|
Poetry and Poetic Inspiration I HAVE said: "Poetry is sensuality of
the mind". How is it so? It is because poetry is in relation with the
forms and images of ideas – forms, images, sensations, impressions, emotions
attached to ideas are the sensual or, if you prefer to call it, the sensuous
side of things. All such relations are sensuousness. And poetry concerns itself
with this idea of mind and thought. It approaches the world of ideas through
their appearances, through the play of sensations and emotions around them. It
is not like philosophy or metaphysics which endeavours
to look into the inside of ideas. Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be poetry
unless it evokes, that is to say, unless it gives a form, a sensuous form to
the idea. I have used an epigrammatic phrase to express this truth and even
chosen the stronger word to give an edge to it. People are called sensual when
they are occupied solely with the sensations of the physical life, with the
forms and formations and movements of the material world, when they live with
their senses and enjoy the things of the senses. The same tendency instead of going
out towards the external life, the physical world, when it turns towards
objects of the mind, towards ideas gives rise to poetry. Poetry is a world
under the aspect of the beauty of form. It expresses the beauty of an idea, the
harmony or rhythm of a thought, giving all that a concrete shape or image: it
becomes a play of images, a play of sounds, a play of
words. Thus instead of a sensuality of matter, we have a sensuality of the
mind. I have not taken the word in a pejorative sense, nor in a moral sense; it is simply descriptive. I do not mean, in other words, that such a view, the poetic view, necessarily prevents you from seeing the truth of things. It only describes the way of the poet's approach as poet. Indeed, if it were a choice between reading a book of good poetry and reading
Page – 40
a book of metaphysics, personally I would
prefer poetry, for that is less arid! My definition of poetry, I assure you, is
not a condemnation, it is only a description, a statement of fact, namely, that poetry is the sensual or sensuous approach to
truth. It is perhaps a somewhat paradoxical way of putting the thing: it is
meant to strike the thought, to awaken it to the perception of a reality which
is usually obscured by the habitual, traditional or "classical" way
of thinking. If you mean by inspiration that the poet does
not think when he writes a poem, that is to say, he has gone beyond all
thought, has made his mind silent, silent and immobile, has opened himself to
inner or higher regions and writes almost automatically, well, such a thing
happens perhaps once a thousand years. It is not a common phenomenon. A Yogi
has the power to do that. What you normally mean, however, by an inspired poet
is something quite different. People who have some kind of genius, who have an
opening into other and higher regions are called "inspired" ;
persons who have made some discovery are also included in that category. Each
time you are in relation with a thing belonging to a domain superior to the
normal human consciousness, you are inspired. And when you are not totally
bound to the very ordinary level you do receive "inspirations" from
above. It is the same in the case of a poet. The source of his creation is
elsewhere up above the ordinary mind; for that he need not possess an empty
vacant mind.
Page – 41
|
