Mirror of Tomorrow :: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

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01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 03 May 2010 03:30 AM IST | Permanent Link | Cosmos

In one of the recent posts a thread got developed around technique and inspiration in the poetry of Savitri. While the metrical base is an important element in rhythmic movement of a composition, it is the true inspiration which gives authenticity to it. The fine points of poetic technique and inspiration finding its own mould of expression and it carrying with it significance and responsiveness greatly support each other. This discussion essentially in the context of Savitri, brings out the artistic excellence that is there in it, in Savitri. I’m compiling, with suitable editing, all these comments here so that a focus is brought to the discussion which should help us grow more in its richnesses. For fuller details or reference-support please go back to the original posts.

http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2010/3/20/4485311.html

V. Arvind on Wed 24 Mar 2010 11:19 PM

I have read somewhere a beautiful statement: Savitri is Sri Aurobindo's vāngmiya déha, his "word-body". Revising it doesn't make sense, especially in the light of the Mother's categorical views on the matter!

RY Deshpande on Thu 25 Mar 2010 05:37 PM

What a beautiful phrase this vāngmiya déha, the word-body of Sri Aurobindo! In Savitri itself we have the phrase describing young Savitri as “breathing Scripture of the Eternal’s joy. The Mother calls Savitri as Sri Aurobindo’s Word of Transformation. She also tells that he left his consciousness in it. But now we have intelligent people who say that it can be so only if a ‘correct’ edition is given!

RY Deshpande on Fri 12 Mar 2010 05:11 PM

I’d been suggesting right from the beginning to go by the Savitri-edition that was published during Sri Aurobindo’s time. Part One consisting of the first 3 Books and 24 Cantos was out in September 1950 before Sri Aurobindo’s withdrawal on 5 December in that year. The other two parts, Part Two and Part Three with 9 Books and 25 Cantos, in a single volume came out in May 1951. This should also mean that the second volume had already gone to the Press much before December 1950. These two volumes should be treated as the authoritative or if you like the ‘sacred’ text of Savitri. Re-examination of various drafts of the Epic belongs to the category of scholarly work and carries another sense with the mental entering into it in a major way. That scholarly approach has a different status, and must be presented for scholarly studies in a systematic organised manner, applying scholarly criteria.

V Arvind on Fri 12 Mar 2010 07:27 PM

I entirely agree with your views. There may be some imperfections in the 1951 version, but I think we would all prefer the original version "warts and all" rather than a tainted version produced by mediocre scholarship.

RY Deshpande on Tue 06 Apr 2010 06:17 AM An Editorial Insolence

Recently we had made a fairly extensive selection of passages from the first half of Savitri under the title Posthuman Destinies. These do indicate a possibility of our effort reaching the higher realms of consciousness. But the real fulfilment of the human effort and human potential will lie only in the divine Power stepping into this creation, accepting the mortal’s lot to shape it into the modes of immortality. While Savitri’s first half can thus be said to be the Human Potential promoted by the avataric Effort, the second is the Divine Will flowing into the Evolutionary Manifold to open the prospects of divine Manifestation here. These two constitute the Story of Triumph, the triumph of Knowledge and Power in the greatness of the creative Real-Idea working in the mortal world, this mŗtyuloka.

If this is the thematic content of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, then there is also an understandable expectation that, while editing the texts that had developed in different ways over a period of disjointed times, we be sensitive to its nuances and distinctions, possibly to its deeper occult-yogic contents. Most ideally, of course, it is required that we reach the source from where the original inspiration had come. It is there that the truest Savitri exists; it is indeed there that it was yogically written. It is that Savitri, that uninfringeable Word which has the power to transform this earthly life of ours into the life divine if our souls should aspire for it. The rest could simply be a matter of transmission, transmission down through various grades, and of language also, from the revelatory utterance or, as a Savitri-phrase says, “transcendental speech”, parā vāņī, to the “seen word”, paśyanti vāka, the luminous and transformative language of the seer, of the Rishi, of the poet-thinker, kavirmanīşi, finally, it entering into the human medium in boldness of the symbolic and the metaphorical and the imaginative, with each sense carrying with it the other remaining senses, sight the sound and the contact and the fragrance and the taste, thought and perception and melody all joining together, behind all of them standing the truer sajnāna, it embracing every sense, the comprehending faculty seizing at once the object in its modes of multi-expression. If that is not there, then whatever we do, or we don’t do, is flawed and faulty. It is in that context we must look into the phrase “approved by the Mother” when we are concerned with Savitri-editing; it is in that sense that we have to also understand the Mother, she telling Amal that she would not allow him to change even a comma in Savitri. Yet it happened. Here Nolini stood taller than all his contemporaries with a definite intuition behind things, surer and brighter.

Let me start with the comment from V Arvind on an earlier post. It is as follows. Aswapati’s adventure of consciousness when he mounted burning like a cone of fire is identified by him with Agni’s as described in the Veda. In that connection Arvind recalls Judith Tyberg's wonderful summary of Savitri in her Drama of Integral Self-Realization. Here is the opening paragraph of her essay: “Sri Aurobindo's Savitri is an epic poem of high spiritual challenge in the Yoga or Divine Union or Goal of Self-Realization it presents. Its spiritual conception is so all-embracing, so integral that it gives birth to a power which transforms life on earth to a life of divine activity rather than leading to an escape from life. The epic is a mantric expression of this great Seer-sage's inner findings and conquests, leading to his vision of an age of truth-consciousness and immortality. It portrays in living drama the daring climb within of a king-soul through progressive states of consciousness to Nirvanic heights and beyond to summits never reached before. The poet reveals how at meditation's peaks at one with God, where many cease their search, he becomes aware of a Presence, God's Consciousness, Power and Bliss, which he calls the Divine Mother. He relates how this Creatrix of boundless Love and Wisdom-Splendor comes down to transform Darkness into Light, the Unreal into the Real and Death into Immortality.”

The following passage appearing on p. 347 is one of the clearest examples of the way the editing of Savitri had gone. This passage of five lines is about Aswapati’s return to the mortal world after receiving an exceptional boon from the transcendental divine Shakti. The Centenary Edition gives the text as follows:

Once more he moved amid material scenes,

Lifted by intimations from the heights

And twixt the pauses of the building brain

Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge

Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores.

Aswapati gets the Word from the supreme Goddess and, assured, returns to the earth. Presently, all his actions flow in the dynamism of the spirit and the higher intimations that he gets are received even when he is preoccupied with the thousand problems that afflict us. Incontingent is his spiritual poise, and the poetic expression the Yogi-Poet has given to it is precise; to recognize it we have to be alert to its implications.

But from the editors who examined the Savitri-manuscripts we have an unfortunate statement about the third line of this passage. While proposing the replacement of “twixt” by “in”, they say it was a “slip” made by the author himself. They maintain that “here ‘twixt’ does not make sense”. They add that “in” represents Sri Aurobindo’s “intentions better”. The editors seem to be too confident to say that “twixt” for “in” was a slip on the part of Sri Aurobindo himself.

Let us look into some details connected with this “twixt”-“in” as it went through several stages. In the last version that is in Sri Aurobindo’s own hand, the copy-text, as well as in the ledger in which Nirodbaran copied the text, what we have is “twixt”; it is also noticed that this word has been underlined in the ledger and that there is a tick mark in the margin, both in dark ink. From the tick mark we can be absolutely certain that a specific reference about “twixt” was made to Sri Aurobindo and that he very consciously retained it. In other words, this was not an accidental departure from the earlier drafts, though these had “in” at least on thirteen occasions.

The most surprising aspect of the unusual episode, however, is that Amal himself should have gone completely out of his way to justify the ways of Man to God. He calls this “in”-“twixt” as the biggest puzzle in Savitri and sets himself to plead for “in” in place of Sri Aurobindo’s latest “twixt”. He considers “twixt” as “a strange oversight” on part of the author himself. Sri Aurobindo may have “loosely opted for ‘twixt’. But we should be aware of allowing currency to a text which, on a natural interpretation, is out of accord with Sri Aurobindo’s known spiritual teaching no less than with his own poetic choice in an overwhelming majority of versions.”

Amal concludes his analysis and makes the following recommendation: “The editors of Savitri must certainly not succumb to the temptation to choose readings from earlier versions merely out of personal preference. But neither can a purely mechanical approach to editing be the ideal for a poem which covered many years and took shape in such a complex manner. Among the diverse possibilities of corruptions creeping into the text, slips and oversights by Sri Aurobindo himself form an extremely small category consisting primarily of omitted punctuation. But rare verbal slips are a possibility the editors must accept when there is very clear evidence for it, particularly from the standpoint of Sri Aurobindo’s consistent yogic teaching.”

So the upshot is: Sri Aurobindo’s eyesight had become weak, he could not hear properly what was read out to him, he had to depend upon a scribe who was not alert enough, he was assisted by a typist who remained mute and quiet, his printer didn’t always remain faithful to the manuscripts sent to him for printing and publication. If such is the basis of the Revised Edition of Savitri, then one become suspicious of it. This must entail on our part to have a critical and independent look at the entire editing of the poem. We should also remember the Mother’s firm retort to Amal: “Do you think there is anybody in the world who can judge Sri Aurobindo? And how do you know what Sri Aurobindo intended or did not intend? He may have wanted just what he has left behind.” That is logic also.

In the present context, of Amal speaking of slips and oversights by Sri Aurobindo himself, we can well understand why the Mother should have exploded the way she did, in 1954, like “a veritable Mahakali”. It seems that we are not really dealing with the “biggest puzzle in the text of Savitri”, but with something else—ardent disciples becoming wiser than the teacher, not only pointing out his slips but also correcting them. It becomes ingloriously worse when one of them writes a biography of the Yogi-Poet, which declares that Savitri is a “fictional creation”.

V. Arvind on Wed 07 Apr 2010 07:11 PM

In all the earlier editions (1950, 1954, 1970, and SABCL) the line reads: “And twixt the pauses of the building brain.” Why did it take 20 years to spot this and realize that it could be a slip, if indeed it was a slip? When the earlier revisions were done was this change considered and rejected?

Given that "twixt" was actually written by Sri Aurobindo in the last version, what seems to me appropriate is to put "in" as alternative reading in a footnote.

V. Arvind on Thu 08 Apr 2010 07:41 PM

I did some internet search to find out about current practices in bringing out scholarly critical editions. I found an interesting essay by Robert Hirst at this link:

https://wiki.cdlib.org/MTP/tiki-index.php?page=Critical+Edition+Essay

Also see this link:

http://www.neh.gov/news/awards/scholarlyEditionsAwards_052006.html

Hirst discusses the problems of bringing out a critical edition of Mark Twain's letters from multiple manuscripts, and proposes the electronic critical edition as a solution. I think the idea is to use hypertext links in the E-book to show all alternative readings.

It seems to me that such an E-book would be an ideal solution for a scholarly critical edition of Savitri. It can include all alternative readings. This edition is obviously meant only for the scholar. For the normal devotee would use the 1972 edition.

V. Arvind on Fri 09 Apr 2010 08:37 PM

And twixt the pauses of the building brain

Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge

There is a nice alliterative effect produced by the two opening dental consonants in the words "twixt" and "Touched" occurring in successive lines. Also, in the opening iamb "And twixt", since the first syllable "And" ends in a dental consonant, we can glide over it leaving most of the duration and stress on "twixt". This produces the alliterative effect...

RY Deshpande on Sat 10 Apr 2010 06:34 AM

Your analysis is interesting. “twixt” has natural accent and stress and quantity which give a kind of weightiness to the line which is absent in “in”. From a poetic point of view therefore “twixt” is a better choice. The sound value in “in” is poorer than in “twixt”, something that is not desirable in the present context. However, behind "twixt" the considerations are more occult-yogic than poetic, I suppose.

V. Arvind on Sat 10 Apr 2010 10:11 AM

Absolutely. Sri Aurobindo has clearly said that he has written nothing for mere poetic effect. That has to be an axiom in any study of Savitri.

RY Deshpande on Wed 14 Apr 2010 03:37 PM: about Savitri as a Fictional Creation

There cannot be any more laughable assertion than saying Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri is a “fictional creation”. But this is precisely what the author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo is trying to thrust down our throats. It is forgotten or else ignored what the Mother has spoken of Savitri, that it is the “supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision”. This revelation gets immediately nullified in the Lives by one single phrase, by calling it a “fictional creation”. And Sri Aurobindo himself had said that Savitri was his “main work”, and he was occupied with it over long periods of time, and he took it as his own means of ascension, and he had ceaselessly given the last ten years to give to it the form he wanted to give to it, the form of perfect perfection, of yogic expression. Was all that for a “fictional creation”, the Yogi virtually occupied with it? That would be a sad paradox. But is Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri really a fictional creation?

After 1938 with the establishment of the Mind of Light in his physical, the physical’s mind opening to the supramental Light and Force, Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga for the collective took an upward turn, a positive turn, and things started happening in rapid succession; it is to this period that the definitive composition of Savitri belongs. That indeed makes Savitri a rich source to get a peep into the yogic attainments of the Yogi during the last twelve years or so.

Srikant on Thu 15 Apr 2010 12:59 AM

Savitri is a fictional creation

Fiction—a feigned or false story: a falsehood: a romance: the novel, story-telling as a branch of literature. (Chambers)

Fiction—feigning, invention; thing feigned or imagined, invented statement or narrative: esp. novels. (Oxford)

Thus a ‘fictional creation’ would mean at best,’ imagined, invented narrative, esp. novels; and at worst it would mean a false creation.

The poet himself says it is a Legend and a Symbol.

Legend—a story of a saint’s life: a traditional story: a body of tradition. (Chambers)
Symbol—an emblem: that which by custom or convention represents something else.

This is a traditional story of Satyavan and Savitri and is recounted in the Mahabharat. However, it is an emblem representing some thing else. The Mother says to Mona-da and Huta-ben that it is Sri Aurobindo’s and Her story. It is also the story of the creation; the story of the conquest of Love over Death.

Savitri thus is not by any stretch of imagination a false story. It is not even an imagined, invented narrative, esp. novels. Anybody who says that it is a fictional creation certainly knows—floccinaucinihilipilification!

RY Deshpande on Thu 15 Apr 2010 07:08 PM

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo tries to prove that Savitri is a “fictional creation”, basing its argument on a letter from Sri Aurobindo written in 1936. But this is simply anachronistic, and misleading, when Savitri had started taking its final shape only a few years later, its major and definitive composition belonging to the period 1942-50.

