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Indian Poetry in English
Writing in a Learned Language
I was surprised last night how les mots justes sprang ready to the pen’s call. Alas I can’t say the same thing for my English poetry, where I always fumble so.
One cannot expect to seize in poetry the finer and more elusive tones, which are so important, in a learned language, however well-learnt, as in one’s native or natural tongue. Unless of course one succeeds in making it natural, if not native. 5 December 1935 *
What do you think of Yeats’ letter to Purohit Swami, in which he says: “Write in your mother tongues. Choose that smaller audience. You cannot have style and vigour in English. You did not learn it at your mother’s knee. . . . It is not your fault that you are under a curse. It is the fault of wicked policy. Defeat this policy. Write and speak Marathi, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil. . . . ”
All very well for those who can write in some language of India and don’t know English intimately. But what of those who think and write naturally in English? Why didn’t Yeats write in Gaelic? 17 September 1936
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It is not true in all cases that one can’t write first-class things in a learned language. Both in French and English people to whom the language was not native have done remarkable work, although that is rare. What about Jawaharlal’s autobiography? Many English critics think it first-class in its own kind; of course he was educated at an English public school, but I suppose he
Page-442 was not born to the language. Some of Toru Dutt’s poems, Sarojini’s, Harin’s have been highly placed by good English critics, and I don’t think we need be more queasy than Englishmen themselves. Of course there were special circumstances, but in your case also there are special circumstances; I don’t find that you handle the English language like a foreigner. If first-class excludes everything inferior to Shakespeare and Milton, that is another matter. I think, as time goes on, people will become more and more polyglot and these mental barriers will begin to disappear. 1 October 1943
Indo-English Poetry
I suppose our oriental way of expression, which is as luxuriant as oriental nature itself, is unappealing to Westerners.
What you say may be correct, but on the other hand it is possible that the mind of the future will be more international than it is now. In that case the expression of various temperaments in English poetry will have a chance. If our aim is not success and personal fame, but to arrive at the expression of spiritual truth and experience of all kinds in poetry, the English tongue is the most widespread and is capable of profound turns of mystic expression which make it admirably fitted for the purpose; if it could be used for the highest spiritual expression, that is worth trying. 10 December 1935
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As for Conrad, according to Thompson, he is a Westerner, and surely there is a greater difference in tradition, expression, feeling between an Easterner and an Englishman than between an Englishman and another European.
In other words, any Western tradition, expression, feeling ―even Polish or Russian ―can be legitimately expressed in English, however unEnglish it may be, but an Eastern spirit, tradition or temper cannot? He differs from Gosse who told Sarojini Naidu that she must write Indian poems in English
Page-443 ―poems with an Indian tradition, feeling, way of expression, not reproduce the English mind and turn, if she wanted to do something great and original as a poet in the English tongue.
I think that however much we try, we shan’t be able to enter the subtleties of a foreign tongue.
Who is this we? Many Indians write better English than many educated Englishmen.
Is there any chance of our being able to express spirituality in English poetry?
