially or at Its best the vision of Romantic poetry was founded
in the mystical, its mode of expression was through the heart or
emotions. Therefore the expression of Romantic poetry is lucid,
simple, directly spontaneous, expressed in 'a spontaneous
overflow of powerful feeling'.
The Philosophic Mystic node of Expression - But, because the process of evolution-- be it of life, man
or the human mind-- seeks a more complete experience of the Real,
proceeds from a simpler to a more complex and richer
domain of experience which leads to a greater and more perfect
experience of the Real. The mystic truths having been intuitively
experienced through the heart, have to be totally coaprehended by
the intellect as well.
In other words 'the growth of a philoaopbical thought con-
tent in poetry is inevitable, for man's consciousness in it6
evolutionary march is driving towards a consamation which in-
cludes and presupposes a developtent along that line.*17
The Rcmmntic idea of Pancy or Imagination has to be and 1s today
replaced by thought--abstract metaphysical thought. Poetry then
was an 8malgum of mystic perceptions, experiences, realisations
expressed in sensitive and aesthetlc terms and figures. Today
'thought' is the medium to articulate poetic experience.
'Thought- not in the sense of the eighteenth century cut/and dry
rational mode of expression, but a more comprehensive intellectu-
alism which accommodates abstract, philosopbhal and even spirit-
ual thought and experience.
Today the poet being strongly intellectual feels a strong
need to 'explain' a mystic vision or perception or experience to
himself and to others. It is such a kind of intellect, that is
today in the forefront, and plays a major role in man's
creativity. Man has to rise from an emotional nature to a mental
poise and on to an intellectual one which would encompass the
field of philosophical and idealistic activities. Logically then,
we should move into higher realms even beyond the intellectual or
philosophical field of thought into the Spirit~al thought world-
thus further enlarging and widening the fraae of poetry.
mrlier this process of thought was abrent, firstly, because
the process of evolution 'ook its own course of growth and sec
ondly, because it was felt thztt the mind or the intellect would
shut out the lights beyond it. Yhat was sought was to establish a
direct contact with the Real. The reault was pura spiritual
poetry as in the Vedic hymns, There have been other kinds of
semi-spiritual, religious,ocrult, allegoric poetry which spoke of
the mystical in terms of the emotional, theological or purely
mental. There have also been instances in the past, to cite only
two such poets as Donne and Blake who brought about such an
alchemy to bear upon the processes of their poetry that the
merely religious was transformed into mystic poetry.
Ye must be aware that poetry does not become mystic by merely
addressing the beloved as goddess as in Elizabethan poetry, but
is made of "a fine temper, a more subtle sensitiveness and takes
a kind of artistic wizardry to tune the body into a rhythm of the
spirit."l8
What distinguishes modern spiritual consciousness or percep-
tion from the early expression or vision of the mystical is its
complex, intellectual logic. For example, the expression of the
Upanishadic spiritual experience is a direct record of the funds-
mental and original experience in its "pristine purity and
perfection and essential slmplicity"l9. The modern mind is not
satisfied with such an expression and needs a deeper intellectwrl
logic to utiafy the subtle movement of modern consciouanesr.
Modern poetry retains the rationality, clarity and concreetness of perception of the scientific Spirit but is rounded aff with a halo of msgic and mirecle20. Though the mode or tone is scientific which is the natural law of our age, the poetry is transported and lifted on to a higher level *Iten transcribing a mystic <ision, or perception or experience. What is involved in its process af creation is a science of the spirit just as we have science of aatter.20
In modern times the thought elenent and the ptfiilosophical
factor give form to the formless and brlng home to us the full-
ness of spiritual consciousness. Modern poetry touched by a
mystical perception of things has the divlne urge but still
retains the human flavour because it is clothed in tt'e experience
of the modern world.
The Victorian era - Coming back to the era after the Romantic age in poetry, we
see during the Victorian age, an attempt to strengthen the intel-
lectual basis and therefore make more rich its thought content.