RY Deshpande on Mon 19 Apr 2010 06:08 AM

Let us get some general idea about the manner in which the composition of Savitri had proceeded. We could also look into some more factual details which are indeed revealing in many respects. The first available draft of Savitri, dated 8/9 August 1916, is a short narrative just with 1637 lines, but it is obvious that the poet meant it only to be a broad framework to be subsequently developed in several respects. The Yogi in him also recognised that the Savitri-legend has in its contents and connotations all that which can hold the marvellous theme of evolutionary spirituality leading to the divine manifestation upon earth. Eventually Part One of Savitri consisting of the first three books came out in September 1950, prior to Sri Aurobindo’s passing away on 5 December 1950. This first edition of Savitri’s Part I has in it a total number of 11,674 lines; these have become 11,683 lines in the 1993 edition. The total number of lines in Savitri is as follows: 23,812 (1950-51); 23,837 (1993); 1993 has 25 additional lines compared with the 1950-51 edition, 9 coming from Part I and 16 from Parts II and III. Part I which was mostly written by Sri Aurobindo himself in his own hand had, in 1944, about 9000 lines; but as the revision by dictation proceeded, it grew to 11,674 lines in the printed text of 1950. These changes kept on happening in the fair copy made by Nirodbaran, in the typescripts, proofs, and the printed versions which had come out either in the Ashram periodicals or as fascicles. The very first line of the epic in the twenty-first version appears as follows:

It was the hour before the gods awake.

While it continued to be there in that form afterwards also, a change was made in a later draft in which “gods” became “Gods”. Was that just another inspiration, with the elevation of “gods” to “Gods”, Sri Aurobindo simply taking care of details with a kind of focused attention? But perhaps this elevation of “gods” to “Gods” has far beyond literary or religio-philosophical considerations a transcendental dimension when the yogic elements that were entering into the scheme of things had started asserting themselves in a distinct and definite manner.

It is a fact that Savitri went back and forth through many stages of composition. Understandably, this could entail what one might call slips or mistakes, inadvertencies creeping into the printed version. But that does not lend credibility to make an archival statement that “an author is not responsible for every point, indeed not even for every word that is printed as his.” This assertion is bold, rather queer and rash. We must be cautious while accepting its implications.

It is stated that even at the advanced stage of proofreading Sri Aurobindo “made extensive alterations and added new lines and passages.” Just take an example pertaining to the 1948-fascicle with a revised passage which is as follows:

He is satisfied with his common average kind;

Tomorrow’s hopes are his, the old rounds of thought;

His old familiar interests and desires

He has made a hedge planned to defend his life…

“Sri Aurobindo further revised these lines in the proofs of the first edition. These proofs, unfortunately, were not preserved; so what was printed in that edition is the only evidence of his last revision. The passage was printed in 1950 as follows:

He is satisfied with his common average kind;

Tomorrow’s hopes and his old rounds of thought,

His old familiar interests and desires

He has made a thick and narrowing hedge

Defending his small life from the Invisible…

(Savitri, pp. 165-66)

Amal commented in 1954 on the fourth line: ‘Limping line—one foot missing. It is impossible to scan it as a pentameter as it stands: He has/ máde a/ thíck and/ nárrow/ ing hédge/. Three consecutive trochees in the middle are too jerky and inadmissible. The natural scanning is: He has máde/ a thíck/ and nár/ row wing hédge/. But this gives a four-foot line. Look up the original.’ We have seen Sri Aurobindo’s statement that a trochee, if it is not the first foot of a line, needs to be supported ‘by a strong syllable just preceding it’. But…this supposedly iambic line consists mainly of trochees, with only one iamb at the end… Did Sri Aurobindo, in the final revision in 1950, forget momentarily the subtle laws of metrical movement which he had expounded so lucidly in his prose writings and embodied with a spontaneous and unfailing mastery in so many thousands of lines of Savitri? If this irregularity had created a forceful effect of some kind, it might have been justified… But in the passage of our ‘common average kind’, nothing out of the ordinary seems called for… To avoid supposing an unaccountable lapse in Sri Aurobindo’s metrical skill, we may infer that he actually dictated:

He has made into a thick and narrowing hedge…

By making explicit the implied ‘into’, the line becomes readable as pentametric according to the natural rhythm of the words.” (On the New Edition of Savitri, Part Two, pp. 60-63, 2000)

Thanks heaven, here Sri Aurobindo is absolved from a metrical lapse, the blame going to the scribe or the typist or the printer!! It is by a sort of tour de force that a case for editorial emendation has been made. We’ve already seen Sri Aurobindo himself being apportioned the guilt for not taking care of his own philosophy! Indeed, what we witness in these cases is sheer enthusiasm to make Sri Aurobindo match up with our notions of professional skill and perfection! This is sophisticated arrogance, and must be at once dismissed. This line has definitely been modified by Amal and the editors.

Here is a second example, but it is of a slightly different kind. This pertains to the line “An hour comes when fail all Nature's means.” (Savitri, p. 11) This line in the Revised Edition reads as follows: “An hour arrives when fail all Nature's means.” The obvious question is, how has the line undergone such a change, though perhaps not of a very crucial kind, interesting yet it is from a certain point of view.

In fact, there is an editorial problem here, though of a minor nature, whether it should be “An hour comes…” or “An hour arrives…” As far as the sense is concerned there is really not much to choose between “comes” and “arrives”. From the point of view of poetic technique we have: An hour/ arrives/ when fail/ all Nat/ ure’s means—four beautiful iambs with spondee as the fourth foot; An ho/ ur comes/ when fail/ all Nat/ ure’s means—this is also acceptable, with ‘hour’ taken with two syllables, not an uncommon thing in Savitri; with this ‘ho /ur’ the first line—It was the hour before the Gods awake—would become iamb-iamb-anapaest-iamb-iamb, which could also pass without any technical objection. In many places Sri Aurobindo scans ‘inspires’ or ‘desires’ with three syllables, trisyllabic though generally they are disyllabic; so too could be taken ‘hour’ as ‘ho/ ur’. As far as rhythm is concerned, it is a matter of one’s taste and association, one’s predilections also; nor can there be any strict formula everywhere for the same poet; it could depend upon the situation. Then, while in the ‘arrival’-line there is a strong ‘r’-alliterative effect, in the ‘comes’-line the additional ‘m’-alliteration brings a kind of self-closing poetic result. Nor is this line that kind of a dense classical mantra in which nothing can be changed, the exact word in the exact position. There is neither the inevitability of ‘arrives’ nor of ‘comes’.

And yet there is a problem. The passage concerned was written by Sri Aurobindo first around 1945, written on a tiny chit-pad sheet. On it our line in his hand is ‘An hour arrives when fail all Nature's means.” But there were revisions by dictation around it and when the scribe made a fair copy of the text he put—inadvertently we might suppose, probably being carried away by the sense of the sentence—‘comes’ instead of ‘arrives’. Obviously, ‘comes’ continued to be there through all the subsequent stages of composition. Nirodbaran’s fair copy, that is, the ledger, as well as several earlier manuscripts, had ‘comes’; Nolini’s type-sheets, proofs from the press on three or four occasions—all of them were read out to Sri Aurobindo and he never felt uneasy with his ‘arrives’ having been “changed” to ‘comes’ by somebody else.

Indeed, if the author had allowed something to stand, can we really object to him in that respect? If he had passed something can we overrule him and change the text? If Sri Aurobindo keeps something, though not his, who are we to dismiss it? In this case, it is not that ‘comes’ did not exist earlier; it did. Perhaps there should be some other way to resolve the issue. Is there any, particularly when the editors tell us that they have “refrained from undue tampering”? But then this is also, negatively, an admission that due tampering has occurred in the course of editing Savitri.

At the moment we are analysing the situation arising out of ‘comes’ / ‘arrives’ without really knowing how the said passage developed in the process of its composition. If around it there are new dictations or changes due to dictation, then the case has to be seen differently. We have absolutely no knowledge of it, and there could be a valid reason to say that the whole revision by our editors has been done in a kind of hush-hush manner. That makes it highly suspect, highly vulnerable, even if there is plenty of scholarship and hard work behind it.

RY Deshpande on Wed 21 Apr 2010 03:25 PM—Right inspiration takes care of right poetic technique

The line “He has made a thick and narrowing hedge” (Savitri, p. 166) has been altered to “He has made into a thick and narrowing hedge” in the 1993 Revised Edition. This alteration has no textual justification, but the argument which has been put forward is on the basis of metre. We‘ve already seen that there are three consecutive trochees right in the middle of the earlier line: |made' a|thick' and|nar'row|. But the editors of the Revised Edition say that this is inadmissible,—because it amounts to faulty poetic technique entering into Savitri-composition. Even if it is coming from Sri Aurobindo, it cannot stand the demands of correct poetry, and therefore it ought to be corrected.

But what is the fault? The contention is these trochees make the movement jerky. They quote Sri Aurobindo: A trochee, if it is not the first foot of a line, needs to be supported by a strong syllable just preceding it. But in spite of this lack of a strong foot Sri Aurobindo has by a master-stroke given something which is most wonderful. The trochees that can make the movement jerky have been pressed into use to provide a smooth liquidity. Here the three trochees fit in so well into the movement that it gets spoilt by the addition of a “strong syllable” now coming from “into”. In fact, the altered line looks rather artificial, a graft with odious surroundings. In any case, we’ve no business to correct Sri Aurobindo’s compositions. The original three-trochee line has the same natural spontaneous inspired unusualness as in the case of another line where we’ve only the falling feet. The example is from p. 379: “Threaded through clamorous marts and sentinel towers.” It can be easily scanned as follows:

dactyl-dactyl-trochee-dactyl-trochee—all falling feet. We’ll have to hunt out if there are at all similar examples elsewhere in literature.

But I suppose that would take away the natural spontaneous inspired unusualness of the falling line,—not that it was meant to be unusual. Possibly I’d have taken ‘tower’ monosyllabic in another situation, but the plural ‘towers’ does not easily allow that to happen here; the alliterative ‘s’-insistence in the line—with so many other alliterative consonant-sounds—insists that we pay due attention to this ‘s’, as well as the ending ‘rs’. I’m fascinated by the idea of all the falling feet in the line for which there’s no parallel elsewhere. In the hands of a Master we’ve a marvellous play of these varying feet, that our common notions of poetry-reading get traumatized. The only way is, to let oneself go into the dynamism of the rhythm which comes from some far-off infinity and swings back into another far-off infinity. It comes, stirs the layers of our sleeping perceptions, persuades us to go along with it if only in the silence of the Word we could participate in the activity of the Word. Sri Aurobindo himself had written to Amal that the reader has to be pretty alert to the sounds of words in Savitri.

If the inspiration is the right one, then I have not to bother about the technique then or afterwards, for there comes through the perfect line with the perfect rhythm inextricably intertwined or rather fused into an inseparable and single unity; if there is anything wrong with the expression that carries with it an imperfection in the rhythm, if there is a flaw in the rhythm, the expression also does not carry its full weight, is not absolutely inevitable. (1936)

Do our editors realize that by calling the said line metrically defective they are actually saying that it lacks the right inspiration? How preposterous! The fact is, all that is needed is “usually taken care of by the inspiration itself”.

V. Arvind on Wed 21 Apr 2010 11:16 PM

The only way is, to let oneself go into the dynamism of the rhythm which comes from some far-off infinity and swings back into another far-off infinity. It comes, stirs the layers of our sleeping perceptions, persuades us to go along with it if only in the silence of the Word we could participate in the activity of the Word. Sri Aurobindo himself had written to Amal that, to put it slightly differently, the reader has to be pretty alert to the sounds of words in Savitri.

I know what you mean. But I would like to learn more to appreciate better and enjoy the lines more. Yet, I don't want to give my mind a free play in reading Savitri—I'm afraid I'll lose a more precious contact with it...

My efforts at scansion are a beginner's efforts at learning about different feet and meters.

auroman on Mon 26 Apr 2010 05:02 AM

My efforts at scansion are a beginner's efforts at learning about different feet and meters.

You may want to try Derek Attridge's two books Poetic Rhythm and Meter and Meaning. He offers an intuitive feel with a number of examples.

Fenton's Intro to English Poetry may also be useful

—Another beginner

RY Deshpande on Mon 26 Apr 2010 06:16 AM

That's interesting. My first meeting with Nirod was on 16 August 1952, when I'd taken a bunch of my poems for him to have a look at them; he was courteous and encouraging. In the course of the talk about English metres he suggested, in response to my request for a suitable book, The Metres of English Poetry by Enid Hamer, first published on 24 April 1930. I managed to get a second-hand copy from a second-hand bookstall at Kalbadevi Rd Bombay-2 of the time. I find it well-written with a large number of examples, describing various genres of poetry and compositions. Maybe Arvind could try in a second-hand bookstall in Chennai. This book was very popular among the Ashram poets of the time and, of course, they had the direct guidance from Sri Aurobindo himself. John Chadwick (named as Arjava by Sri Aurobindo, a poet and philosopher; the Master had great appreciation for his poetry, and also the metrical skill he had at his command) was a master, and Nirod had his lessons from him.

V. Arvind on Mon 26 Apr 2010 08:39 AM

Thanks, Auroman and RYD.

Coincidentally, I've borrowed Derek Attridge's really nice book on Meter and Meaning from the British Council Library in Chennai. It is very well written.

I'll look for Enid Hamer's book as well.

I've started on this learning project a bit late in life though...

V. Arvind on Mon 26 Apr 2010 08:44 AM

I first read Arjava's poems after reading Dilip's book Sri Aurobindo came to me which quotes him often.

I found his poems powerful, but often a little sad.

RY Deshpande on Thu 29 Apr 2010 06:17 AM

What you say might be true, that there is a touch of sadness in Arjava. Or, is it that, that is the kind of impression we get because of his grave and serious business with things? There is a powerful occult also in him. The classical mystic-occult-spiritual in its denseness can easily make us believe that it is not so much the psychic that comes out prominently in him, the psychic with the lyrical and the swift and the sweet, even the dreamy, to tell us the joy he has in the overhead. Let me just quote something quickly from him:

Gold are the wings of the eagle

Who bringeth Beauty nigh.

Or his most celebrated and mantric:

Each man is wildered myriadly by outside and surface tone

Engirdling soul with clamour, by this fragmentary mood,

This patter of Time’s marring steps across the solitude

Of Truth’s abidingness, Self-Blissful and Alone.

The last two lines are exceptionally beautiful and powerful. I’ve a whole project of presenting Arjava on the Mirror but I don’t know when it is going to happen—in fact an entire project dealing with the activities that went on in the Department of Poetry that was run by Sri Aurobindo in the 1930s. Let’s see if it can start soon.