I put forward four reasons why the experiment could be made. (1) The expression of spirituality in the English tongue is needed and no one can give the real stuff like Easterners and especially Indians. (2) We are entering an age when the stiff barriers of insular and national mentality are breaking down (Hitler notwithstanding), the nations are being drawn into a common universality with whatever differences, and in the new age there is no reason why the English should not admit the expression of other minds than the English in their tongue. (3) For ordinary minds it may be difficult to get over the barrier of a foreign tongue, but extraordinary minds (Conrad etc.) can do it. (4) In this case the experiment is to see whether what extraordinary minds can do, cannot be done by Yoga. Sufficit ―or as Ramchandra eloquently puts it “‘Nuff said!” 28 February 1936
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The doctrine that no one who is not a born and bred Englishman, especially no Oriental, should try to write or can really write English poetry because the traditions, sentiments, expressions of the English language ―or of any language ―are so different from others and so peculiar to itself that a foreigner cannot acquire them, is no new discovery; it is a statement that has been often made. But it fails at one point ―birth does not matter. A pure Italian by blood like Rossetti or his sister Christina, a Pole like Conrad, a Spaniard like Santayana (I am speaking of prose
Page-444 also, however,) can do as well in English as born English writers. It is said however that this applies only to Europeans, ―for their native tradition, sentiments, expressions are not entirely alien to those of the English tongue and by education or adaptation they can acquire, but the Indian mind is of too alien a character, too far off and cut away by a gulf from the English to be able to write in that language. It may be said also that an Indian may succeed in writing correct English, but can never write great English prose, still less perfect or enduring poetry. I doubt whether this is true ―I remember having read some extracts from letters by Sarojini Naidu in her youth that seemed to be very perfect and beautiful English prose. But let us keep to poetry which has no doubt a special language or a special spirit and turn in its language and it is true of it that no one who cannot acquire that spirit and turn can succeed in writing English poetry. But in the first place I do not see why an Indian bred in England or an Indian to whom English has become his natural tongue should be any more disqualified [incomplete]1 28 February 1936
On Some Indian Writers of English
I should very much value your assurance that, scant though my stock is, I need not feel inferior to the other Indian poets who have written in English ―Manmohan Ghose and Harindranath and Sarojini.
I don’t altogether appreciate your request for being declared by me “not inferior” to other “Indo-English” poets. What have you to do with what others have achieved? If you write poetry, it should be from the stand-point that you have something of your own which has not yet found full expression, a power within which you can place at the service of the Divine and which can help you to grow ―you have to get rid of all in it that is merely mental or merely vital, to develop what is true and fine in it and leave the rest until you can write from a higher
1 Sri Aurobindo wrote this passage on the back of a typed copy of the letter of 28 February 1936 printed above. It appears to be the draft of a letter that was not completed or sent. ―Ed.
Page-445 level of consciousness things that come from the deepest self and ´ the highest spiritual levels. Your question is that of a litterateur and not in the right spirit. Besides, even from a mental point of view, such comparisons are quite idle. Sarojini Naidu has at best a strange power of brilliant colour and exquisite melody which you are not likely ever to have; on the other hand she is narrowly limited by her gift. Harindranath has an unfailing sense of beauty and rhythm (or had before he became a Bolshevik and Gandhist) ―while your writing is very unequal ―but I do not suppose he will ever do much better than he has done or produce anything that will put him in the first rank of poets, unless he changes greatly in the future. As for my brother, I do not know enough of his poetry to judge; I knew he had a better knowledge of technique than any of these poets, but my impression was that life and enduring quality were not there. How am I to compare you in these things with them? You have another turn and gift and you have in the resources of Yoga a chance of constant progression and growth and of throwing all imperfections behind you. Measure what you do by the standard of your own possible perfection; what is the use of measuring it by the achievement of others? 1931 *
The idea that Indians cannot succeed in English poetry is very much in the air just now but it cannot be taken as absolutely valid. Toru Dutt and Romesh of the same ilk prove nothing; Toru Dutt was an accomplished verse-builder with a delicate talent and some outbreaks of genius and she wrote things that were attractive and sometimes something that had a strong energy of language and a rhythmic force. Romesh was a smart imitator of English poetry of the second or third rank. What he wrote, if written by an Englishman, might not have had even a temporary success. Sarojini is different. Her work has a real beauty, but it has for the most part only one highly lyrical note and a vein of riches that has been soon exhausted. Some of her lyrical work is likely, I think, to survive among the lasting things in English literature and by these, even if they are fine rather than great, she
Page-446 may take her rank among the immortals. I know no other Indian poets who have published in English anything that is really alive and strong and original.2 The test will be when something is done that is of real power and scope and gets its due chance. Tagore’s Gitanjali is not in verse, but the place it has taken has some significance. For the obstacles from the other side are that the English mind is apt to look on poetry by an Indian as a curiosity, something exotic (whether it really is or not, the suggestion will be there), and to stress the distance at which the English temperament stands from the Indian temperament. But Tagore’s Gitanjali is most un-English, yet it overcame this obstacle. For the poetry of spiritual experience, even if it has true poetic value, the difficulty might lie in the remoteness of the subject. But nowadays this difficulty is lessening with the increasing interest in the spiritual and the mystic. It is an age in which Donne, once condemned as a talented but fantastic weaver of extraordinary conceits, is being hailed as a great poet, and Blake lifted to a high eminence; even small poets with the mystic turn are being pulled out of their obscurity and held up to the light. At present many are turning to India for its sources of spirituality, but the eye has been directed only towards yoga and philosophy, not to the poetical expression of it. When the full day comes, however, it may well be that this too will be discovered, and then an Indian who is at once a mystic and a true poet and able to write in English as if in his mother-tongue (that is essential) would have his full chance. Many barriers are breaking; moreover both in French and English there are instances of foreigners who have taken their place whether as prose-writers or poets.