Inspiration, intuition and high imagination of the Romantic poets
gave way to a more artistic intellectualism with a greater breath
of the modern temper. But in general what Crept into literature
was also what was characteristic of the times - a self indul-
gence, a smugness of commercial middle class prosperity. Though
the Victorian poetry reflected the growing doubt of the age as a
result of utilitarianism and the mechanisation of life, It
failed to embody and inspire the intensity of the exploring mind
of the age. The age of Realism took over that of Romanticism. In
tta Victorian era the subject-object relationship .
was subsequently followed by the object-subject relationship.
What the age served best was as a period of tmmsltion to tbe
twentieth century modern temper. In literature, its many alded
intelligence helped in the enrichment and streagthening of
language capable of expressing more subtle thought. The
discontentment with the then contemporary moulds, the intensely
felt inadequacy to meet the future, but a seebing nevertheless
after new things and a spirit of innovation m a r k , the preparation
for the coming age.
The Twentieth Century Temper
To beg a simplistic explanation of may be already k n o m
facts let us very briefly touch upon the mood of the late nine-
teenth century and the early twentieth, because it is this period
that we are primarily concerned with in our study. Taking for
granted the knowledge of those events, such as the French Revolu-
tion or the Industrial Revolution, not to mention others which
led to the crisis that modern man was faced with during the early
years of this century, let US see what was emerging or rather
'dissolving1 out of all these movements. 'Dissolving', because
What was for ages accepted as solid ground suddenly seemed to
give way.
The world picture, or what people believed to be 'reality' fell
into piece.. Physically, the infinity of the coemoa becasre noth-
led to the explanation that all motion is merely relative. Emo-
tionally, the individual took reeourse to the saying of %rang-
ine, the hero of a Dadnistic novel - -La vie est une chose Vrai- ment idiote*. This sentiment boldly voiced by Dadaism had al-
ready found artiEFtlc expression in Expressionlm which took riter
Impressionism. 4Rmt au, happening was the collapse of faith in
not only religious institutions but in the basic values of s0Cie-
ty. The application of science - the fruit of man's mental endea- vour--to life was not all positive." In other words science
conquering the forces of nature and harnessing them to man's
requirements proved not quite beneficial or rather proved a
disaster to the 'spiritual' man," Technology completely mecha-
nised existence, and Cod was declared 'dead' by Nletzshe, A ~ r l d
without God had no centre. "Modern man reached N s inmost infer-
nal circle of that path of suffering which is as absurd as it had
become necessary.'21
Moreover Darwin, Marx and Freud further reinforced such a
process of thought. Man's rational mind seemed to fail him in the
face of such uncertainty. He had no outer structure to hold on to
He was forced to look for 'autre chose'. It was impossible to go
back, the present was all uncertainty, the future too remote and
vague.
As the nee6 for change intensified the only recourse left to man
was to look within at his inner self. It is here that the quest
Of the mystic begins. In the process of discovering the self
man reoriented his perception of things around him.
The very reordering of life and Intelligence was what was
demanded. The dark, ego-self was as If threatened by a
larger engulfment of "all that we protect ourselves from feeling
too intensely."22 Longing for those mysterious depths within aad
all the conflict and crisis that goes with it *as b r w h t out
into the poet's aesthetic orblt to be transformed to reveal "far
more about our whole contemporary meaning than we ever thought
possible."23 No more res the poet separated culturally and geo-
graphically. He voiced the experience, the crisis of the contem-
porary man. A widening of sympathies and of sensibility was
evident in contemporary poetry. What began in the middle of the
nineteenth century as an exchange of literature and therefore
culture, resulted in an out pouring of transcontinental- trans-
cultural expression in the twentieth century as seen especially
in the poetry of T.S.Eliot.