RY Deshpande on Thu 22 Apr 2010 09:09 PM

There is something beautiful in this falling line from the point of view of inspiration, as well as the poetic technique. And that something, that beautiful and captivating, comes from something that is attractively magical,—the magical “clamorous”. Remove this magical “clamorous”, and the entire magic is gone! The line gets flattened. It may remain technically perfect in its pentametric structure,—

but the poetry has disappeared. It sounds kind of loud, a bit rhetorical also. But the inspiration that brings the magical “clamorous” brings along with it also the apt expressive technique. It will be topsy-turvy logic to go by the notions of the metrical schemes rather than the rhythmic movement which comes with the inspiration itself—it is the rhythmic movement that precedes the technique, it is the rhythmic movement that gives rise to or creates its own technique. I think this is the most fundamental element with the poetry of the kind we have in Savitri, and this must be always recognized. In this regard Amal is definitely misled by the editors of the Revised Edition of Savitri. It is a pity that he succumbed to it, particularly when Sri Aurobindo himself had written the following to him in 1936:

The things I lay most stress on then are whether each line in itself is the inevitable thing not only as a whole but in each word; whether there is the right distribution of sentence lengths (an immensely important thing in this kind of blank verse); whether the lines are in their right place, for all the lines may be perfect, but they may not combine perfectly together—bridges may be needed, alterations of position so as to create the right development and perspective etc., etc. Pauses hardly exist in this kind of blank verse; variations of rhythm as between the lines, of caesura, of the distribution of long and short, clipped and open syllables, manifold constructions of vowel and consonant sounds, alliteration, assonances, etc., distribution into one line, two line, three or four or five line, many line sentences, care to make each line tell by itself in its own mass and force and at the same time form a harmonious whole sentence—these are the important things. But all that is usually taken care of by the inspiration itself, for as I know and have the habit of the technique, the inspiration provides what I want according to standing orders. If there is a defect I appeal to headquarters, till a proper version comes along or the defect is removed by a word or phrase substitute that flashes—with the necessary sound and sense. These things are not done by thinking or seeking for the right thing—the two agents are sight and call. Also feeling—the solar plexus has to be satisfied and, until it is, revision after revision has to continue. I may add that the technique does not go by any set mental rule—for the object is not perfect technical elegance according to precept but sound-significance filling out the word-significance. If that can be done by breaking rules, well, so much the worse for the rule.

So in Savitri when the proper version comes, it comes with the necessary sound and sense. It comes not by thinking or seeking for the right thing but through the agency of the two agents that are sight and call; in them inspired poetry finds its fulfilling utterance. To tamper with it is to desecrate the precious and the noble and the elevating, and the perfect. This is perhaps what the Mother meant when she told Amal in 1954 that she would not allow him to change even a comma in Savitri. Yet it happened. But this is precisely what we are going to look into, that it happened not because she allowed it—did she allow it?—but because we didn’t see what she meant.

About inspiration shaping its technique, let us take at random one more example. You open your copy of Savitri, and you are on p. 543 with the line: “Or fall silent in the silence of the Unseen”. If we scan it as follows

then we’ve iamb-trochee-anapaest-pyrrhic-anapaest as five feet in the line. But the second and third could be dactyl-iamb— |sil'ent in| the sil'| ence—but, without a doubt, the trochee-anapaest—|sil'ent| in the sil'|ence—has a better rhythmic flow and connectedness, and the emphasis which “silence” gets has a more powerful sense: I’d prefer |sil'ent| in the sil'| ence. There is yet another possibility in the last two feet: sil'|ence of| the Unseen'|,—pyrrhic-anapaest,—or else sil'| ence of the| Unseen'|,—tribrach-iamb combination. Three short syllables forming a foot—tribrach—is quite admissible and, though rare, has here a nice charm of its own, both in rhythm and in sense. In the first, “Unseen”, with "the" before it, sort of gets diluted in contrast to the pointed focus on the single “Unseen” in the second. My reading of the line will be therefore as follows:

A small voice-separation, pause after the fourth foot as tribrach, makes the iambic “Unseen” prominent, important—and that is what it should be.

Essentially, in these examples the point is, rhythm giving rise to metrical feet and not so much the other way round. That will be the way the original rhythm will try to find its movement here, the original word with its sense and sound expressing the utterance through our language which is vaikhari. We try to go from metrical feet to rhythm—and it is not altogether meaningless; however, in the case of a yogi-poet who is in contact with the source of inspiration and is in the dynamism of the rhythm, things come from above. To judge him by applying our criteria is therefore putting things upside down, and it is that which constitutes our fault. In other words, if we find something ‘wrong’ or ‘faulty’ in him we must first do some introspection. Perhaps that is the way by which we will be ‘forced’ or ‘guided’ or ‘prompted’ to seize the harmonious movement which is always present in the authentic poetry of this kind, “that rhythmic speech which rises at once from the heart of the seer and from the distant home of the Truth,—the discovery of the word, the divine movement, the form of thought proper to the reality.” That rhythmic speech is not a mental manufacture, but rises at once from the heart, that which comes from the home of the Truth.

In practical terms, wisdom would lie in leaving the text as it is, although we might strongly feel that in the first edition of Savitri there are plenty of blemishes. But who are we to judge them, these textual “blemishes”? That is what the Mother meant when she told Amal that she would not allow him to change even a comma. Amal should have discerned her suggestive hint; instead, he started arguing with her, started justifying the ways of man to God. That spoilt the whole thing. And now here are experts who bring scanning machines and computer programs—was he PS who had prepared the first Concordance of Savitri in 1984 and who had made some of these early attempts?—and big lenses to examine Savitri manuscripts and type sheets and faded pieces of papers, and a whole set of documents to ‘revise’ Savitri which Amal and Nirod may approve but which never would Nolini and Jugal.

V. Arvind on Mon 26 Apr 2010 09:10 PM

I read this really thought provoking post only today. The quote from Sri Aurobindo says it all:

I may add that the technique does not go by any set mental rule—for the object is not perfect technical elegance according to precept but sound-significance filling out the word-significance. If that can be done by breaking rules, well, so much the worse for the rule.

What exactly do you mean by a small voice separation?

I thought the beat is provided by the stress syllables, and the flow (fall or rise) is dictated by the unstressed syllables. Also, each foot is supposed to have the same duration. Am I right?

I should add that I don't apply these rules when I read Savitri; I figure out the stress syllables and read the line out a few times to intuitively decide on the feet.

V. Arvind on Tue 27 Apr 2010 09:00 PM

Apropos our discussion, I came across this poem of Coleridge titled "Metrical Feet". I am inflicting my scansion upon you... the price that you must pay for my efforts to get this poem!

Tro'chee| trips' from| long' to| short'|;

From long'| to long'| in sol'|emn sort'|

Slow' spon'|dee stalks'|; strong' foot'!| yet ill able|

E'ver to| come' up with| Dac'tyl tri"syll'able.|

Iam'|bics march'| from short'| to long;| --

With a leap'| and a bound'| the swift an'|apests throng'|;

One syll'able| long', with| one short' at| each side'|,

Amphi'bra|chys hastes' with| a state'ly| stride'|; --

First' and last'| be'ing long',| mid'dle short'|, Am'phima'cer|

Strikes' his thun'|der'ing hoofs'| like' a proud'| high'-bred Rac'er.|

V. Arvind on Tue 27 Apr 2010 09:13 PM

In this context let us compare

with

The second reading has two "swift" anapaests and three "solemn" iambs, following Coleridge's description.

I think that the first reading conveys a more restricted movement which fits better with the sense of the line....

Vikas on Tue 27 Apr 2010 07:24 AM

I am jumping in a little late in the discussion. Apropos of the line

He has made a thick and narrowing hedge,

I find myself scanning the first foot to be an anapaest. Upon reading Amal's scan I find that mine is identical to his. I believe that his point "The natural scanning is: He has made/ a thick/ and nár/ row wing hédge/. But this gives a four-foot line." cannot be dismissed easily and summarily. Not for a moment am I suggesting that we ought to introduce an "into". I have not seen the manuscripts and this is a high voltage area so I won't comment on that but Amal's comment is certainly valid as far as the scansion.

RY Deshpande on Wed 28 Apr 2010 10:33 AM

Let me first pick up Vikas’s: He has made/ a thick/ and nár/ row wing hédge/ which is certainly a valid, in fact a natural scansion. It looks natural when the line is read without any other context. But that would make the line a four-footer, a limping line which also would mean limping inspiration. Assuming that this is what we have, the question raised is: should this be corrected? But the metrical correction would also mean correcting the inspiration, correcting Sri Aurobindo’s inspiration. This is what the Revised Edition does, ceremoniously or unceremoniously I do not know. Let me, however, re-emphasise that this line is not present anywhere in the manuscripts or typescripts. It occurred for the first time in the 1950-edition of Savitri. The difference is seen between the typescript sent to the press and what came out in print from it. This and the next line were added by dictation when the proofs were read out to Sri Aurobindo. Unfortunately, those proofs have not survived. We also do not know to what extent the whole passage had undergone a change. I’ve no knowledge about it and only the Archives records could throw some light on it. But let us read the passage at it exists:

He is satisfied with his common average kind;

Tomorrow’s hopes and his old rounds of thought,

His old familiar interests and desires

He has made a thick and narrowing hedge

Defending his small life from the Invisible…

While reading all the lines together we surely feel the previous line (His old familiar interests and desires) is somewhat overflowing into the line we are discussing (He has made a thick and narrowing hedge). This could possibly have the effect of making the first foot “He has” stand on its own feet, making it an acceptable iamb. While moving forward the rhythm is kind of looking back when it arrives at "He has". The rest is just to clean up our arguments. A combination of iamb-trochee-trochee-trochee-iamb makes here a perfect line, I suppose. In any case, we have no business to supply “into” to correct things which is what the Revised Edition is doing.

V. Arvind on Fri 30 Apr 2010 10:01 PM

This is an interesting reading of the lines. Making |He has'| into an iamb does provide a stress syllable to support the following trochee |made' a|.

But somehow I am not comfortable with "His old familiar interests and desires he has"... If line began with "The old familiar..." or we had "...the desires he has" then there would be no ambiguity here.

I prefer the simpler reading:

V. Arvind on Sat 01 May 2010 12:08 AM

On second thoughts, my lack of comfort is because I'm already used to to parsing the sentence as "He has made..." rather than "...desires he has...".

But is there really a metrical problem with the simpler reading of Pyrrhic-trochee-trochee-trochee-iamb?

Vikas on Sat 01 May 2010 07:59 AM

He is satisfied with his common average kind;

Tomorrow’s hopes and his old rounds of thought,

His old familiar interests and desires

He has made a thick and narrowing hedge

Defending his small life from the Invisible…

Surely, the lines have to be read in the context of the preceding and following lines especially since the meter and substance can suggest a different scan and therefore a different read. The previous line does flow into the one we are discussing and especially if you consider it (the previous line) as enjambed then one finds oneself naturally in the rhythm of three successive trochees preceded and followed by an iamb and the "into" can be dispensed with. Rendering this in prose we would read it as

His old familiar interests and desires he has

Made a thick and narrowing hedge.

But let me hasten to add that I am hardly comfortable with this reading because one anticipates a pause, or to put in poetic terms, a caesura in the discussed line. One would expect a comma or a semi-colon after "He has". We do not see that in the line.

Leaving aside the enjambment, if there was a caesura somewhere in the line, it would make for a strong case for 3 successive trochees, otherwise one risks the sound inevitably falling and following into the natural iambic pattern so native to the English language.

That being said your reluctance to any emendation is understandably impelled by your love, reverence and adoration for, and utter humility before the supreme Mantra of Sri Aurobindo. Therefore any attempt to change what Sri Aurobindo wrote ought to be eschewed even aborted. This is the line of approach. The aim and sole intent is to not taint the Divine Word with the human.

The archives presumably has the same aim and intent, but believes that a few lines have been omitted and seeks to restore them from the manuscripts.

Akash on Sat 01 May 2010 09:03 AM

Rhythm is one side of the coin and sense is the other. If we abridge the line(s) to:

His desire he has made a hedge

To me this connotes that the thing-in-itself (desire) has turned into this other thing (boundary) - sort of by being so, or naturally, or unknowingly, without the "he" having actively done something. Rather it is a psychological comment on the "he" - that he is limited and that limitation has naturally arisen around him by his state of being (desire). But at the same time, there is a "he" involved in the process, perhaps hinting that the "he" has two levels - one involved and limited, the other less limited but also less engaged (perhaps setting the stage for this less limited portion to become more engaged later on).

His desire he has made into a hedge

To me this connotes a deliberate, knowing, effort-full transformation of one thing into another by the "he". I.e., the "he" has acted in a self-aware manner to limit himself.

His desire has become a hedge

This connotes that the "he" is simply not involved in the self-limitation, that "he" is limited and that's it.

I was trying to get some analogies to this construct, but it is rather difficult since there is the physical and the psychological function coming together. For example, "his clay he has made into a brick" works for physical transformation, but "his clay he has made a brick" or "his clay has become a brick" don't work.

Something like this, perhaps?

his garden he has made a haven for birds

his garden he has made into a haven for birds

his garden has become a haven for birds

V. Arvind on Wed 28 Apr 2010 09:36 AM

In the passage containing the "narrowing hedge" line, already discussed here, a few lines later we have the interesting line:

Fenced off the greatnesses of hidden God.

Since this line matches the "hedge" line in sense, it is interesting to scan it and compare. One way is:

This has three iambs and a pyrrhic in the middle. But how about the following scansion?

There is a tribrach in the middle, pretty much like the "Unseen" line discussed here, and there are three trochaic feet, where the last one has a "strong ending" with a missing weak syllable! I found this reading nicer as it puts a greater emphasis on "God", just like the effect your scansion has on "Unseen".

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Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 03 May 2010 06:20 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

The following comment by Arvind has been brought to the present post for further discussion. Please follow the thread here.

V. Arvind on Sun 02 May 2010 08:42 PM
Just revisiting this very interesting point you raised two weeks ago:

Thread'ed through | clam'or ous | marts' and | sen'ti nel | tow'ers |

dactyl-dactyl-trochee-dactyl-trochee—all falling feet. We’ll have to hunt out if there are at all similar examples elsewhere in literature.

I couldn't find anything that can be called a line of dactylic-trochaic pentameter in the internet.

However, I chanced upon Sri Aurobindo's scansion of Swinburne's lines in the letters. Here is one. It is trochee-trochee-dactyle-trochee-trochee.

