Research in English_______________________________________________________________Vol.
1 (1) November (2018)
Sri Aurobindo's Vision of 'The Future Poetry',
The Need of the Hour: The Theory and
the Application
Upadhyay Ritam1,2
1. Department of English, Govt. Arts and Science College, Ratlam, INDIA
2. Member of Executive Committee, State Committee, M.P. of Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry, Branch Ratlam, INDIA
ritamupadhyay@rediffmail.com
Abstract
The present article is a study of Sri Aurobindo's
thoughts on the poetry of the future. The effort is to
highlight the visions that his endeavour makes descend
from the higher regions of creation into words, at the
same time to study - though in fragments - these
theories taking form in his own poetry. A number of
studies have been made particularly on this topic. To
pick up the topic once more is another dive into the
deeps of the ocean that he is, to bring out some pearls
and gems still lying in abundance in the depths of his
enlightening philosophy and visionary writings. With a
glance over the old Master of Philosophy and literature
from Europe and India, the attempt is also to find the
linkage in the essence of such lofty expressions that
have helped the human society beyond time and space
to speculate its ideal and grow towards it.
Sri Aurobindo's philosophy and vision on the future
form of poetry are totally new concepts in the field of
poetic criticism, however, it carries within the gist of
the old masters' philosophies as well. His vision is wide
enough to encompass the span of time and embrace the
thoughts to give them a proper place in the story of
human evolution.
Keywords: Future Poetry, Consciousness, Inspiration,
Intuition, Art, Evolution, Mantra, Spiritual, Supramental.
Introduction
It is almost more than a century that the world of literature
was blessed with the visionary revelations by Sri Aurobindo
guiding those who aspire to move in the light of the creative
future in which the literature especially poetry is to be
shaped. Sri Aurobindo's vision is wide enough to encompass
the literature globally ˗ regardless of language ˗showing it its
true purpose and form it is to achieve bearing the soul that
awaits the hour of manifestation. Sri Aurobindo's letters and
articles that form 'The Future Poetry' were published in book
form first in 1953 and then in 1987 with more of the
revisions that he had made in 1950 just before he left his
physical sheath.
This becomes 'The Gita' for those who believe in the growth
of creation to be a constant and definite happening towards
higher and nobler kind and literature being an instrument
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contributes the most in the intellectual and philosophical
makeup of any society. These articles influenced sincere
futuristic poets who were and are the residents of Sri
Aurobindo Ashram and outside, his followers in other places
and those who read him as a leading Indian writer in English,
in the genre of poetic creation. As the writing consists of the
ponderings over the very first descends of poetic Word up to
the modern poetry spanning through the changes and growth
it has procured, it not only establishes a new direction of
criticism in literature but also involves the evolution of
creative expression in the coming times.
The 'Eye' that witnesses the 'Word' as 'Mantra' represents the
most intimate rendezvous of the vision with the visionary
that took place in the depths of the soul of poetry. According
to Sri Aurobindo, All art starts from the sensuous and
sensible, or takes it as a continual point of reference or, at
the lowest, uses it as symbol and a fount of images; even
when it soars into invisible worlds, it is from the earth that
it soars; but equally all art worth the name must go beyond
the visible, must reveal, must show us something that is
hidden and in its total effect not reproduce but create. (The
Future Poetry 8)
Thus, as he says, poetry becomes the vehicle for the spirit to
show its face. Even if it is a glance, a momentary glimpse,
this is the touch that changes the very atmosphere of the
creation. For the creation cannot just remain a work of
subjective pleasure or Tulasi's Swantah Sukhay though the
feel of public opinion is not of prime concern of a true poet,
yet he cannot keep aside the responsibility of serving a
higher purpose through his words which should be seen not
on the ethical grounds but the ones that any new creation
bears as a fundamental of its coming to form. Here is the
key that we find in Sri Aurobindo's words to enter into the
realms higher yet deeper, wider yet intimate to beautify and
elevate the whole purpose of creative effort that is 'creating
rather than reproducing'.
We may say that the artist creates an ideal world of his own,
not necessarily in the sense of ideal perfection, but a world
that exists in the idea, the imagination and vision of the
creator. More truly, he throws into significant form a truth
he has seen, which may be truth of hell or truth of heaven or
an immediate truth behind things terrestrial or any other but
is never merely the external truth of earth. By that ideative
truth and the power, the perfection and the beauty of his
presentation and utterance of it his work must be judged (The
Future Poetry, 08).