Politically, socially and economically this meant a widening
of horizons - from nationalism to Internationalism. Increasingly the world began to be looked upon as one a view point inevitable
for the very survival of the human race. Poetry voiced this new
felt unity. Nationalism, Democracy were no more mere political
issues, they took on a far greater meaning for poets such as Walt
Whitman and Edward Carpenter. It was a sense of 'spiritual1
Democracy, expressing a concrete experience of unity between man
and man, man and nation, man and the world and above all man and
God.
No more was a poet limited to his own country. The impending
doom and coming catastrophe of the future envisianed bY ii.B.YmtS
in his "Second Coming" stirred one and all. The intense morbidity
and hopelessness of existence voiced by T.S.Eliot in sMne of his
poems vas representive of the outcry of mind throttled with th
exigencies of World Mar I and the Spanish Civil War as a result %
technology used for destructive purposes.
As a result of the 'sick' reality of existence ~EI-I was forced
to look beyond what mind could offer, seeking a newer and mare
meaningful equilibrium. The quest inevitably turned towards the
niystical because the best of man's mind had failed to provide a
foundation of lasting peace and happiness for mankind.
The Characteristics of Early Twentieth Centurg Poetry - As poets have always been the seers or the avant gerde
section of society, they were the ones to express the mood of the
age and manifest the elements of the spiritual in their poetry.
But in what manner did the modern poets go about translating this
element of the spiritual? What was the most characteristic
hallmark of early twentieth century ? poetry was their pursuit,
much more than their predecessors,-the bent of their personality.
The early twentieth century poets took recourse to a kind
of psychological inwardness. At the same time, began to accommoda~
the complexities and passions of contemporary experience.
The poetry of the period-considering it as an organic whole
in its interaction with each other seems to have "evolved out of
a aerioue need for an encompaeeing poetry; one completely in-
volved with what their live. really meant subjectively. T-b, &
reflects the ultimate pressure on modern sensibility to under-
stand itself.*24 It is the Subjective search far "Who we are?"
that embodies the modern sequence and thereby poetry became an ae
thetic lyrical construct opening up to "those pressures in times
of cultural and psychological crisis, when all past certainties
bsve many W been thrown chaotically into question.'25 W t
was being cultivated was a special kind of subjectivity; an
adventure of increasing self discovery was on its way as a result
of the events of the past and the possibilities opening up in the
future.
What was emerging was a newness of vision such as in the
poetry of Walt Yhitman, W.B.Yeats and T.S.Eliot. Though their
feet rested securely on traditional/cultural ground there was "a
strailling towards a deeper, more potent, supra-intellectual ~ n d
supra- vital vision of things."26 The turn of the modern mind
opened itself to the vision of its inner Self, and its relation
to the Spirit of Nature, to the univeree and the eternal but
without losing hold on tradition, on life and on earth.
The break was from mechanization, institutionalisation for
their own sake so as not to lose *touch with the springs of joy
and vitality -delight of the senses, tradition and ritual, self-
realization within a truly human context."27 For example, W.B.
Yeats who drew inspiration from his Celtic past, and tried to re-
establish vital continuities with the past was also coraborating
what was strengthening, widening and truly meaningiul In the presrnfr
The usa and reinterpretation of Myth was the intention of th8
moderns to understand the colaplexity of the self in the modern ma.
And by bringing myth into the modern world the poet achieved in
giving universal meaning to his poetry.
concept of self.
What do re mean when we refer to the 'self' of the poet in
modern poetry? Terence Diggory in Yeats and American Poetrx: The
Tradition of the Self haa at length and in detail discussed the
problem or rather the tradition of the self in regard to modern
poets. It would suffice for as to explain briefly as to what we
would mean when we use the term self in our present study.
Earlier we talked about how In the modern world the poet
increasingly followed his individual bent of personality and sang
the song of his self more conftdently than ever before. In
other words the subject of their poetry became their 'self.' The
view that the self or interior personality could become a 'sub-
ject' or be 'created' distinguishes the modern self from its
origin in the romantic theory of artistic self-expression. But in
this context or framework, the speaker in a poem can be identi-
fied through auto biographical detail with the poet himself, as
in Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" or Yeat's "The Towerw, but with
an important difference.