P.S. About decadence: a language becomes decadent when the race decays, when life and soul go out and only the dry intellect and the tired senses remain. Europe is in imminent peril of decadence and all its literatures are attacked by this malady, though it is only beginning and energy is still there which may
2 This was written some years ago and does not apply to more recent work in English by Indian poets.
Page-447 bring renewal. But the English language has still several strings to its bow and is not confined to an aged worn-out England. Moreover, there are two tendencies active in the modern mind, the over-intellectualised, over-sensualised decadent that makes for death, and the spiritual which may bring rebirth. At present the decadent tendency may be stronger, but the other is also there. 24 January 1935
Manmohan Ghose
I have not read much of my brother’s poetry except what he wrote in England and in the early years in India before we ceased to meet. That was very cultured poetry and good in form, but it seemed to me to lack the inner force and elemental drive which makes for successful creation. I don’t know whether his later work had it. My brother was very intimate with Oscar Wilde, but, if I remember right, none of the singing birds except Phillips and Binyon went very far. But I think Manmohan published very little in his lifetime ―nothing ever came my way. 25 January 1935 *
You write in your note to Harin [of 24 January 1935] about Toru Dutt and “Romesh of the same ilk” and Sarojini Naidu that you know of no other Indian than Sarojini to have published in English anything that is really alive and strong and original. I can understand your forgetting your own work, but how is it that you have omitted Harin himself? Surely he has published things that are bound to remain? Also, how was it that Oscar Wilde and Laurence Binyon could give praise to Manmohan Ghose? Has he done nothing that could touch Sarojini’s level, though in another way?
I did not speak of Harin because that was a separate question altogether ―besides, whether in criticising or in paying compliments, present company is always supposed to be excepted unless they are specially mentioned, and for this purpose Harin and myself are present company. About Manmohan I said that I knew very little of his later work. As for his earlier work Page-448 it had qualities which evoked the praise of Wilde. I do not know what Binyon has written, but he is a fine poet and an admirable critic, not likely to praise work that has not quality. (Wilde and Binyon were both intimate friends of my brother, ―at a time Manmohan was almost Wilde’s disciple. If I were inclined to be Wildely malicious I might say that even Oscar’s worst enemies never accused him of sincerity of speech, so if he liked someone very much he would not scruple to overpraise his poetry; but I think he considered my brother’s poems to carry in them a fine promise. Binyon and Manmohan had almost the relations of Wordsworth and Southey in the first days, strongly admiring and stimulating each other.) Let me say then that my opinion was a personal one, perhaps born of brotherly intimacy ―for if familiarity breeds contempt, fraternity may easily breed criticism ―and based on insufficient data. I liked Manmohan’s poetry well enough, but I never thought it to be great. He was a conscientious artist of word and rhyme almost painfully careful about technique. Virgil wrote nine lines every day and spent the whole morning rewriting and rerewriting them out of all recognition. Manmohan did better. He would write five or six half lines and quarter lines and spend the week filling them up. I remember the sacred wonder with which I regarded this process ―something like this:
The morn … red … sleepless eyes ………lilac ……………rest.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but it was very much like that! That seemed to me to indicate an inspiration not very much on fire or in flood. But I suppose he became more fluent afterwards and I am ready to change my opinion if I have materials for doing so. I made no comparison with Sarojini. The two poets are poles asunder in their inspiration and manner. Sarojini has a true originality whatever its limits; even if she does not live for ever, she deserves to live. My brother was perhaps a finer artist, but has Manmohan’s poetry similarly an unique and original power? 26 January 1935
Page-449
I suppose you have read this poem of Manmohan’s:
Augustest! dearest! whom no thought can trace, Name, murmuring out of birth’s infinity, Mother! like heaven’s great face is thy sweet face, Stupendous with the mystery of me. Eyes, elder than the light; cheek, that no flower Remembers; brow, at which my infant care Gazed weeping up and saw the skies enshower With tender rain of vast mysterious hair! Thou at whose breast the sunbeams sucked, whose arms Cradled the lisping ocean, art thou she, Goddess, at whose dim heart the world’s deep charms, Tears, terrors, sobbing things, were yet to be? She, from whose tearing pangs in glory first I and the infinite wide heavens burst?