Research in English_______________________________________________________________Vol. 1 (1) November (2018)
Here could be seen how a true poem is never a reportage of
the external happenings alone. That may provide some idea
to stir the imagination, but the world created is poet's own
and the poetry reveals even the state of consciousness, the
poet belongs to. Keeping this in view the judgment can be
done in the light of a direct knowledge and not
overshadowed by a view that is formed by an extrovert
criticism. Also, this shows the difference of dimensions
when this is compared to the critiques' views that have
contributed in paving the path not only of the creation done
in that light but of the successors of this long enough
tradition of literary expression.
Though the question of how to define 'Art' has always been
haunting the critics of life where philosophers and artists are
not exclusions as well. This discussion has been running
through the time immemorial bridging the gulfs that this
long-trodden path presents as gaps between the lives of such
thinkers. The connecting cord is the common question of
understanding 'Art'; finding its root and defining its place
and contribution in the evolution. A thinker, philosopher or
critic cannot be working on the chosen field with exclusion
of others; life is to be regarded as 'Whole' and this integral
view has only saved the human society from fragmentary
existence.
In Plato, to begin with, The Ideal Bed and the earthly bed of
the Republic confirm of the higher source of inspiration than
the external reality; the expression seen as imitation of a
vision from the Ideal Bed. In the Poetics Aristotle establishes
that poetry is something which takes birth from two causes
that are lying deep in the human nature; the instinct of
imitation and the instinct of harmony and rhythm. Similarly,
Plotinus also believes in the forms taking birth by imitation
and returning to 'Forms'. These greats have seen Art as the
Reality and the imitated form whether in poetry, sculpture,
music or painting as product.
Further one comes across more of such researchers and
original thinkers of Art and finally finds it separated into
different categories of fine arts. It is definitely a field that
would keep the human mind engrossed with the growth it
makes. Now this could help settling the grounds of criticism
for the poetry that has already taken form and has achieved
its due fame or a place in literature, but the effort is not of
knowing what is but what is to be. Let the following words
from Sri Aurobindo bring back the vision of the Future
Poetry:
"At any rate, this is true that whatever relation we may keep
with the great masters of the past, our present business is to
go beyond and not to repeat them and it must always be the
lyrical motive and spirit which find new secret and begin a
new creation; for the lyrical is the primary poetical motive
and spirit and the dramatic and epic must wait for it to open
for them their new heaven and new earth" (The Future
Poetry, 09).
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We find his guide light that the 'old quarrel between the
Idealism and the Realism' is overcome or kept aside to take
a leap in to the realm where one can look at the upcoming
possibility rather an imperative burst of a new poetry. In fact,
the tinkling anklet of the beautiful Goddess is already heard
pacing through the bright corridors of inspiration opening
into the golden dawns of Poetic creation and the modern
criticism also has to open its eye to behold the wonder that
she has brought along and widen its horizons to judge it in
true sense. In Sri Aurobindo the confirmation comes not just
with the theory but with the application of the theory that too
not only in his own creation but in the works of the followers
of his Yogic philosophy integrating poetry as part of their
Sadhana.
Writing about the Poetic vision and the poetic speech, Sri
Aurobindo brings down the vision with a microscopic clarity
of the planes that response the openness of a receptacle with
powerful inspiration to be transported to the world of words.
He says: “The highest: This highest intensity of style and
movement which is the crest of the poetical impulse in its
self-expression, the point at which the aesthetic, the vital, the
intellectual elements of poetic speech pass into the spiritual,
justifies itself perfectly when it is the body of a deep, high or
wide spiritual vision into which the life-sense, the thought,
the emotion, the appeal of beauty in the thing discovered
and in its expression - for all great poetic utterance is
discovery, - rise on the wave of the culminating poetic
inspiration and pass into an ecstasy of sight”.
That is what the meaning of the word 'Kavi' reveals; a poet
who is seer, visionary and capable of 'analytic observation
the natural genius of the scientist'. This itself prescribes the
needed elements as should be the characteristics of a 'true
poet'. The revealer of Truth, not distorting it with his vital
turbulence or mental interference rather enriching the
expression with the poetic skills and choosing the
appropriate devices while preparing a smooth path for the
Muse to descend and walk upon. This state does not come
by itself though a sincere and continual growth makes the
spontaneous flow of poetry easier for a poet. There are
planes of consciousness that the creator needs to know; the
planes that help the beauty of expression, other that brings
the celestial music to the meter and connects the expression
to the harmony that dwells hidden and yet helps the world to
move in accord.
