Sri Aurobindo's principal work of literary criticism where he outlines the history of English poetry and explores the possibility of a spiritual poetry in the future.
On Poetry
Sri Aurobindo's principal work of literary criticism. In this work, Sri Aurobindo outlines the history of English poetry and explores the possibility of a spiritual poetry in the future. It was first published in a series of essays between 1917 and 1920; parts were later revised for publication as a book.
THEME/S
Your question—
"What distinguishes, in manner and quality, a pure inspiration from the illumined mind from that which has the psychic for its origin?"—reads like a poser in an examination paper. Even if I could give a satisfactory definition, Euclideanly rigid, I don't know that it would be of much use or would really help you to distinguish between the two kinds: these things have to be felt and perceived by experience. I would prefer to give examples. I suppose it would not be easy to find a more perfect example of psychic inspiration in English literature than Shelley's well-known lines,
I can give not what men call love; But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not,— The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow?
—you will find there the true rhythm, expression and substance of poetry full of the psychic influence. For full examples of the poetry which comes from the illumined mind purely and simply and that in which the psychic and the spiritual illumination meet together, one has to go to poetry that tries to express a spiritual experience. You have yourself written things which can illustrate
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the difference. The lines
The longing of ecstatic tears From infinite to infinite
will do very well as an instance of the pure illumination, for here what would otherwise be a description of a spiritual heart—experience, psychic therefore in its origin, is lifted up to a quite different spiritual level and expressed with the vision and language sufficiently characteristic of a spiritual-mental illumination. In another passage there is this illumination but it is captured and dominated by the inner heart and by the psychic thrill, a certain utterance of the yearning and push of psychic love for the Divine incarnate.
If Thou desirest my weak self to outgrow Its mortal longings, lean down from above, Temper the unborn Light no thought can trace, Suffuse my mood with a familiar glow; For 'tis with mouth of clay I supplicate: Speak to me heart to heart words intimate, And all Thy formless glory turn to love And mould Thy love into a human face.
July, 1931
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