Each line is wonderfully inspired; but is there in the total effect a sense of construction rather than creation, a splendid confusion instead of a supreme luminosity?
The poem has a considerable elevation of thought, diction and rhythm. It is certainly a fine production and, if all had been equal to the first three lines which are pure and perfect in inspiration, the sonnet might have stood among the finest things in the English language. But somehow it fails as a whole. The reason is that the intellectual mind took up the work of transcription and a Miltonic rhetorical note comes in, all begins to be thought rather than seen or felt; the poet seems to be writing what he thinks he ought to write on such a subject and doing it very well ―one admires, the mind is moved and the vital stirred, but the deeper satisfying spiritual thrill which the first lines set out to give is no longer there. Already in the fourth line there is the touch of poetic rhetoric. The original afflatus continues to persist behind, but can no longer speak itself out in its native language, there is a mental translation. It tries indeed to get back ―
Eyes, elder than the light; cheek, that no flower Remembers ―
Page-450 then loses hold almost altogether ―what follows is purely mental. Another effort brings the eighth line which is undoubtedly very fine and has sight behind it. Then there is a compromise; the spiritual seeing mind seems to say to the thinking poetic intellect, “All right, have it your own way ―I will try at least to keep you up at your best”, and we have the three lines that follow those two others that are forcible and vivid poetic (very poetic) rhetoric ―finally a close that goes back to the level of the stupendous mystery. No, it is not a “splendid confusion” ―the poem is well-constructed from the point of view of arrangement of the thought, so there can be no confusion. It is the work of a poet who got into touch with some high level of spiritual sight, a living vision of some spirit Truth, but, that not being his native domain, could not keep its perfect voice throughout and mixed his inspiration ―that seems to me the true estimate. A very fine poem, all the same. 5 November 1935
Remarks on Minor Indian Writers
I don’t remember [Jehangir] Vakil’s poems very well, but they gave me the impression, I think, of much talent not amounting to genius, considerable achievement in language and rhythm but nothing that will stand out and endure. But how many can do more in a foreign language? Here the poem certainly attempts and almost achieves something fine ―there are admirable lines and images ―but the whole gives an impression of something constructed by the mind, a work built up by a very skilful and well-endowed intelligence. 12 September 1931 *
The poetry of your friend is rather irritating, because it is always just missing what it ought to achieve, ―one feels a considerable poetic possibility which does not produce work of some permanence because it is not scrupulous enough or has not a true technique. The reasons for the failure can be felt, but are not easy to analyse. Among them there is evidently the misfortune of having passed strongly under the influence of poets who are quite
Page-451 out of date and learned a poetic style and language full of turns that smell of the schoolroom and the bookworm’s closet. Such awful things as “unsoughten”, “a-journeying”, “a-knocking”, “strayed gift” and the constant abuse of the auxiliary verb “to do” would be enough to damn even the best poem. If he would rigorously modernise his language, one obstacle to real poetic success would perhaps disappear, ―provided he does not, on the contrary, colloquialise it too much ―e.g. “my dear”, etc. But the other grave defect is that he is constantly composing out of his brain, while one feels that a pressure from a deeper source is there and might break through; if only he would let it. Of course, it is a foreign language he is writing and very few can do their poetic best in a learned medium; but still the defect is there. 22 June 1931 Page-452 |