As Hrs.Diggory sums it up; "whereas Wordsworth views himself
in terms of past stages of his life - the child sensualist and adolescent pantheist - Yeats views himself in terms of past creations-the fictional Hanrahan and even the restored Tower
itself. For Wordsworth, the self was given or, at moat, dlacov-
ered; for Yeats, the self was created. In the process of being
created, the self becomes distanced or externallzed. It ia liter-
ally exprerred, but not as in r a s ~ t i c expression, becrure
Yeat's externalized self differs from the internal self where it
originated. Once externalized, the self is viewed not as the
poet's content but rather as a form to be entered lnt0."28
Secondly this entails another divergence from ra!iantiC self-
expression. In the romantic theory there is an identity between
whst is expressed and what is coatained Ln the poet's true self-
There is a harmony between the subjective and objective experi-
ence. But to the modern poet both these mole% will imply differ-
ent or disparate experience. Subjectively, the poet feels himself
to be the creator of the world, but objectively, he may feel
quite helpless In the face of the world's intrasigence. Neverthe-
less, the externalised seLf of the poet sfrves as a source of
inspiration to combat the feeling of helplessness before the
world. "To enjoy the sanction of external authority and yet to
recognize that authority as the self is the definitive experience
of the tradition of the selfW29, says Terence Diggory.
Finally this leads to the poet being regarded "as another
Adam who names the world a new." The creation of a self by the
act of writing extends the poet's experience as well as that of
the reader. What takes place in the case of the romantic
poet, is merely a recording of preexisting experience expressed
by the self that already exists. As discussed earlier in the
chapter, the modern poet, in order to comprehend the world and
what lies beyond it takes recourse to his intellect; and there-
fore the stsnce of the self as being created different or objec-
tified from the already existing self of the poet helps in better
expressing the complexities of the modem 8ensibillt.y.
No doubt, the romantic poets "experienced" passion,
unlike the moderns who had to create it. But while experience
refers to a sense of wholeness which can be felt, it cannot
be 'known' which is desirable for the moderns. Hence modern
poetry has more of a thea'.rical element about it than their
Romtic predecessor's *hose work suffered at times partly be-
cause of their sense of the moral.
What is interesting to note is that the dramatic character
involved in the dramatisation of experience in modern poetry, as
in Whitinan's "Song of Myzelf", is that the poet is forced to
identify himself with the character, though the character cannot
bc identified with the poet. "Something of the character is the
author, but something else is notU3O, declares Diggory. This
.ncy be the paradox of personality and impersonality that
T.S.Ellot talks about in regard to modern poetry.
In the case of the romantic doctrine, life- is translated or
becomes art; whereas in the modern instance the intellectual
distinction between art and life 1s also obliterated because art
becomes life. Therefore, according to Diggory.
the reader must adjust to an enlargement of the romantic's clam for the poet's heroic role, since in the tradition of the self, the poet is not merely a seer but a man of action whose deeds are his poems. 31
Poetry of the Future
We must remember that Sri Aurobindo wrote his The Future
Poetry during the 1920's. Early twentieth century poetry would
then be 'recent' if not contemporary. Therefore, after having
traced the upward curve of English poetry in The Future
Poetry,upto the poetry of the early modern poets, he posed the
questiorr as to whether the next step in the scale of ascension
m u l d be taken or wheter "it w ~ l l be missed once more with a fall
back to another retracing of the psychological circuit.'72
Because, M the one hand the straining of tbe intelect hsS beell
stretched to its limits of elasticity, will it bring about
"a recoil to a straining for unbridled vital, emotional snd
senaotional experier,ce."33 The question is whether the race rdll
opt for a greater mould or 'instead a collapse and decadence
intervene."34
The one thing above the intellect is the spirit, and there-
fore if our intellect has to go forward, it "must open nor to an
understanding and seeing spirituality which will be an illumined
self knowledge and Cod - knowledge an3 a world knowledge too
tranamuted in that greater light will spiritualise the whole vie*
and motive of our existence."35 In such a crises,the hope of
the race would lie in "the fidelity of its intellect to the
larger perceptions it now has of the greater self of humanity,
the turning of its will to the inception of delivering forms of
thought, art and social endeavour which arise from those percep-
tions and the raising of the intellectual mind to the intuitive
supra-intellectual spiritual consciousness."36 The expression of
the liberated intellect will have to go in pursuit of the
revelation of the truths of the spirit.