Āll thě | nīght slěep | cāme nŏt ŭ|pōn mў | ēyelĭd |

Also, isn't it the case that Sri Aurobindo's Ilion is dactylic hexameter, and the lines are mostly all dactylic-trochaic? Here is one line which I found already scanned in K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar's essay:

One' and un|armed' in the | car' was the | dri'ver; | grey' was he, | shrunk'en|

It is dactyl-dactyl-dactyl-trochee-dactyl-trochee.

If we drop the third trochee we get the "threaded through" line scansion!

Here we should pursue some other pending comments by Vikas and Akash. The thread will continue on this post.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Tue 04 May 2010 02:05 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Rhythm is one side of the coin and sense is the other......
The illustrative examples bring out clearly the nuances in the variations of the discussed line.
Let's consider the line (similar to "His desire he has made a hedge")
"His prayer he has made a ritual".
This can be read : his prayer has become a ritual.
Consider the line with "into" introduced in it and prayer changed to prayers
"His prayers he has made into a ritual".
I believe this can pass off as : Unbeknownst to him his prayers have become a ritual.
I think when the becoming is something negative then the connotation need not necessarily be a "deliberate, knowing, effort-full transformation". Now lets involve a plurality of things instead of a prayer
"His offerings, prayers and chants he has made a ritual".
I am wondering whether its not preferable to have
in this case
"His offerings, prayers and chants he has made into a ritual".

Then there is something else. The lines that follow

"His being's kinship to infinity
He has shut away from him into inmost self"

bear some resemblance to the preceding ones.
The scan of the last line is identical to the one where the "into" has been introduced. In the earlier line his hopes, interests, desires...he has made "into" a hedge, while in the last line his kinship to infinity he has shut "into" inmost self.
I would be curious to know if the "into" in the last line found its way up to its predecessor.
Interestingly enough, I will say that after re-reading the 3 lines (the line in question and 2 preceding ones)
"he has made a thick and narrowing hedge" can certainly hold its own. There can be a very short pause after "has" after which the trochees will naturally follow one after another to close with an iamb.

Re: Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Akash on Tue 04 May 2010 10:16 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Your analogy is better than mine: desire/prayer -> hedge/ritual (abstract -> concrete) vs. garden -> haven (concrete -> abstract).

Re: Re: Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Tue 04 May 2010 11:26 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Your simplification of the analysis of the discussed line was admirable and provided a clear and concise framework in which the elements (sense/rhyme) could be understood. In fact it is that which provided a deeper insight into the line and led me to conclude that the line could hold itself without the "into".

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Wed 05 May 2010 07:18 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

This is a very interesting discussion!

I found some similar lines in Savitri. Similar in the sense that they have 10 syllables each, they all begin with "He has" or "She has" which can be scanned as pyrrhics, and the second foot can be scanned as a trochee:

He has| reached' the| world's' end| and stares'| beyond';|

He has| re'found| the skies'| from which'| he fell'|

She has| ac'cep|ted as| her Nat'|ure's need'|

Do these scansions look OK?

Also, I am a bit confused about the actual difference between the two scansions:

|He has made'|a thick'| and narr'|owing hedge'|

and

|He has|made' a|thick' and| narr'ow|ing hedge'|

I was recently reading in an article that a foot like the iamb or anapaest that ends with a strong syllable takes longer duration than a dactyl or trochee. This is apparently because in an iamb or anapaest more time is spent on the strong syllable than in a trochee or dactyl. This is in an online article discussing the difference in durations between iambs and trochees. For instance the iamb |I am'| takes longer duration to utter than the trochee |I' am|.

If this is true then perhaps, in the second reading, there is no need for a short pause after the "has" in the first foot. Rather we need only reduce the intervals between "made" and "a", likewise between "thick" and "and", as also "narr'" and "ow" to produce the effect of three trochees...

These are just some thoughts I wanted to share. Please correct me if this is not standard in english prosody.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Mon 10 May 2010 01:30 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Hi Arvind,
Sorry I was busy and couldn't keep up the thread. Did not mean to break it abruptly. Would you still be interested in continuing this thread?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 10 May 2010 06:14 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Yes, I'm also interested. I think it can be quite creative and rewarding. If it begins to throw 'more light' on Savitri's poetic art, nothing can be more wonderful than that. What do you say?

RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Mon 10 May 2010 11:30 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Yes it can be quite creative and rewarding. I appreciate Arvind's eagerness on the art and heart of poetry and your equally enthusiastic and prompt responses. We can surely recite our way to the Divine.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 10 May 2010 05:48 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

>>We can surely recite our way to the Divine. >>

Vikas, What a beautiful phrase! Very felicitous! So, let us recite our way to the Divine.

RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Mon 10 May 2010 08:07 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Indeed! And only a year ago I realized how special it is to recite aloud Savitri. There is something magical about it...

Vikas, I look forward to the discussion.

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 03 May 2010 07:15 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Here is a passage of 72 lines appearing towards the end of the Book of Fate, pp. 460-62. This forms absolutely the last piece of dictation given by Sri Aurobindo around 15 November 1950, less than three weeks before his withdrawal on 5 December 1950. The fact that the whole passage came out practically in one go is amazing, is remarkable, in the sense of the power of inspiration bringing with it the substance and the rhythmic movement. Apart from the occult-yogic dimensions it reveals, it shows the greatness of the poet with all the inspiration at his full command. Here he is not counting trochees and iambs to build a line, but they simply fall into proper places, in the power of their revelation and their inevitability, the hallmark of authentic poetry straight coming from the womb of the omniscient and omni-rhythmed movement. To quote Sri Aurobindo again, technique :

… all that is usually taken care of by the inspiration itself, … the two agents are sight and call. Also feeling—the solar plexus has to be satisfied... I may add that the technique does not go by any set mental rule—for the object is not perfect technical elegance according to precept but sound-significance filling out the word-significance. If that can be done by breaking rules, well, so much the worse for the rule.

The 72-line passage is easily one of the finest examples of inspiration taking care of everything. Here it is:

Queen, strive no more to change the secret will;
Time's accidents are steps in its vast scheme.
Bring not thy brief and helpless human tears
Across the fathomless moments of a heart
That knows its single will and God's as one:
It can embrace its hostile destiny;
It sits apart with grief and facing death,
Affronting adverse fate armed and alone.
In this enormous world standing apart
In the mightiness of her silent spirit's will,
In the passion of her soul of sacrifice
Her lonely strength facing the universe,
Affronting fate, asks not man's help nor god's:
Sometimes one life is charged with earth's destiny,
It cries not for succour from the time-bound powers.
Alone she is equal to her mighty task.
Intervene not in a strife too great for thee,
A struggle too deep for mortal thought to sound,
Its question to this Nature's rigid bounds
When the soul fronts nude of garbs the infinite,
Its too vast theme of a lonely mortal will
Pacing the silence of eternity.
As a star, uncompanioned, moves in heaven
Unastonished by the immensities of space,
Travelling infinity by its own light,
The great are strongest when they stand alone.
A God-given might of being is their force,
A ray from self's solitude of light the guide;
The soul that can live alone with itself meets God;
Its lonely universe is their rendezvous.
A day may come when she must stand unhelped
On a dangerous brink of the world's doom and hers,
Carrying the world's future on her lonely breast,
Carrying the human hope in a heart left sole
To conquer or fail on a last desperate verge.
Alone with death and close to extinction's edge.
Her single greatness in that last dire scene,
She must cross alone a perilous bridge in Time
And reach an apex of world-destiny
Where all is won or all is lost for man.
In that tremendous silence lone and lost
Of a deciding hour in the world's fate,
In her soul's climbing beyond mortal time
When she stands sole with Death or sole with God
Apart upon a silent desperate brink,
Alone with her self and death and destiny
As on some verge between Time and Timelessness
When being must end or life rebuild its base,
Alone she must conquer or alone must fall.
No human aid can reach her in that hour,
No armoured God stand shining at her side.
Cry not to heaven, for she alone can save.
For this the silent Force came missioned down;
In her the conscious Will took human shape:
She only can save herself and save the world.
O queen, stand back from that stupendous scene,
Come not between her and her hour of Fate.
Her hour must come and none can intervene:
Think not to turn her from her heaven-sent task,
Strive not to save her from her own high will.
Thou hast no place in that tremendous strife;
Thy love and longing are not arbiters there,
Leave the world's fate and her to God's sole guard.
Even if he seems to leave her to her lone strength,
Even though all falters and falls and sees an end
And the heart fails and only are death and night,
God-given her strength can battle against doom
Even on a brink where Death alone seems close
And no human strength can hinder or can help.
Think not to intercede with the hidden Will,
Intrude not twixt her spirit and its force
But leave her to her mighty self and Fate.

Let us just scan a few of the opening lines:

Queen', strive'| no more| to change'| the sec'|ret will'; |

Time's' acc'|idents| are steps'| in its| vast' scheme'.|

Bring' not| thy brief'| and help'|less hum'|an tears'|

Across'| the fath'|omless mom'|ents of| a heart'|

That knows'| its sin'|gle will'| and God's'| as one': |

It can| embrace'| its host'|ile des'|tiny; |

It sits'| apart'| with grief'| and fac'|ing death', |

Affront'|ing ad'|verse fate'| armed' and| alone'. |

In this| enorm'|ous world'| stand'ing| apart'|

In the migh'|tiness |of her sil'|ent spir'|it's will' |

In the pas'|sion of| her soul'| of sac'|rifice|

Her lone'|ly strength'| faci'ng| the un'|iverse, |

Affront'|ing fate'|, asks' not| man's' help'| nor god's': |

Sometimes'| one' life'| is charged'| with earth's'| de'stiny, |

It cries'| not for suc'|cour from| the time|-bound' powers'. |

Alone'| she is eq'|ual to| her migh'|ty task'.

The poetry moves so smoothly and naturally that one just doesn’t think of its art, not even of its heart, the rasa, the essence, the joyous felicity is such an assuring gift that one knows that the “solar plexus” is fully satisfied, that something else has taken care of the expression, and of the beat and the metre, that it is the rhythm coming from the distant home of the truth, as the Veda would say, that has taken possession of the multidimensional reality even in the expression of the secular as much as of the esoteric. Strive no more to measure by the poetic technique the breadth, the dynamic flaming wideness of the inspiration, if we have adapt a line from above.

~ RYD

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Mon 03 May 2010 10:24 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

The poetry moves so smoothly and naturally that one just doesn’t think of its art, not even of its heart, the rasa, the essence, the joyous felicity is such an assuring gift that one knows that the “solar plexus” is fully satisfied, that something else has taken care of the expression, and of the beat and the metre, that it is the rhythm coming from the distant home of the truth, as the Veda would say, that has taken possession of the multidimensional reality even in the expression of the secular as much as of the esoteric. Strive no more to measure by the poetic technique the breadth, the dynamic flaming wideness of the inspiration, if we have adapt a line from above.

Very true and beautifully expressed.

Anyone who is familiar with some details of the circumstances of Sri Aurobindo's withdrawal, and anyone who has heard about the suffering that the Mother went through in the last few months before She withdrew will be deeply moved upon reading this passage, each time.

It is so intensely autobiographical, so real. The poetic element almost takes a back seat here.

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 10 May 2010 06:46 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Let us take the following lines from p. 43:

A glory and a rapture and a charm,
The All-Blissful sat unknown within the heart;
Earth’s pains were the ransom of its prisoned delight.

We could scan this as follows:

A glor'|y and| a rap'|ture and| a charm', |
The All'-Bliss'|ful sat'| unknown'| within' |the heart'; |
Earth’s' pains'| were the ran'|som of| its pris'|oned delight'. |

The first line is a beautiful combination of iambs and pyrrhics which gives a happy bouncing and expectant feel for the arrival of the ‘All-Blissful’. In the third, there is as if a kind of fulfillment of this with the opening spondee saying ‘yes, yes’, and the two anapaests in it echoing back to the happiness it feels. The middle line has an unusual opening foot, antibacchius, short-long-long, although it could be read as an anapaest with unstressed ‘All’; but the ‘All’ is pretty powerful to be considered so. We could see some more examples of this separately.

~ RYD

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Mon 10 May 2010 08:21 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Lovely lines these! I've read this Canto several times but one can easily gloss over such lines...

The first line does not admit any other scansion. I experimented a bit with the second one:

The All'|-Bliss'ful| sat' unknown'| within' |the heart';|

But the amphimacer in my third foot sounds especially dreadful. It makes it a bit like |Stamp' your foot'|...

In contrast, a small pause after "sat", which is understood in your scansion, makes the whole line beautifully balanced.

The last line too is quite unusual too and reads lovely.

Thanks for this sharing!

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Tue 11 May 2010 10:24 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Elsewhere we were discussing Blake’s Tyger, apropos of which I’d made the following comment:

The opening spondee in the last line—Dare frame thy fearful symmetry—makes the whole presentation forceful, which is particularly important when the “Tyger” is none other than “Christ” himself, he battling against the enemies of God, as convincingly shown by Amal in his Blake’s Tyger. The occult atmosphere of the poem is too thick to be taken for the simplest reading as a lyrical piece. Literary inquiry into a mystically disposed poet’s work is not only doing injustice to him; it may even miss the mark what it is actually driving at, or revealing to us. Even to say that the poet is just ‘visualising’ something in his composition is to mentalise and dilute some deep occult experience. The poet is not a reporter reporting what he has visualized; in fact, he is communicating something profound and significant to us. For the “greatest mystic” of the Occident insightful considerations should go when looking at his metaphor-use, considerations of the occult than the literary. That is Blake's Tyger burning in the forests of the night.

Before proposing a Miltonic basis for Blake’s Tyger who is none else but Christ taking up arms against the horde of Satan, they holding spears like stars in the darkness of the night against the supreme Godhead, Amal writes:

A creative divinity … obtains from the supreme Godhead … the power and passion of a luminous wrath, a beautiful ferocity. With this he manifests or projects his immortal dreadfulness into action in a supernatural Tyger form. The divine deadly Tyger goes burning through the huge and labyrinthine cold and sinister darkness of being from whose forests of night rebellious star-angels glitter in their armed hostility. It attacks and vanquishes them but is held back from destroying them: their resistance is entirely broken and they down their arms and weep inconsolably over the debacle. The supernatural beast that pays such a havoc symbolizes the attribute at once contrary and complementary to the one symbolized by the Lamb-form. In it is the same divinity as is manifested and projected in the supernatural Lamb. And this divinity is ever ready to overpower and punish all that in the wake of the stars’ rebellion dwells in what may anywhere be called the night’s forests.

