Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 1. On His Poetry and Poetic Method
On Savitri

Comments on Specific Lines and Passages of the Poem [27]

Aware of his occult omnipotent Source,

Allured by the omniscient Ecstasy,

He felt the invasion and the nameless joy. [p. 79]

I certainly won’t have “attracted” [in place of “allured”] — there is an enormous difference between the force of the two words and merely “attracted” by the Ecstasy would take away all my ecstasy in the line — nothing so tepid can be admitted. Neither do I want “thrill” [in place of “joy”] which gives a false colour — precisely it would mean that the ecstasy was already touching him with its intensity which is far from my intention. Your statement that “joy” is just another word for “ecstasy” is surprising. “Comfort”, “pleasure”, “joy”, “bliss”, “rapture”, “ecstasy” would then be all equal and exactly synonymous terms and all distinction of shades and colours of words would disappear from literature. As well say that “flashlight” is just another word for “lightning” — or that glow, gleam, glitter, sheen, blaze are all equivalents which can be employed indifferently in the same place. One can feel allured to the supreme omniscient ecstasy and feel a nameless joy touching one without that joy becoming itself the supreme Ecstasy. I see no loss of expressiveness by the joy coming in as a vague nameless hint of the immeasurable superior Ecstasy.

22 May 1937