The poetry of the future "will be a voice of eternal thinge
ralrring to r new eignificance and to r great satlatied joy in
expriencing the events and emutionr and trmrriancee of lire, th.
changing of the steps of an eternal manifeatation; It will
be the expreilaion of the very self of nature; it will ba a
creative and interpretative revelation of the infinite truth of
existence and of the universal delight and bea3ity and of a
greater spiritusliaed vision and power of life"37.
Sole of the profound tendencies of the creative mind uf petil
such as Walt #itman, W.B.Yeats and T.S.Eliot seem to reflect at
times, nuch tones of the inner states of the donsin of aysric
percertion. The best strains of Whitman's poetry reveals "the
God who is the Self of all things and beings, the Life of' the
universe, the Divinity in man," and expresses, "all the emotion
and delight of the endeavour of the human soul to discover the
touch and Joy of that Divinity within him ir! whom he feels the
mighty founts of his o m Seing and life and effort and his full-
ness and unity with all cosmic experience and with Nature and
with all creatures.*38
W.B. Yeat's poetry and its symbols open up to the supernatu-
ral and occult worlds and "allow us to move among the beings and
scenes, images and influences and presences of the psychic king-
doms." He seems to have access to these with a close directness
that comes from intimate vision and feeling,'3Q as though
these things were a part of his living experience.
There is something in the vision of Eliot's best poetry
which searches "all the ways of the present and interpret deeply
to man the aense of that which is making him and which he is
making: it will reveal the divinity in all its dls(yisem, face
all even t h t is u&ly and terrible and baffling ln t b et
our a c t w Luarn 1ife,*40.
But if we are looking for a poetry born direct irca and
full of the power of the spirit, we have it in the poetry 0f Sri
Aurobindo. One must not forget thst unlike the poets lacntiooed
above, who at times expressed truths of the spirit, Sri W 0 b i n d o
was a great yogi, a mystic philosopher who ins3 spbitvsl expai-
ences and who formed a vier of U e in harmony with his expui-
ence. But this does not make him gay less a poet. He 1s believed
to have said, *I was a poet and a politician not a philosopfnr..4
Elsewhere he remarked,"I em justifying a poet's right to think as
well as to see and feel, his right to 'dare to philosuphlae."42
Because his poetry arises directly from spiritual experience,
it speaks of the inmost things, with great intimacy and sure
knowledge. Though it is filled with a sense of the Eternal, it
does not speak in the conventional tones of traditional religioa,
but as a voice of intuitive experience and the rhythm and chant
of the revelation of an eternal presence."43
The change in the substance or subject or vision of poehy ,
brought with it necessarily a change in its forms, that is, in
its speech and in its rhythm.
Change in Rhythm.
During the early twentieth century poetry it was the change in
rythm which marked the change in outlook. Rhythm being the soul ok
poetry, a change in its movement was es8entlal if poetry hsd
to echo a greater spirit. It is not merely an irregular use or
metre t h t war nought but quite a revolution in the very metho%
of poetic rhytha. Walt Whitman the chupion and prophet of
'Democracy', became the representative of the neu and free form
of poetic rhythm. M.L. Rosenthal presents a similar point of
view. 'A new genre, the modern poetic sequence has evolved over
the past century and half or longer. It tas emerged so naturally,
so without fanfare, as hardly to have been noticed. It's preeence
becones abundantly obvious, for the modern sequence is the decisive
form toward which all the developent of modern poetry have tendd.