We have in Savitri the defeat of the demons and their weeping even as they foresee the end of the horrendous task they were carrying out. Narad is on his way to Madra paying a purposeful visit to Aswapati (p. 417)

And as he sang the demons wept with joy
Foreseeing the end of their long dreadful task
And the defeat for which they hoped in vain,
And glad release from their self-chosen doom
And return into the One from whom they came.

We may look at the corresponding lines in Blakes Tyger which speak of the defeated fallen angels watering heaven with their tears:

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

It will be a good point to compare the two descriptions but at this moment we can just say that if in one there’s the religio-mystical power of poetry, in the other it is some luminous occult-spiritual revelation which brings out the story of creation in an altogether different way, a forceful way. This could perhaps be discerned very clearly when we read the description of the stars marching with their spears in Savitri (p. 401)

..the stars marched on their long sentinel routes
Pointing their spears through the infinitudes…

Here is a victory-march of the stars, and the lyrical moment in the life of the narrator speaks of the triumphant joy that is now his.

We could scan the first quotation as follows:

And as | he sang' | the de' |mons wept' | with joy' |
Foresee' |ing the end' | of their | long' dread' |ful task' |
And the | defeat' | for which | they hoped' | in vain', |
And glad' | release' | from their | self-chos' |en doom' |
And return' | in'to | the One' | from whom | they came'. |

And this is all by dictation.

~ RYD

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Wed 12 May 2010 08:22 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I am quite mystified by the connection between Blake's tyger and the Christ. It will be helpful if you could you throw more light on the symbolism in the poem.

I reproduce the text below and some of my questions on it.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Does the unusual spelling Tyger perhaps hint that this is no ordinary tiger? Why burning and not
shining?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

Is the poet referring to a primordial Fire here? Who is "he" here, the third person other than the Tyger and the poet? What wings and, seize which fire? The fire of the tyger's eye?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What creator has wrought the Tyger? Isn't that the question the poet wonders about here? The "dread hand" and "dread feet" should also be the creator's then, like the shoulder and the art? Reminds me of the Savitri lines:

Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men
To greatness: an inspired labour chisels.
With heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould...

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

Surely, the creator is the blacksmith here, forging his creations...

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

This I don't get at all... Aren't the eternal stars moved to tears by the tyger's beauty? Their spears are the twlinkling lights that make them beautiful...
But the occult interpretation is that the stars here are demons, the "nishaachars".

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Why "dare"?

Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Thu 13 May 2010 05:13 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

You say “I’m quite mystified by the connection between Blake's tyger and the Christ”. But to use Amalian pun, mystic poetry is always mystifying. Here the connection is straightforward. Amal himself has summarized in the paragraph I’ve reproduced. The theme is Biblical which occupies greatly Milton’s Paradise Lost. Some angels have revolted against the Almighty and turned themselves into his enemies, the Satanic horde. To quell the rebellion comes forth a power of the divine Godhead, that is Christ, ferocious in nature, with immortal dreadfulness in action, his wrath unstoppable. It is in that poise Blake visualizes him as the Tyger burning bright in the forests of the night. The enemy is defeated, and the job is done. The stars represent these fallen angels who had revolted, and now they throw the weapons of rebel and revolt, and water heaven with their tears. The rest in the poem is stupefied elaboration as how this Tyger was fashioned by the almighty Godhead, one who also created a meek and mild Lamb. If Christ here is the Tyger in his wrathful aspect, elsewhere, in fact everywhere else, he is God’s sweet and innocent Lamb. The poet wonders if the same Godhead could create two creatures with such opposing qualities.

Could it be the same Mahashakti from whom come forth Mahalakshmi and Mahakali?

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Thu 13 May 2010 09:28 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Thanks for the explanation. I'm both mystified and fascinated. Amal's beautiful description

The divine deadly Tyger goes burning through the huge and labyrinthine cold and sinister darkness of being from whose forests of night rebellious star-angels glitter in their armed hostility.

reminds me of these ringing words, written about a century ago, by the noblest son of India:

Mother Durga! Thou art Kali, naked, garlanded with human heads, sword in hand, thou slayest the Asura. Goddess, do thou slay with thy pitiless cry the enemies who dwell within us, may none remain alive there, not one. May we become pure and spotless, this is our prayer. O Mother, make thyself manifest.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Fri 14 May 2010 04:39 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

The Tyger-bhāva and the Lamb-bhāva—should not come as a surprise to the Indian perception. Raudra-bhāva and Saumya-bhāva are just the two of the four cosmic bhāvas, the other two being Aishwyara-bhāva and Kaushalya-bhāva. But the heroic or the Kshātra of Blake’s poem well embraces the knowledge or the Brāhmanya aspect of the Godhead. Remember also the fierce Time-Spirit who commanded in his majesty the Battle of Kurukshetra, with a thousand heads and a thousand arms and burning with a thousand suns. After “demanding” the grace from his divine Friend and Master, Arjuna pleads him to reveal to him his gentle form, saumya-rūpa.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Sandeep on Fri 14 May 2010 05:05 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Does the unusual spelling Tyger perhaps hint that this is no ordinary tiger?

When Blake wrote the poem, the word was "Tiger" but his Archives department ran a statistical analysis over all the previous drafts and changed it to "Tyger".

Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Fri 14 May 2010 06:10 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

You can be pretty aggressive, and hard-hitting—and that’s good, and that’s welcome also. But, seriously speaking, will it be possible for you to get some details about the history of composition of this poem? Are there any illustrations of it, either by Blake himself or by other artists? I know Blake had made engravings which depict several of his compositions. Let us try to see his Tyger with other perspectives also. Worth pursuing, I suppose.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Sandeep on Fri 14 May 2010 07:56 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

You can be pretty aggressive, and hard-hitting

Whatcha talkin about? I was poking fun at the editing process.

The word Tyger is archaic and was used by others as well as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyger
* "The Tyger", a poem by William Blake
* Tyger (ship), sailed by Adriaen Block in his voyage to North America
* Tyger (album), album by Tangerine Dream
* Lord Tyger, novel by Philip José Farmer
* Tygers of Pan Tang, English heavy metal band
* Tyger Drew-Honey, English child actor

Archaic names for food items are inherently problematic because we can't have archaic and eat it too.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Akash on Fri 14 May 2010 11:43 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

A quick search reveals the Wikipedia link which has an image of Blake's original and some information surrounding the poem - and what do we have here - if you follow the link to The Lamb, it says Lamb stands for Christ and Tyger for Evil.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Fri 14 May 2010 06:10 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Thanks Akash for the research on Tyger. I’m reproducing in the following Blake’s illustration taken from the Wikipedia link supplied by you.

The problem of Good and Evil, of the Lamb and the Tyger in the present case, is a typical western problem which does not bother the Indian understanding. Let me quote here a dialogue between Arnold Toynbee and his son Philip Toynbee:

Philip Toynbee: If you try to believe in a God who is both good and omnipotent, the problem of absolutely superfluous suffering, gratuitous suffering, is a real one, isn’t it?

Arnold Toynbee: Oh, it is. I have thought quite a lot about it and I admire Indian religion and philosophy for grasping that nettle. I think Christianity has always tried to evade the problem. It has made the Devil responsible—saving God’s omnipotence by saying He created the Devil, and yet that He isn’t responsible for the thing He created. Now the Indians say that God is evil as well as good because He is omnipotent and He includes everything. In the Bhagavadgita there’s that terrifying vision of Krishna as a sort of trampling monster, grinding everything to bits with his gnashing teeth.

On this point of omnipotence and goodness, the comprehensiveness, the catholicity, of Indian religion have made a great impression on me, and I feel very much in sympathy with it. I feel that this is the kind of religion that is needed for our times.

The informality of a discussion avoids all ponderous considerations of scholarship and forthwith puts us in touch with the truth perceived and realised by the speaker. A great realization for the Westerner, indeed! When you look carefully at Blake's illustration of the Tyger we don’t see any trace of “evil” in this creature of his; if it all, there is a kind of self-confidence in its movement ready to pounce upon the hostile, the enemies of God. Its raudra is surely spiritual; this Tyger definitely looks occultly powerful and fiery, and with a kind of luminous tranquillity on its face, and in its body too. I must say Amal has made a very fundamental contribution in presenting this true Tyger to us. Let’s hope that it will be recognized by the western critic also.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Fri 14 May 2010 08:21 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Indeed, this tyger does have a friendly smile on its face!

On a different grim note: Given the plight of tigers in India, mercilessly hunted by us, it makes one wonder who are the enemies of God? Not tigers surely... could it be man himself? The Tyger sure has a lot of work on its hands!

Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Fri 14 May 2010 08:28 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Hah, hah! Brilliant comment! I enjoyed this one.

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Thu 13 May 2010 09:49 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 17 May 2010 03:47 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I’ll scan a few lines as follows:

I wit'|nessed the vir'|gin bri'd|als of| the dawn'|

Tra'versing| great' wastes'| of splend'|our and| of fire',|

Or the stars'| marched' on| their long' |sen'ti|nel routes'|

I have heard'| strange' voi'|ces cross'| the eth'|er's waves',|

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Wed 19 May 2010 10:33 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Thu 20 May 2010 04:48 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Sounds rather jerky. I’ll try the following:

It is fin'| ished, the dread'| myster'|ious sac'|rifice.|

By the way, just a few a lines after this we’ve the following three lines:

He who has found his identity with God
Pays with the body’s death his soul’s vast light.
His knowledge immortal triumphs by his death.

This passage is one of the three Sri Aurobindo had dictated around 15 November 1950, just about three weeks before his withdrawal on 5 December 1950. That it was a later addition to the “It is finished”-description of Christ’s crucifixion can never be made out simply by reading the whole account given by Narad—it is so seamlessly introduced in it. But when we also see it in the context of the 5 December 1950 event, it at once assumes a tremendously vast significance. The decision to withdraw was already taken and that is what we have here: “body’s death” and “triumphs by his death”. That it refers to Sri Aurobindo and not to Christ is pretty obvious—in the case of Christ it would have been “His love immortal triumphs by his death” as against what we have here, “His knowledge immortal triumphs by his death”. So, it is knowledge that is going to win victory over death.

Let us try to scan these lines::

He who| has found'| his iden'|tity| with God'|
Pays' with| the bod'|y’s death'| his soul’s'| vast' light'. |
His know'l|edge immor't|al triu'm|phs by| his death'. |

What poetry! And all by dictation! Sri Aurobindo was not counting iambs and trochees in his lines—they all came along with inspiration, as a part of inspiration, inspiration bringing technique.

~RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Fri 21 May 2010 12:47 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Sorry I have not kept up with the interesting thread on poetry so enthusiastically initiated by Arvind. We have lines here and earlier from Savitri that are scanned differently - metrically – by RY and Arvind. An earlier scansion by Arvind reads

1) I wit'|nessed the| vir'gin| bri'dals| of the dawn'|

Travers'|ing great'| wastes' of| splend'our| and of fire',|

The same is also scanned differently by RY as

I wit'|nessed the vir'|gin bri'd|als of| the dawn'|

Tra'versing| great' wastes'| of splend'|our and| of fire',|

At this point we might as well resuscitate the related and very pertinent question raised by Arvind in an earlier comment (on the emended line of Savitri) which stated

“Also, I am a bit confused about the actual difference between the two scansions:

2) |He has made'|a thick'| and narr'|owing hedge'|

and

|He has|made' a|thick' and| narr'ow|ing hedge'|”.

It would be fruitful for us to digress into an exploration of prosody, in particular rhythm and metre. Rhythm, as I understand it, is a characteristic of movement in time. It occurs when sounds are divided into equal intervals of time. What occurs in these equal intervals of time are stresses of sounds. (By stress here we mean sound uttered with a force or loudness). It is important to note that stresses and non-stresses following each other in succession but not in equal intervals of time does not impress the ear as rhythmical. Nor will sounds occurring in equal time-intervals, but all of the same stress, appear rhythmical. Rhythm therefore can be said to have two elements: the equal time-intervals and the stresses which mark them. In poetry, sounds are represented by the words on the printed page – the poem - and created by our utterance. Simply stated, the words in the poem serve as symbols of these sounds. It is therefore essential, even indispensable, that to feel the rhythm we must read out the poem aloud. We may pause here to observe the differences in music and poetry in this regard. In music, the equal time-intervals are conspicuous and well defined (its the beats provided by the instrument/metronome), and the stresses (the various notes/sounds) vary far more freely than the equal time-intervals. In poetry the time-intervals (ideally equal) are determined by the frequency of our intonation and therefore vary more freely than the stresses (from our voice) which are largely determined by the language of versification (the language defines for us the pronunciation and therefore the stresses). It is not surprising therefore that the reader here has to be alert to not just the words and their meanings but also to their sounds with the “part of your ear always in a tapasya of vigilant attention” (Sri Aurobindo).
We stated above that rhythm is characterized by equal time-intervals marked by sound-stresses. We might legitimately ask whether speech in the English language lends itself to rhythm as defined above. This can easily be answered in the affirmative. It is observed that in the span of the utterance of 3 syllables we encounter a stress syllable. Take Arvind’s statement for instance
“Also, I am a bit confused about the actual difference between the two scansions”
the sounds can be divided into groups of 3 or less syllables such that there is a
stress-syllable in every group as shown above.
Thus, we arrive the various combinations that the sounds can arrange themselves: iamb, trochee, anaepest, amphibrach etc. In prose these sequences are randomly distributed. When one of them persists or is dominant we have what we call “verse” and rhythm turns into “metre”.
It is critical to understand and note that these metrical units called feet (sound-sequences or measures) do not necessarily correspond to whole words and frequently spill over them to the syllable of the next word for example in Marlowe's
"Was this the face that launched |a thous|and ships
And burnt |the top|less towers| of Il|lium".
(I am only marking the spill overs to the following syllable).
That is to say a foot often does not correspond to one or more complete words. Another important point to note is that the grouping of syllables in a line is very frequently inconsonant or in conflict with the rhetorical and grammatical divisions of the line. The line or group of syllables
‘Brightest| and best | of the sons | of the morning”
scans naturally in the way indicated.