Sri Aurobindo's light on the form and meter; the rhythm and
the harmony; the word and the spirit - on the chief elements
that need to be introduced in their true form - opens up
absolutely new aspects. We come to know of what ideal
poetry is. Though for each the time he belongs to there are
the possibilities presented and he can choose to become the
recipient of the highest inspiration by following the best. In
his words:
Research in English_______________________________________________________________Vol. 1 (1) November (2018)
“I have spoken in the beginning of the Mantra as the highest
and most intense revealing form of poetic thought and
expression. What the Vedic poets meant by the Mantra was
an inspired and revealed seeing and visionary thinking,
attended by a realization, to use the ponderous but necessary
modern word, of some inmost truth of God and self and man
and Nature and cosmos and life and thing and thought and
experience and deed.”
According to him, the ideal poetry that takes form of Mantra
itself is possible only when it reveals the face of the Truth
and expresses itself in the very rhythm and meter that are
powerful enough to hold that Truth. As he dictates "The
Mantra is born through the heart and shaped or massed by
the thinking mind into a chariot of that godhead of the
Eternal of whom the truth seen is a face or a form." Mantra
is the highest poetry achieved by the Vedic Rishis in spirit
and form could guide the poetic aspirations of the future.
The need of self-awareness insists itself more following the
aspiration of reaching the highest planes of mind for a self-
conscious yogic condition is the ideal that is to be achieved
by the evolution of human kind.
In Sri Aurobindo's own poetry the above theory could be
observed in the marvel of the poetic expression, Savitri. As
K.D. Sethna alias Amal kiran, his follower and one of the
early residents of Sri Aurobindo Ashram - himself a
profound thinker and poet - puts it in prologue of his book
The poetic genius of Sri Aurobindo while giving an account
of Sri Aurobindo as a poet, "Now and then we even come
across a passage which makes us feel the glow and vibration
of some immeasurable mantra lodged in the writer's inmost
being,..." (Sethna 9)
Sri Aurobindo's poetic world is a vast ocean comprising
short poems, sonnets, longer poems and the longest epic in
English Language 'Savitri', only a few pearls can be
observed here to fulfill the need of seeing his theory
translated into application. Here they are: He who from
Time's dull motion escapes and thrills/ Rapt thoughtless,
wordless into the Eternal's breast/Unrolls the form and sign
of being/Seated above in the omniscient Silence. (Savitri,
552) and Gold in the mind and the life-flame's red/Make of
the heavens a splendour, the earth a blaze/But the white and
rose of the heart are dead/Flame-wind, pass! I will wait for
Love in the silent ways.
But we come to Savitri and come across the wonder that he
creates:
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It was the hour before the Gods awake.
Across the path of the divine Event
The huge foreboding mind of Night, alone
In her unlit temple of eternity,
Lay stretched immobile upon Silence' marge . . . .
(Savitri, 01)
In Sri Aurobindo's poetry the glimpse of divinity is a
constant feature posing mystical and mysterious element.
But the remarkable thing is that he not only maintains the
ideal of the poetry of his own theory but excels it in
extraordinary ways. He chooses certain meter and the form
to help the expression finding its full scope in intuitively
descending words and let the Goddess Inspiration dance
freely in rhythm and harmony on the enlightened floors of
poetic consciousness. Poetry being the most artistic form of
expression thus rises from its role of an entertaining activity
to become an everlasting ecstasy. From the baser grounds
of erring thoughts and emotions it enters into regions of pure
aesthesis.
No doubt the present notions of poetry look opposing the
kind one finds in Sri Aurobindo both in his criticism of
poetry pointing towards the arrival of the future poetry and
also the experiments in his poetic works. But the time is
working upon the human mind to educate itself for opening
to the greatest possibilities the poetry of the Future is
bringing. The poetic world waits then to dawn upon it as to
become its true nature.
References
1. Ghosh, Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, The Future poetry, Puducherry,
SABDA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust (1997)
2. Ghosh, Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Collected Poems, Puducherry,
SABDA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust (1997)
3. Ghosh, Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Savitri, Puducherry, SABDA,
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust (1997)
4. Sethna K.D., The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo, Puducherry,
Clear ray trust (2008)
5. Sethna K.D., Sri Aurobindo, The Poet, Puducherry, Sri
Aurobindo International Centre of Education (1970).
(Received 05th September 2018, accepted 07th October 2018)