It is the genre which best mcolnpasses the shift In sensibility
exemplified by starting a long poetic work "I celebrate myself,
and sing myselfW44.
In his own manner he agreed that the creation of something
new artistically such as Pound's "Cantos" and Walt Whitman's
"Song of Myselfw was the result of poetic evolution itself. "How
could this have happened? One explanation, we believe is the
character of poetic evolution itself. It is easy to detect super-
ficial signs of newness: departures from traditional rhyme and
metre, the absence of explanatory or narrative links between
images or other evocative centres, the use of a vocabulary and
subject matter to see the bearing of such Signs. If not simply
disregarded they are usually thought peripheral, although they
mark vast shifts of psychic direction and of the axes of aesthet-
Because the poem, as an aesthetic lyrical construct sought
to encompass opposite and diverse energies that the need arose to
pursue "new thresholds and new anatomies." It was thus that the
new rhytlwns were strung together "breaking awsy from all the old
hampering restrictions snd find a new principle of harmony in
accordance with the freedom, the breadth and largeness of view,
the fineness of feeling and sensation of the modern Spirit,
some form which shall have the liberty of proae and yet command
the intensflied heights and fluctuations and falls of the cadence
of poetry."46
Change in Style
The change in vision and in rhythm having fulfilled themselves
largely in this manner, we move to the third indispensible ele-
ment in poetry its language ar poetic style. The change in the
former two may at times escape notice, but the more tangible and
appaFent break is clearly indicated in the change of expression.
Following the evolution of poetic vision poetic speech too sought
to express subtler things of the spirit. Ttre 'inmost' thing had
to be said in the 'inmost' way. The effort was also towards a
direct expression on a subtler and more psychological level. The
shift was not from straight forwardness to riCdle making."The
result was rather a shift from relative formality to simplicity
and directness. There is a greater intimacy felt in the language,
an awareness of everyday life, had been brought into poetry more
emphatically than before."47 This was most characteristic of
T.S.Eliotts poetry who transmuted not only ideas but the whole
common place reality around him - the people, the situation, the mood-everything into aspects of himself. Not only was his intel-
lect observing life from above but he absorbed, digested and
reproduced it, a8 the myriad dlmensions of his 'eelf'. The result
uas an expression of the crisis faced by modern %an which Was
so powerful ttiat its language shocks us, jolts us into new
vie* points, shedding old restrictions of 'poetic'lanw as it
forces itself with a sense of urgency upon our sensibility.
CONCLUSION
Ln the following chapters, a closer readLng and study will
be made of the mystical aspect, as being reflected in a unique
manner in some of the poetry of Walt Whitman, V.B.Yeats and
T.S. Eliot. Moreover, we would explore as to how and to what
extent the works of these representative poets of o m early
modern era reflect the che.nge in rhythm and style.
The last chapter on Sri Aurobindc's poetry would also be
devoted to a similar kind of stu*. It would exemplify i c to & a t
extent the mystical elements or the quest for the spiritual or
mystic perceptions as seen in some of the works of the three poet
finds fulfilment in the spiritual poetry of Sri Aurobindo.
For, quite evidently the poetry of the time was movLng
towards a sense of inner 'existence' which in itself was deepenin
into a greater subjectivity. It was a subjectivity not only of me
temperament as was the instance during the nineteenth century but
"a universal subjectivity of the whole spirit, an attempt towards
Closeness and identity, a greater community of the individual
with the universal soul and mind.nk8
Communion of the soul with God was no more a matter of
religion alone, but was brought intc the larger and more common
p lace frame work of man's experience of l i f e and t h e universe . I t
marked an apparent breaking of the bonds of t he mental man and a
movement towards what l a y beyond it. A s e l ? exceeding of t h e
intellect augured t h e i n i t i a l t r a v a i l of a new b i r t h . I n t h e
words of Sri Aurobindo, " these tt&ngs have no t al l a r r i v e d , bu t
they a r e on the way and t h e f i r s t m v e a of t h e surge have
a l ready broken over t h e dry beaches of t he age of reason."hg
NOTES Am) RLTERENCES -- 1. Sri Aurohindo, The Ltfe Dlvirze (PDndicherry :
Sri Aurobindo Ashram,1987), p.624.