We might aver that scanning the same line as
‘Brightest and | best of the | sons of the | morning -”

wrests them - the syllables - out of their natural relations and is therefore an incorrect scan.
This would be a fatal objection only if the foot was considered as grouping of syllables which form the phrases of ordinary speech. But we have seen that the grouping of syllables has little to do with that, but only concerns itself with sound-stresses marking equal time-intervals. Metrical units ought not to be confused with grammatical or phrase divisions of speech with which they coincide only in part.
It has not been established that differences in naming or dividing of feet can change the rhythm. Where we place the division-mark matters little as it is a mere aid to the eye and not an indicator to pause or induce a variation in the flow.
Take Sri Aurobindo’s line
“And into| the midnight | His shadow| is thrown”
scanned as amphibrachs with a closing iamb as above;

This would be just as good if we scanned it as anapaests starting with an iamb as below.
“And in|to the mid|night His shad|ow is thrown”;

We arrive now at the heart of your query and I suspect you might have already gleaned the answer. Both lines 3 and 4 (“He has made…hedge”) will produce the same rhythm because the syllables that bear stresses are identical in both. The rest are slacks and will be glided over.
RY's scan does seem more natural on the line which you scan as
It is | fin'ished,| the dread'| myster'ious| sac'rifice,| .
However that ought not to make a difference from the rhythmic point of view. In both cases one would glide over the unstressed syllables "It is" followed by a stress on "fin". The markers are not supposed to induce a pause. However let me also hasten to say that while it is true that the choice of feet matters little so long as the syllables that bear the stress are the same, it is always preferred that the scanning is consistent with the dominant metre.
More on that to follow.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Fri 21 May 2010 06:40 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

>> …sounds are divided into equal intervals of time…>>

I’m not sure if I’ll wholly subscribe to this theory of “equal intervals of time”.

Let me give an example of a purely iambic pentameter:

With sense'|less bod'|ies ever'|y street' |is spread'. |

This is almost ti-tum ti-tum the monotony of which is saved by a little longer time-interval in the third foot.

But this line from Savitri

He spoke'| and ceased'| and left'| the earth'|ly scene|

is effectively communicative in a certain context but sounds like the gong-beat with equal interval which is all right for drawing attention but not so for stirring deeper chambers of sound within us. In contrast to this line, the following is ‘saved’ by an unusual variation in sound interval in the second foot:

The armed'| immor'|tal bore'| the snare'| of Time'. |

Let me manufacture two examples which could illustrate my point further:

At times'| we live'| in God’s'| implod'|ing thought'. |

The rhythm and the movement are somewhat saved by the variation in sound interval in the middle of the line, the alliterative effect adding its own weight to it. But this line would not be always so happy:

If true', | we live'| in God’s'| not hap'|py world'.|

~RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Fri 21 May 2010 08:17 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Quite so. I was talking about rhythm conceptually. The time-intervals are never equal in poetic utterance unlike music. They are varied far more than the stresses as I have stated.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Fri 21 May 2010 07:51 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Thanks, Vikas and RYD, for this valuable discussion.

With regard to the line:

It is finished, the dread mysterious sacrifice,

I was stuck with the pause (caesura) introduced by the comma after finished. I assumed that a foot has to end at "finished" which tied me up in knots with the rest of the line. I now see RYD's scansion sounds right to the ear.

I also realized, with some reading, that there is nothing unusual to have a caesura within a foot. In the same passage in Savitri we have the (rather terrible) line:

Hewn, quartered at the scaffold as he falls,

which I think we can scan thus:

|Hewn', quar't|ered at| the scaff'|old as| he falls',|

Regarding my previous scansions corrected by RYD.
Consider this one.

Mine:

Travers'|ing great'| wastes' of| splend'our| and of fire',|

RYD's:

Tra'versing| great' wastes'| of splend'|our and| of fire',|

As I see it, the first flaw in my scansion is to split the natural spondee |great' wastes'|. Then the trochee |splend'our| spoils the stress on the syllable "splend".

Of course, this analysis can at best be an aid to appreciate poetry. What I need is a more sensitive ear....

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Mon 24 May 2010 09:35 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Arvind scans
Travers'|ing great'| wastes' of| splend'our| and of fire',|

RYD
Tra'versing| great' wastes'| of splend'|our and| of fire',|

It does sound natural to keep "great wastes" as one sound measure, therefore one foot. The following feet fall naturally into place. The first foot "Traversing" is an interesting one. I am wondering of another alternative in scanning it as Travers'ing since it is being used here as a verb traverse (verbs tend to hold stress on the last syllable).
One the line (which Arvind scanned as)
It is | fin'ished,| the dread'| myster'ious| sac'rifice,|
had it not belonged to Savitri then it would be natural to take the first foot as an anapaest "it is fin" . Here the absolute gravity of the line and the words "finished", "sacrifice" bearing the brunt of the solemnity and "mysterious" conveying the enigmatic aspect, leads one to pause and consider the other alternative which does not split these three words and keep them as full feet. The rhythm would seem unnatural and perhaps jerky - as RY points out - but it could also be a measured reading which the line might after all warrant.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Mon 24 May 2010 10:20 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Akash on Mon 24 May 2010 02:59 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

With respect to "It is finished" -

"When he had received the drink, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." (John 19:30)

"Later, knowing that all was now completed (teleō), and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled (teleioō), Jesus said, "I am thirsty" ... When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished (teleō)." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." (John 19:28, 30)

These three words derive from the same Greek root, telos, which means "end" -- primarily a termination point, then by extension, the end to which all things relate, the aim, the purpose.53

"Completed / finished / accomplished" in verses 28 and 30 is the related verb teleō, "to complete an activity or process, bring to an end, finish, complete something." With regard to time, it means, "come to an end, be over."54 Moreover the tense of this verb is important to us -- perfect tense (tetelestai). In Greek the perfect tense signifies a past action, the effect of which continues into the present. It has been completed and is still complete. The effect of the tense in this verb is a sense of finality.

In the last couple of centuries scholars have found thousands of papyrus scraps with Greek writing on them. Many of these are mundane commercial documents in which we find this word. Moulton and Milligan pored over many of these receipts and contracts to better understand New Testament Greek. They observed that receipts are often introduced by the phrase tetelestai, usually written in an abbreviated manner indicating that the bill had been paid in full.55 The obligation has been completed. The debt has been paid off. Tetelestai -- it is finished. http://www.jesuswalk.com/7-last-words/6_finished.htm

In some other references, the "drink" is indentified as wine, and more specifically as sour wine or vinegar. (See "bitter cup" below.) Btw, did Sri Aurobindo not call for a drink of water at the end, and have just a sip? From "12 years":

About ten minutes before the grand end, he called me by name from his indrawn state, inquired about the time and said, "Nirod, give me a drink." This was his deliberate last gesture. The quantity he drank was very small ...

I had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem and walk up the Via Dolorosa (of "tread the dolorous way" in A God's Labour), and I couldn't help but recite some of these lines:

He who would save the race must share its pain:
This he shall know who obeys that grandiose urge.
The Great who came to save this suffering world
And rescue out of Time's shadow and the Law,
Must pass beneath the yoke of grief and pain;
They are caught by the Wheel that they had hoped to break,
On their shoulders they must bear man's load of fate.
Heaven's riches they bring, their sufferings count the price
Or they pay the gift of knowledge with their lives.
The Son of God born as the Son of man
Has drunk the bitter cup, owned Godhead's debt,
The debt the Eternal owes to the fallen kind
His will has bound to death and struggling life
That yearns in vain for rest and endless peace.
Now is the debt paid, wiped off the original score.
The Eternal suffers in a human form,
He has signed salvation's testament with his blood:
He has opened the doors of his undying peace.
The Deity compensates the creature's claim,
The Creator bears the law of pain and death;
A retribution smites the incarnate God.
His love has paved the mortal's road to Heaven:
He has given his life and light to balance here
The dark account of mortal ignorance.
It is finished, the dread mysterious sacrifice,
Offered by God's martyred body for the world;
Gethsemane and Calvary are his lot,
He carries the cross on which man's soul is nailed;
His escort is the curses of the crowd;
Insult and jeer are his right's acknowledgment;
Two thieves slain with him mock his mighty death.
He has trod with bleeding brow the Saviour's way.
He who has found his identity with God
Pays with the body's death his soul's vast light.
His knowledge immortal triumphs by his death.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Akash on Tue 25 May 2010 02:31 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Thanks, Arvind. Looks like the indent level on this thread is exhausted.

The other aspect is Sri Aurobindo wrote this something like 60 years after he must have last read it. But the exact terminology (it is finished), the intricacies of sense (debt repaid), details (Gethsemane, Calvary, two thiefs) is all there. Amazing memory (or is it intimate knowledge). Also, it would be interesting to know if he read the bible only in English or also in Greek (tetelestai).

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Tue 25 May 2010 06:00 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

This is an excellent discussion. We could read the line "It is finished, the dread mysterious sacrifice" as "It is finished, the last mysterious sacrifice" in view of the last three lines of the passage Sri Aurobindo dictated around 15 November 1950, as I'd mentioned in my earlier comment. It is absolutely autobiographical, aurobiographical, even to the extent perhaps that the Yogi has used the Christ Symbol-Metaphor to describe the "difficult and painful" work he was engaged in. The Mother speaks of it as follows:

To Thee who hast been the material envelope of our Master, to Thee our infinite gratitude. Before Thee who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before Thee who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to Thee.
9 December 1950.

I think this aspect is important, and thanks to Narad for revealing it, one who came here all the way from his home in Paradise.

RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Tue 25 May 2010 07:25 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I’ll try scanning Shakespeare’s line as follows:

Let' me| not to| the mar'|riage of| true' minds'. |

This has trochee-pyrrhic-iamb-pyrrhic-spondee, both the pyrrhics strengthening the feet that follow them, and the opening trochee launching the movement.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 24 May 2010 12:20 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

“My Chambers”—remember Sri Aurobindo was from Cambridge—has it as follows: trav'ersing. Related variations: trav'ersed; trav'erser; trav'ersable; as verb trav'erse, traverse' both are possible. I think the rhythm here demands trav'ersing, the dactyl which is pretty persuasive preparing the forceful spondee.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Mon 24 May 2010 01:16 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Yes, the dactyl preparing the spondee is pretty persuasive as you state, and since "My Chambers" has it the way indicated, "traversing" would hold the stress on the first syllable in this line.
Thanks for looking it up and pointing this out.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Mon 24 May 2010 09:25 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Mon 24 May 2010 11:44 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Thanks for this lovely sharing, Akash!

I couldn't find a reply button to his posting... so I'm putting it here.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Tue 25 May 2010 06:16 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Tra'versing| great' wastes'| of splend'|our and| of fire'|
There is another aspect of this line. It could have simply been "Tra'vers| ing wastes'| of splend'|our and| of fire',|" metrically flawless; but we'd have missed something great. Actually, this "great" in the line is not so essential from the point of view of substance and sense of the line; it or any similar monosyllabic adjective can be supplied by any alert reader. But its magic, its greatness lies in the rhythm which is the most important thing for poetry. Remove it, and the line is gone. Inspiration lies in "Tra'versing| great' wastes'| of splend'|our and| of fire'|" with "great" coming on the blue-bright wings of inspiration.

RYD

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Thu 13 May 2010 03:55 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Let us take the following two lines from Savitri (p. 41) about which we have a comment from Sri Aurobindo:

And of the Timeless the still brooding face,
And the creative eye of Eternity.

He writes to Amal the following in 1946:

As to the exact metrical identity in the first half of the two lines, it was certainly intentional, if by intention is meant not a manufacture by my personal mind but the spontaneous deliberateness of the inspiration which gave the lines to me and an acceptance in the receiving mind. The first halves of the two lines are metrically identical closely associating together the two things seen as of the same order, the still Timeless and the dynamic creative Eternity both of them together originating the manifest world: the latter halves of the lines diverge altogether, one into the slow massiveness of the "still brooding face", with its strong close, the other into the combination of two high and emphatic syllables with an indeterminate run of short syllables between and after, allowing the line to drop away into some unuttered endlessness rather than cease. In this rhythmical significance I can see no weakness.

With the previous two lines the four-line passage is as follows:

Silence the nurse of the Almighty’s power,
The omniscient hush, the womb of the immortal Word,
And of the Timeless the still brooding face,
And the creative eye of Eternity.

There is something very high of the Overhead in the first two lines, in fact generally in all the four, very mantric, with the density of substance and the movement of the truth that it holds the second line could be said to come from the Overmind itself. Maybe we could scan the passage as follows:

Sil'ence| the nurse'| of the| Almigh'|ty’s power', |
The omnis'|cient hush', | the womb'| of the im|mor'tal Word', |
And of |the Time'|less the| still' brood'|ing face', |
And the| crea'|tive eye'| of Eter'|nity. |

The “omniscient hush”-line has a very unusual foot combination: anapaeat-anapaest-iamb-tribrach-cretic, the first three surging forward, the fourth with a dip making the last very prominent, putting the seal of completion and perfection on the “immortal Word”. This line could possibly be scanned as a six-footer which has happened on a couple of occasions in Savitri.

The omnis'|cient hush', | the womb'| of the| immor'| tal Word',|

But perhaps the luminous solidity of the pentameter is more acceptable than the prolongation that comes in the six-footer; it has more mantric power and content than the other. This is Overhead poetry that comes with both inspiration and technique together, they forming an inseparable oneness, breathing heart-and-art in one single happy breath.

~ RYD

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Fri 14 May 2010 08:09 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Beautiful. To read these lines with the scansion is very rewarding. Thanks.

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Wed 19 May 2010 11:44 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Let us the following set of lines from Savitri p. 28 and try to scan them:

Lift'ing| the hea'|vy cur'|tain of| the flesh'
He stood'| upon'| a thres'|hold ser'|pent-watched', |
And peered'| in'to| gleam'ing| end'less| cor'ridors, |
Sil'ent| and lis't|ening| in the sil'|ent heart'|
For the com'|ing of |the new'| and the| unknown'. |

The third line has a very unusual foot-combination, an iamb followed by four falling feet, three trochees and a dactyl, these yet overflowing into the first foot of the next line which could be trochee or dactyl, with the latter the second also a trochee; but perhaps the scansion given here satisfies the rhythmic movement better. The lines have such a supernatural charge that the metrical unusualness makes it more prominent. This is very dense poetry, which is relaxed in the last line of the passage

This supernatural charge of the lines goes well with the image presented by “serpent-watched” which is of course an occult representation glyphed at the entrance to a secret cave or hidden chamber where are kept the inner treasures. In fact if the shedding of the skin by the serpent is a symbol of rebirth and renewal, then surely Aswapati is now reborn in these spiritual realizations. He has now the sure perception of the coming of the new and the unknown, of the Idea arriving from the Beyond, Idea carrying also with it the Real, real-idea.

~ RYD

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Thu 20 May 2010 10:43 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

In fact if the shedding of the skin by the serpent is a symbol of rebirth and renewal, then surely Aswapati is now reborn in these spiritual realizations

Superb lines and matching explanation, thanks for this sharing!