2. NolfIli Kanta Cupta, Collected Works (Pondicherry : S.A.I.C.E.,1971),, 351-
3. sri Aurobindo, On Himself (Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo ~ s b m ) , p.95.
4. Ibid., p.95.
5. Ibid., p. 95.
6. Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetr (Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo A s h r a m ~ ) ~ 9 - 2 ~
7. Evelyn Underhill M sticism ( Great Britain : Methuen and co Ltd,l$6+
8. Sri Aurobindo, Letters of Sri Aurobindo (Third Serles) (Bombay : Sri Aurobindo Circle,19491,p. 39-40.
9. Evelyn Underhill, M sticism (Great Britain : Methuen and Co Ltd,l962), pY1
10. Sri Aurobindo, Life -Literature-Yoga (Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1967), p.73.
11. Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetr (Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo A s h r a m l g ~ S d l .
12. Ibid., p.10.
13. Ibid., p.13.
14. bid., p.182.
15. Ibid., p.69.
16. ~bld., p.77.
1'7. Nolini Ksnta Gupta, Collected Works (Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo ~shram,lg7l),,II, p.71.
18. Ibid., p.66.
19. Ibid., p.71.
20. Ibid., p.75.
21. Egon Friedell, A Cultural History Of The Modern Age, "Tne crisis of the Eurcpean Soul from the Congress of Vienna to the first World Yarn. Vol III., p.3.
22. M.LJlosentha1, Modem Poets ( London : Oxford ~ n i v .~rees,)p.3.
23. Ibid., p.3.
24. M.L.Rosenthe.1, The Modem Poetic Sequence (Oxford : Oxford Llniv .Press, l ' m p . F
25. Ibid., p.3.
26. Sri Aurobindo The Future Portr (Pondicherry : Sri ~urobindo* A ~ h ~ 5 ) d l .
27. M.L.Rosentha1 The MoaeTn Poets (London : Oxford ~ n i v ~ r e Z Z 7 9 6 G . 9.
28. Terence Diggory, The Tradition Of self (Princeton : Princeton ~ni-ress, 1983),p.5.
29. mid., p.5.
30. Ibid., p.114.
31. Ibid., p7
32. Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetr (Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo A= 6 p.238.
33. Ibid., p.239.
34. Ibid., p.239.
35. Ibid., p.239.
36. Ibid., p.239.
37. Ibid., p.238.
38. Ibid., p.240.
39. Ibid., p.242.
40. Ibid., p.243.
41. Sri Aurobindo On Himself ( Pondicherry : S r l ~ u r o b i n ~ Aiihrsm, 1972), p.374-
42. S r i Aurobindo. S a v i t r i ( L e t t e r s ) ( Pondicherry : S r i Auroblndo Ashram, 19851, p.836.
43. S r i Aurobindo, The Future Poet r (Pondlcherry : S r i Aurobindo Ashram, 1 9 d . 240.
411. M.L.Rosentha1, Modern Poets ( London : Oxford Univ,~ress),.-
45. Ibid., p . 1 0 .
46. S r i Aurobindo The Future Poet r ( Pondicherry : Ar 1 ~ u r o b i h o Ashram, 1 ~ ! p . 1 4 2 -
47. M.L.Rosentha1 The Modern Poets ( Londan : Oxford l J n i ; . ~ s s ) , b -
48. S r l Aurobindo The Future Poet r ( Pcndizherrg : S r i Aurobi~db~s=1w+p. 171.
49. I b i d . , p.171.