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Fri 21 May 2010 04:44 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Two letters from Sri Aurobindo to Arjava:

Iambic Pentameter
An inspiration which leans more on a sublimated or illumined thought than on some strong or subtle or very simple psychic or vital intensity and swiftness of feeling, seems to call naturally for the iambic pentameter, though it need not confine itself to that form. I myself have not yet found another metre which gives room enough along with an apposite movement—shorter metres are too cramped, the longer ones need a technical dexterity, if one is not to be either commonplace or clumsy.

Combination of Iambics and Anapaests
Iambics and anapaests can be combined in English verse at any time, provided one does not set out to write a purely iambic or a purely anapaestic metre. Mixed anapaest and iamb make a most beautifully flexible lyric rhythm.

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Sat 22 May 2010 08:24 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Let me quote here a comment by Amal Kiran on a line which appears on p. 21 of Savitri:

There cannot be on principle a ban upon a trochee coming on the heels of a pyrrhic; what I am asking for is sufficient psychological justification, as can be found in Sri Aurobindo's line:

This truth'| broke' in| in a| triu'mph| of fire'.

A forcible and violent action is here suggested, the first half of the metre is appropriate to the powerful bursting in of the truth, while in the second half the high exultation and exaltation of the inrush is brought out by the quantitatively long and accentually strong vowel in the opening syllable of "triumph" and in "fire", coming contrastingly after a pyrrhic in the one case and after two short syllables in the other.

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Sun 23 May 2010 07:09 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Apropos of a comment by Arvind on the Savitri-site, let me post the following here again:

In the| unceas'|ing dra'|ma carr'|ied by Time'|
On its| long' list'|ening flood'| that bears'| the world's'|
Insol'|uble doubt'| on a pil'|grimage with|out' goal',|
A laugh'|ter of sleep'|less pleas'|ure foamed'| and spumed'|
And mur'|murings| of desire'| that can|not die':|
A cry'| came' of| the world's'| delight'| to be,|
The grand'|eur and great'|ness of| its will'| to live',|
Recall'| of the soul's'| adven'|ture in'|to space',|
A tra'|veller| through the ma'|gic cen'|turies|
And be'|ing's la'|bour in Mat'|ter's un'|iverse,|
Its search'| for the mys'|tic mean'|ing of| its birth'|
And joy'| of high'| spir'it|ual| response',|
Its throb'| of sat|isfac'|tion and| content'|
In all'| the sweet'|ness of| the gifts'| of life',|
Its large'| breath' and pulse'| and thrill'| of hope'| and fear',|
Its taste'| of pangs'| and tears'| and ec'|stasy,|
Its rap'|ture's poign'|ant beat'| of sud'|den bliss', |
The sob'| of its pas'|sion and| unend'|ing pain'. |
The mur'|mur and whis'|per of| the un|heard' sounds'|
Which crowd'| around'| our hearts'| but find'| no win'dow|
To en'|ter, swelled'| in'to |a can'|ticle|
Of all'| that suf'|fers to| be still'| unknown'|
And all'| that lab'|ours vain'|ly to| be born'|
And all'| the sweet'|ness none'| will ev'|er taste'|
And all'| the beau'|ty that| will nev'|er be. |

We have here a few unusual feet combinations: tribrach (line 3); cretic (line 15); amphibrach (line 20).

I'd prefer this discussion to be carried here, so that all the comments and observations are available at one place. This will help us in future for the related studies.

~RYD

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Sun 23 May 2010 08:17 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I stumbled upon this poem of Blake which is strange for its rhythm, and is full of biblical overtones. It sounds like a cry to the Earth to awake and rediscover the garden of Eden...

Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk'd among the ancient trees.

Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew:
That might controll,
The starry pole;
And fallen fallen light renew!

O Earth O Earth return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.

Turn away no more:
Why wilt thou turn away
The starry floor
The watry shore
Is giv'n thee till the break of day

Here are some distant echos from Savitri... I'm not suggesting any direct connection of ideas.

In the enormous labour of the Void
Perturbing with her dreams the vast routine
And dead roll of a slumbering universe
The mighty prisoner struggled for release.

It seems that here too the universe itself is struggling for release like Blake's exhortation to the Earth.

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Sun 23 May 2010 09:55 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Oops, I guess this is not the right place for the above posting. It is not directly related to Savitri's poetry

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Mon 24 May 2010 06:20 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

This is a beautiful poem in which we can see Blake as a mystic poet more clearly than in his “Bring me my bow of burning gold…” or even his Tyger. About him let me hurriedly quote Sri Aurobindo in the following:

Blake stands out among the mystic poets of Europe. His occasional obscurity,—he is more often in his best poems lucid and crystal clear,—is due to his writing of things that are not familiar to the physical mind and writing them with fidelity instead of accommodating them to the latter.... In reading such writing the inner being has to feel first, then only the mind can catch what is behind.
I did not mean that he never altered—I don't know about that. I meant he did not let his mind disfigure what came by trying to make it intellectual. He transcribed what he saw and heard.
Blake is Europe's greatest mystic poet and Mallarmé turned the whole current of French poetry (one might almost say, of all modernist poetry) into a channel of which his poems were an opening.

Your post/comment here is perfectly ok. This page is meant for discussions on poetry matters which surely make our reading of Savitri broader and richer. The versatility of themes will bring its own nuances and fine points in the appreciation of Savitri, a means of our growth in a certain way in its soul and in its spirit, a way of approaching if not entering into the vāngmaya deha of Sri Aurobindo.

~ RYD

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Tue 01 Jun 2010 06:21 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Marriage of True Minds—A discussion between Arvind-Vikas-Deshpande
In sequel of the thread that got developed with Shakespeare’s “marriage of true minds”, of Sonnet 116, there was an exchange of e-mails between we three; this was during 25-29 May 2010. The details are presented in the following. ~RYD

Vikas
I think Arvind's scan

Let' me|not' to| the marr'|iage of |true' minds'|

is very good to the ear and the sound falls naturally in the rhythm indicated by him. I tried RY's

Let' me| not to| the mar'|riage of| true' minds'|

and I find myself stressing the "not" every time. Can't dispense with it somehow. When I seek for metrical reasons for the same, I see that we have a co-location of 4 unstressed syllables ("me not to the"). Not that this is impossible but it sounds odd and flattens it out giving it a prosaic effect.

Nice Arvind. You are a bold, courageous inquisitive student as well as a teacher!

If it had not been for your enthusiastic persistence and RY's constant encouragement this discussion would not have seen the light of day. RY do you want to serialise under a different section say poetry?

Deshpande
By making the second foot pyrrhic we get the full force of the last spondee although “true” may not always carry the full accent. Putting stress on "not" makes the phrase somewhat rhetorical. In the line "true mind" is the key phrase and it has to come out prominently. The inversion is also therefore deliberate, coming at the end of the line. Four consecutive unstressed syllables at the beginning prepare the way for the spondaic charge. Reconsider.

Arvind
Perhaps if we read the entire sentence with the enjambment:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love

a "rhetorical stress" on "not" is admissible.

Rhetorical stress can play an important role as in:

"To be'| or not'| to be,| that' is| the ques'tion"|

Here the stress on "that" is rhetoric, I think.

Vikas, I'm certainly enthusiastic about learning scansion in order to go deeper into Savitri. There is so much to learn.

Thanks to RYD for his untiring efforts in running the inspiring Savitri-blogs, and patiently answering our questions!

Vikas
I believe the second foot it too far distanced from the last for the enjambment to have any effect on it. I did a quick check on a few scansions online for this line and I could not find any which did not agree with yours. Each one has a stress on "not".
Your point in taking the subsequent lines is well taken because—personally—I always like to read the following and preceding lines to get a grip on the line. I can cite any number of examples where a line taken separately would scan differently than it would when you read the preceding or following lines. Sometimes even the dominant meter has to be taken into account. In fact one variation that could be considered here might be "true minds" as an iambic foot (even though I prefer your trochee) because 4 lines that follow have all end in an iambic foot.

As far as 4 unstressed syllables, I remember having read (don't know where) Sri Aurobindo taxed Nirod for having 3 unstressed (even though across feet)!

Good job RY.

I meant do you want them to coalesce under one category? I can look at programming that if you wish. Otherwise they would be interspersed between other posts. It’s still great as it sits. No problem with that at all.

Deshpande
>> stress on "not">>, yes it is kind of natural. But the poet is not always natural. I still believe that the second foot as the pyrrhic has in it all that the “gracious silence” can hold in its embrace. We must first recognize that this is a sonnet which is really grave and deep in its mood and manner, hardly allowing any rhetorical expression or recitation—if it has rhetory it is of a very quiet kind. I’ve heard a number of recitations but most of them appear, I mean sound, rather dramatic. On the other hand I feel some kind of dense and also ponderous meaningful serenity in its depiction. Perhaps a quieter reading will convey the sense which I get from it. Here are two examples of the recitation, the second coming closer to my perception. Maybe, I’m old-fashioned and therefore tend to look at it that way.

What do you say?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4KYpisw560

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw_YY2XgwJE&feature=related

Here is the full Sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/128ccd4a90d9a7f5

Arvind
I agree about the quiet and serious mood of the sonnet. The stress on "not" is certainly not a loud "NOT" which would spoil it.

I think that all the stress syllables here (or in any line) don't carry the same stress, if we rank them on "stress weight", so to speak. To my ears we'd get: "true minds" is greater than "marr" is greater than "Let" which in turn has greater stress than "not".

It fits with out earlier discussion that "marr" and "true minds" get their greater stress because of the unstressed syllables preceding them.

All this is perhaps getting a bit too mathematical... :-)

Deshpande
But that’s good! But you are a mathematician!

Vikas
"…sonnet which is really grave and deep in its mood and manner".

I would reluctantly grant this poem a "grave and deep" attribute. The theme here is quite hackneyed but the expression throbs with the life-emotion,—the Shakespearean signature—giving it an ingenious mould. Even otherwise, the trochaic foot or inversion here presses the point of the first self admonition "let me not" in contrast to let's say the second line's "love is not love" (here "not love" I take to be an iamb) which is intended more as a statement/explanation.

The youtube lays stress on "Let" and "not" I feel in the first one. The second one starts off very well the first line but then rushes through it garbling it almost. But I have a sense of what you are conveying from the first slow reading of the second link. One can see (after reading it aloud a few times) that a measured slow reading would result in the scan that you have.

A close parallel would be Shelley's famous To-, the first line

I can not give what men call love.

Here you would not stress the "not". However let me still say that I would be hard pressed to reconcile 4 slacks in your scansion. Help me there then we're home with your rhythm. Who knows we might also have the LORD tax us from the subtle physical and "for this moment lived the ages past"!

[The actual line is: “I can give not what men call live.” I Might give some examples of the “grave and deep”, which Sri Aurobindo also speaks of in the context of sonnets. ~ RYD]

However let me still say that I would be hard pressed to reconcile 4 slacks in your scansion. Help me there then we're home with your rhythm. Who knows we might also have the LORD tax us from the subtle physical and "for this moment lived the ages past"!

Arvind
Nice phrasing, Vikas!

Just to revert to Savitri in our discussion, I have a related question.

Are there (many) rhetoric stress examples in Savitri or do we only have "natural" stress syllables? How about:

If this is she of whom the world has heard.

Five iambs, right? I'd think both "this" and "she" carry more stress than the "whom" or "world" or "heard". Wouldn't these qualify as rhetoric stresses?

Arvind
However let me still say that I would be hard pressed to reconcile 4 slacks in your scansion. Help me there then we're home with your rhythm. Who knows we might also have the LORD tax us from the subtle physical and "for this moment lived the ages past"!

Nice phrasing, Vikas!

Just to revert to Savitri in our discussion, I have a related question.

Are there (many) rhetoric stress examples in Savitri or do we only have "natural" stress syllables? How about:

If this is she of whom the world has heard.

Five iambs, right? I'd think both "this" and "she" carry more stress than the "whom" or "world" or "heard". Wouldn't these qualify as rhetoric stresses?

Deshpande
Most of the videos I've seen are American, carrying American brand of poetry recitation. Couldn't find anything from the Island, tried BBC also. Can it be located?

Deshpande
And here are just three quick examples with so many slacks crowding together—six in the first and four each in the other two—yet giving rise to such beautiful poetry! It is always the power of inspiration which can capitalise on any situation. Salutation to Inspiration at whose service is Technique and Prosody!

Strength shall be with her like a conqueror's sword

Silent and listening in the silent heart

And in the Inane blossoms the golden flower

Arvind
Lovely lines these! But I have a lingering doubt about different stresses to syllables. For instance, in:

Strength shall be with her like a conqueror's sword.

I find myself stressing "her" more than the neighboring "with" and "like", but less than the other real stress syllables... wouldn't you agree with me?

Deshpande
Intrinsically they are all without an accent or stress; but associationally they can acquire it. It means, what matters is enunciation in the context of the spirit of the composition.

Deshpande
Vikas and Arvind
I'm proposing to compile all these e-mail comments and put them on the Mirror, if necessary with suitable editing. I take that it is all right.

Vikas
RY/Arvind,
There are lines like

It captured not the spirit in the form,
It entered not the heart of what it saw;
It looked not for the power behind the act,
It studied not the hidden motive in things

The luminous heart of the Unknown is she

Ascended towards breadths immeasurable

Beauty unimaginable moved heaven-bare

But knew not who they were or why they lived:

"Strength shall be with her like a conqueror's sword”—I find myself stressing "her" more than the neighboring "with" and "like", but less than the other real stress syllables... wouldn't you agree with me?"

I am experimenting with all three, "be" "with" "her" for the "stress" to see which would triumph in the tie. If you scan "with her" as a foot then your rhythm prevails. Not sure yet. It’s an interesting query you raised.

On the subject of rhetoric stresses, if you consider rhetoric in its widest sense i.e turn of words to emphasize the thought expressed (the master tropes: metonymy, synecdoche, irony etc), Sri Aurobindo I don’t believe employed it exclusively for any line, it may have been an adjunct. This is also consistent with his injunction to aspiring poets to be sincere in their expression which meant also being measured. I think in general it would be impossible for anyone to write about the Lord's lines because they have come pre-arranged in their sound-sequences or measures from a very high plane and their justification lies there and not here. We can discern some beauty here but its absolute wonder and beauty must elude us until we rise to the plane. No wonder did Mother say that no one really understood Savitri!

If this is she of whom the world has heard.

Nice analysis and concurs with my understanding.

Vikas
But I have to say you and Arvind made it happen out there. This is good. Especially RY's gentle plodding and encouraging insistence does the trick. And yes the benefit is ours because beyond the poetry—which is ofcourse very illumining—it becomes a conduit to be at the Master's feet directly. That is a service, a soul-service.

Deshpande

Strength shall be with her like a conqueror's sword

If you want to get the full impact of "Strength" and "conqueror's sword", and that is what it should be, then I think all the other vowel sounds should be played in low key. They kind of provide a gentle calm smoothness to the force that comes in the key words. A quiet tone is important, as if the rest of the line is hardly heard. From "Strength" you prepare yourself for a big jump or leap to receive the "conqueror's sword", a reward that comes only to the receptive silent. And then, remember that this is the boon being given by the Divine Mother. I assume that her tone will be quiet, tranquil, majestic, gentle and luminous, and of course sweet as well as commanding, in its sound. She is not going to stress "her" if she herself is going to descend as Aswapati's daughter. If you are going to read this line as somebody else's report then there is romm to stress this "her". In any case, I'm not going to put any stress on it. In it is the identification of both with each other, and in each other, the Divine Mother and Aswapati.

Vikas
Lets remember that English verse is accentual-syllabic and also that Sri Aurobindo Himself stated that the poem is blank verse. This ought to be borne in mind while scanning the lines. The scan could then read

Strength shall be| with her| like a| conquer|or's sword

Six unstressed syllables following each other still seems flat.

Ditto with "Let me not to the marriage...

Deshpande

Let me| not to| the mar|riage of| true minds| (Sonnet 116)
She saw| not now| Fate's dark |and let|hal orb| (Savitri, p. 533)

In both the lines I don’t see accent on “not”: I’d prefer reading in a quiet tone although a certain rhetorical turn could give us in both the places a small accented “not”—“not'”. But in my reading the quiet majesty gives a deeper poise and profounder content than in the other case when it kind of gets lost in the loudness of enunciation.

Strength shall be| with her| like a |conquer|or's sword

There is no intrinsic accent on “her”, nor on “he” although we have “he'-man”, “she”, “it”, “they”. I take that two pyrrhics after the dactyl make a very quiet transition towards trochee-iamb at the end, although “her” draws attention essentially because of the shift in the movement—from “Strength shall be| with her|” to |like a |conquer|or's sword.|” The small pause in voice or caesura in the middle of the line does not make “her” an accented syllable.

Vikas
As for "Let me not..." It is highly unlikely that he (Shakespeare) wrote it to be read as two pyrrhics given that he was an adept in metrical art and metre played itself out in the hands of a master in his plays and poems. Further I can find no reading on the internet not laying the stress on "not".

As for Savitri I agree that we cannot be easily confident of any reading given that the lines represent the arrangement of primordial sounds from the highest planes. Moreover we know He stated that it is too difficult a rhythm-structure to be a model.

So it would be presumptuous to lay conditions on the expression of the highest inspiration.

That being said, HE has clearly acknowledged that this is blank verse and our reading must keep that at the back of our mind and reflect the same. It is partly that, that prompted Amal's justification for the "into" in the "He has made" line.

Lastly you write "There is no intrinsic accent on “her”, nor on “he”... Clearly there is not. But English verse is accentual syllabic which means our ear invariably seeks a relatively stressed syllable within the span of 3 syllables. This is pretty much accepted. HE has of course experimented with using 4 syllables for his measure or foot but later concluded that it would be difficult to stretch it over many lines. Lets take the line on which you have commented

This truth'| broke' in| in a| triu'mph| of fire'.

Here is a pyrrhic sandwiched between two trochees, and these three between two iambs, the movement swinging up and down throughout the line, something triumphant in the context of the truth establishing itself here decisively.

This is true. However it needs to be noted and brought out - and this is important - that the two "in"s have different stress values as well as different meanings here. The second "in" ("in a") is intrinsically unstressed but the first "in" ("broke in")

is really uttered with a greater force and intonation and therefore stress. In fact HE calls it (if I remember correctly) a reverse spondee (a spondee where the stress on the first syllable is greater than the second). However, "broke" bears a much greater stress than "in" and since our feet are not quantitative we can label it a trochee. The stresses are relative and not "intrinsic".

To recapitulate my reading would not lay the same stress on "shall be with her like a ". At least one of "with her like" would assume a relative stress. I suppose we have to rest with differing points of view here.

Interesting exchange.

Deshpande
Will you please comment on this new sonnet of mine, Mystic Mother?—Amal

Seeing you walk our little ways, they wonder
That I who scorn the common loves of life
Should kneel to You in absolute surrender,
Deeming Your visible perfection wife

Unto my spirit's immortality.
They think I have changed one weakness for another,
Because they mark not the new birth of me—
This body which by You, the Mystic Mother,

Has now become a child of my vast soul!
Loving Your feet's earth-visitation, I
Find each heart-throb miraculously flower
Out of the unplumbable God-mystery
Behind dark clay; and, hour by dreamful hour,
Upbear that fragrance like an aureole.

Sri Aurobindo: Exceedingly good. Here you have got to inevitability. I forgot to say that all the styles "adequate", "effective" etc. can be raised to inevitability in their own line. The octet here is adequateness raised to inevitability except the fourth and fifth lines in which the effective undergoes the same transformation. In the sestet on the other hand it is the illumined style that becomes inevitable.

17 September 1934

In a sonnet, thought should be set to thought, line added to line in a sort of architectural sequence, or else there should be a progression like the pressing of waves to the shore, with the finality of arrival swift in a closing couplet or deliberate as in the Miltonic form. ~ Sri Aurobindo

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Tue 01 Jun 2010 07:33 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Tue 07 Sep 2010 08:32 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

In fact, there is an editorial problem here, though of a minor nature, whether it should be “An hour comes…” or “An hour arrives…” As far as the sense is concerned there is really not much to choose between “comes” and “arrives”. From the point of view of poetic technique we have: An hour/ arrives/ when fail/ all Nat/ ure’s means—four beautiful iambs with spondee as the fourth foot; An ho/ ur comes/ when fail/ all Nat/ ure’s means—this is also acceptable, with ‘hour’ taken with two syllables, not an uncommon thing in Savitri; with this ‘ho /ur’ the first line—It was the hour before the Gods awake—would become iamb-iamb-anapaest-iamb-iamb, which could also pass without any technical objection. In many places Sri Aurobindo scans ‘inspires’ or ‘desires’ with three syllables, trisyllabic though generally they are disyllabic; so too could be taken ‘hour’ as ‘ho/ ur’. As far as rhythm is concerned, it is a matter of one’s taste and association, one’s predilections also; nor can there be any strict formula everywhere for the same poet; it could depend upon the situation. Then, while in the ‘arrival’-line there is a strong ‘r’-alliterative effect, in the ‘comes’-line the additional ‘m’-alliteration brings a kind of self-closing poetic result. Nor is this line that kind of a dense classical mantra in which nothing can be changed, the exact word in the exact position. There is neither the inevitability of ‘arrives’ nor of ‘comes’.

Regarding a discussion here months ago, I happened to search today in several online dictionaries (including cambridge, oxford, webster and others) here http://www.onelook.com/ the pronunciation of "hour" and I was surprised to find that hour is actually disyllabic in all of them!

Since this includes Cambridge, can we say that Sri Aurobindo would have scanned the opening line thus?

It was'|the hou'|er before'|the Gods'|awake'|

And this also completely justifies:

|An hou'|er comes'|when fail'|all' Nat'|ure's means'|

I wonder if the pronunciation has changed over the last fifty years.

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Wed 08 Sep 2010 06:06 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I checked with my hard copy Chambers (1983), and “hour” is “owr” one syllable; it is exactly like “our”. But what you say about the online is true. I’d prefer to go by “owr”.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Wed 08 Sep 2010 07:20 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I looked up the Chambers online help for the pronunciation of "owr" http://www.chambersreference.com/dict/external/site/popup/help.htm and here is what I found in Section 5.4, under vowels followed by "r":

owr is pronounced as owə

It seems to me the "w" in the middle which requires a rounding of lips, followed by the phonetically small "e" will make it disyllabic.

Your hard copy of Chambers should have some pages of guidelines for notation and pronunciation, and you could cross-check this.

Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Thu 09 Sep 2010 06:00 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Both "hour" and "our" are "owr", monosyllabic, though Dictionary.com makes them disyllabic. In the present case I'll go by "owr" which gives a better rhythm.

RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Thu 09 Sep 2010 07:41 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Let us take the following line on p. 60:

Absolves from hour to hour her secret charge.

With monosyllabic “hour” it reads well as a perfect iambic line. Make it disyllabic and we have in between two sluggish anapaests when there is no time for that leisurely movement. That will be a very odd kind of thing when read along with the associated lines of the passage. Well, that is how I see it.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Thu 09 Sep 2010 08:15 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Quite true! I too was planning to search for other occurrences of "hour" in Savitri to check how well a disyllabic reading would fit.

Meanwhile, I found the following interesting wikipedia link on the so-called triphthongs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triphthong Some relevant lines from there:

In phonetics, a triphthong (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos", literally "with three sounds," or "with three tones") is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third. While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulator position, diphthongs have two, and triphthongs three.

The examples given there include hour! Here they are:

* [aʊ̯ə] as in hour
* [aɪ̯ə] as in fire
* [eɪ̯ə] as in player
* [ɔɪ̯ə] as in loyal, royal
* [əʊ̯ə] as in lower

There is also a nuanced line before the examples which says "these can be also analyzed as disyllabic sequences of a diphthong and a monophthong".

In summary, we come back to your original comment (in this thread some months back) that we can read "hour" usually as monosyllabic and sometimes disyllabic. And I think we can safely let the matter rest there!

However, I don't think the pronunciation of "owr" is not the common "are" which we use in India for both "hour" and "our".

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Thu 09 Sep 2010 08:17 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Oops, in the last line above I meant:

However, I don't think the pronunciation of "owr" is the common "are" which we use in India for both "hour" and "our".

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Fri 10 Sep 2010 06:26 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

"In summary, we come back to your original comment (in this thread some months back) that we can read "hour" usually as monosyllabic and sometimes disyllabic".
I think this is true. Words like hour, fire, tire can be used and therefore read as both monosyllabic and disyllabic. I remember having reading Sri Aurobindo stating something to that effect or atleast admitting that license. I will have to do a search to reproduce His words. "Hour" is certainly more commonly used as a monosyllable than otherwise. As to what Sri Aurobindo intended, no one can divine except the Divine. And if we have to take the cue from the Divine Herself then one hears a disyllabic pronounciation. Hear the Mother reading the first line "It was the hour..." and one can clearly hear the delightful intonation of each syllable.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Fri 10 Sep 2010 07:49 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Here is the extract from His letters on Poetry..

"Words like “tire”, “fire” etc. can be scanned as a dissyllable in verse as well as a monosyllable, though it is something of a licence nowadays, but a still well-recognised licence. Of course, it would not do to do it always."
19 November 1930

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Fri 10 Sep 2010 07:50 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by V. Arvind on Fri 10 Sep 2010 10:30 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Vikas, thanks! That certainly settles the point for me, and I'm happy to have learnt something new from this discussion.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Fri 10 Sep 2010 10:38 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Ditto. Thanks for resuscitating the thread.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Fri 10 Sep 2010 03:14 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

p. 101: Inspires our ascent to viewless heights.

In this line “inspires” is trisyllabic.

p. 104: Inspires our transient earth’s brief-lived attempts

Here it is disyllabic. (iamb-iamb-anapaest-spondee-iamb)

p. 176: This realm inspires us with our vaster hopes.

I’ll take it to be, again, disyllabic which is generally the case.

~ RYD

Re: Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Vikas on Wed 08 Sep 2010 06:45 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Re: 01: Some aspects of Inspiration and Technique in the Poetry of Savitri

by Mudgala on Thu 28 Jul 2011 03:41 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

There is a striking passage in Book 2, Canto 3, page 129 that describes the advent of life on earth. I've marked some phrases in italics and added my comments in brackets. Please share your thoughts on this passage.

In the crude beginnings of this mortal world
Life was not nor mind's play nor heart's desire.
When earth was built in the unconscious Void

(Mortal world=mrtyu-loka. The earth was built, and not a random piece of matter that flew off the sun and cooled into solid.)

And nothing was save a material scene,
Identified with sea and sky and stone
Her young gods yearned for the release of souls
Asleep in objects, vague, inanimate.

(Earth's young gods, born along with the earth? Must be the vedic gods Agni, the Maruts etc. The primal evolutionary forces behind the earth. Release of souls asleep in vague inanimate objects. What
is meant by souls here?)

In that desolate granduer, in that beauty bare,
In the deaf stillness, mid the unheeded sounds,
Heavy was the uncommunicated load
Of Godhead in a world that had no needs;
For none was there to feel or to receive.
This solid mass which brooked no throb of sense
Could not contain their vast creative urge:

(the world was finally pushed out of its slumber by
the urge of these young gods)

Immersed no more in matter's harmony,
The Spirit lost its statesque repose.
In the uncaring trance it groped for sight,
Passioned for the movements of a conscious heart,
Famishing for speech and thought and joy and love,
In the dumb insensitive wheeling day and night
Hungered for the beat of yearning and response.

(refers to the spirit plunged in matter?)

The poised inconscience shaken with a touch,
The intuitive Silence trembling with a name
They cried to Life to invade the senseless mould
And in brute forms awake divinity.
A voice was heard on the mute roling globe,
A murmur moaned in the unlistening Void.
A being seemed to breathe where once was none:
Something pent up in dead insentient depths,
Denied conscious existence, lost to joy,
Turned as if one asleep since dateless time.
Aware of its own buried reality,
Remembering its forgotten self and right,
It yearned to know, to aspire, to enjoy, to live.

Life heard the call and left her native light.
Overflowing from her bright magnificent plane
On the rigid coil and sprawl of mortal Space

(The "coil of Space"? Sri Aurobindo refers to the curvature of space under gravity.)

Here too the gracious great-winged Angel poured
Her splendour and her swiftness and her bliss
Hoping to fill a fair new world with joy.
As comes a goddess to a mortal breast
And fills his days with her celestial clasp,
She stooped to make her home in transient shapes;
In Matter's womb she cast the Immortal's fire,
In the unfeeling Vast woke thought and hope,
Smote with her charm and beauty flesh and nerve
And forced delight on earth's insensible frame.
Alive and clad with trees and herbs and flowers
Earth's great brown body smiled towards the skies,
Azure replied to azure in the sea's laugh;
New sentient creatures filled the unseen depths,
Life's glory and swiftness ran in the beauty of the beasts,
Man dared and thought and met with his soul the world.

(The gracious angel is life. This part is the "glory" of life and the remaining passage in the Canto describes the "fall".)

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