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Modern Poetry ELIOT was perhaps the first to lay down the
principle that the style of poetry should be like that of prose. By prose he
means the current way of talk. According to him the language should be
current, if not colloquial. Common words and sentences and the order of prose
will satisfy this principle of poetic diction. Even in earlier times more than
one poet acted upon this principle. Wordsworth's method was of this nature: Will no one tell me what she sings? Or 'Tis The moon is up, – But the moderns demand something still more. Merely current words
and expressions won't do; common parlance, even the commonest of common, has to
be adopted. There is the style of poetic prose. It is a special feature of
literature of all climes. Since the time prose writing began enriching itself,
this mode of composition has been in vogue. In addition to this, there is the
prose poem. It is a step to rise from prose to poetry. The next step is free
verse. But what the moderns aim at is quite different from these approaches. It
will as far as possible contain the structure and outer form of poetry, but the
style will be of prose, i.e., its measure and rhythm will be of poetry,
but the tone will
Page – 134 be of prose. The French Alexandrine;
the high order of twelve-line poetry of Corneille and Racine – if it is read as
poetry should be, it would sound totally dry and monotonous, but if despite
pause and rhyme, it is read like prose, it would reveal its beauty. Because the
noted actress Rachel discovered this, she has become renowned in the world of
French drama. The intention of the moderns is somewhat like this. Take, for
example, Eliot; but Eliot may be considered afterwards. Let us first take the
echo of a Bengali poet:
From the
point of view of technique, it has been said to be flawless. One likes to
characterise these lines as doggerel in English. But they are not so. From the
standard of modern appreciation they are really solemn poetry. Such sort of
appreciation reminds us of the Sanskrit rhetorician's wit: What is an instance
of a faultless sloka or verse? – Dugdham pivati marjarah
(the cat drinks milk). – How? – A sloka must have four feet. Marjara (the cat) has them. A sloka
must have sweetness or rasa (lit. juice). What can be there more sweet than milk? Let alone wit and humour. The real problem is not perhaps with the
style and trend of colloquialism, but with
Page – 135 something deeper. The question, no
doubt, raises a special aspect, but that is a mere symptom or complexity of the
disease. For the composition of all ancient poetry was neither artificial nor
unnatural. Rather, the reverse is the truth. Matthew Arnold has given proof of
the grand style in poetry. For example, Fall'n
cherub! to be weak is miserable ( Or Dante's E'n La
sua volontade è nostra pace...¹ (La
Divina Commedia 'Paradiso', III. 85)
What
could be easier or more natural, more common and colloquial than such
expression? Madame
Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad
cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in (The Or Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone Tell her I bring the horoscope myself; One must
be so careful these days. (Ibid.) ¹ Literally: "And His will is our peace."
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136 But why? What is the intention? What
purpose does it serve? First of all, we do not want any more of the poetic in
poetry, we do not want imagination, we do not want anything
of castles in the air. We want the real, the rude, not the good and the
beautiful. Strong feeling, powerful emotion – these you want. Such materials
are lying about in ordinary day-to-day life; you need not soar into the skies
and rummage the Heavens. The true interest and meaning of life are inherent in
the workaday world's ways and manners. Not so? Well, listen further to Eliot: HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME Goodnight
Bill. Goodnight Lou. Goodnight May. Goodnight. Ta ta. Goodnight. Goodnight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good
night. (The The thing
to note here is whither this slow moving prose – don't we see that the sense
has become a bit concrete? The trend has undergone a seachange and there is a
flush of colour in the style – almost a blush. All is prose, indeed, prosaic in
spirit, but the poet has had to playa trick – whatever be the principle; if the
prose is left entirely as prose the poet's purpose is not fully served. When
the poet's heart swells to overflowing, it can despite its efforts never remain
in the ditch. I say, where the heart of the poet is in depth and intensity, his
voice rings with that depth and intensity. If Eliot has been a true poet, he
became so when he spoke like this: Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do
not appear:
Page – 137 There,
the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column. There, is a tree swinging And
voices are In the
wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. This bit
of jewel is far above his 'Madame Sosostris' or even his 'Good Night'. Theory
is one thing. Reality is another. Theory is of the poet's mind, his expression
tied to his fancy, but that which is real in creation is the dictate of the
poet's inner Soul – which bloweth where it listeth. One aspect of that theory is this. The subject of poetry is free
from design, free from covering. Stripped of all embellishments, what is
demanded is 'Sunlight on a broken column.' Things have to be seen with the
unblinking eye of the burning sun. Hence truth is dust, sand and grit – hard
substance reduced to powder, covered, over with an illusory soft, green layer.
Wealth and prosperity are the eternal pomp and luxury of a few; as for the
masses, theirs are poverty and want, disease and sorrow. The civilised man, the
educated man are mere parasites. The forthright
children of the earth are the poor, the wretched, the primitive and the
uncivilised. One has to go down to the root of all things, in other words, to
cut off the head and move towards the lower limbs. The mystery of the lotus has
to be sought in the mire. The thing has to be cut and pruned and reduced to its
minutest, lowest, most despicable form. Our saints and seers transformed man
and raised him to the level of a spiritual seeker. In the present age too we
have aimed at the same thing in the reverse direction towards the lowest. The
reason why we like prose and its low-pitched movement is that we do not want to
remain in the higher spheres of the mind – we like to grovel in the dust. It is not that the petty, commonplace and insignificant
Page – 138 matters of daily concern cannot be
the material for poetry. These can be freely used in a poem, but it will not do
to have them exclusively in the poet's consciousness which should be of another stuff. The ancient thinkers have equated the poet's
consciousness with seer-vision. The moderns do not even recognise this truth. They do not bother
about the Infinite. Neither do they feel the need of it nor do they admit it
for the beauty and sublimity of poetry. Their procedure is otherwise. A prosaic
thing may be accepted, but it should be treated as something more than that.
Otherwise there is no difference between prose and poetry. The two things seem
alike. The modern poets seek to be considered poets. Hence they practically
admit and establish a difference between poetry and prose. The fundamental principle of this procedure is that the thing and
the event which are subjects for poetry should be developed along with their
characteristic nature and virtue. That is to say, the thing and the event
should be shown as speaking for themselves without the poet speaking for them.
Perhaps, it will not be much of a mistake to say that here lies
the difference between the moderns and the ancients. For example, if a wasteland
is taken for the subject-matter, then we do not look for the poet's account or
his description of it as in the case of Kalidasa's A heap of
broken images, where the sun beats, And the
dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
Page – 139 And the dry
stone no sound of water. Only There is
shadow under this red rock... Your
shadow at morning striding behind you Or your
shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will
show you fear in a handful of dust. (The And don't
we become Hollow Men when we hear the words – The eyes
are not here There are
no eyes here In this
valley of dying stars In this
hollow valley This
broken jaw of our lost kingdoms... (The Hollow Men, IV) It has to be admitted that
Eliot by his own method has achieved considerable success in such instances. A little before I have referred to Good Night. Various poets have variously described their parting scenes. These
are perhaps the most poetic features in poetry. Othello's Speak of
me as I am; nothing extenuate… (Othello,
V. ii. 324) Or Hamlet's ... the rest is silence... (Hamlet, V.
ii. 372) Or when Virgil's Orpheus says: Heu sed non tua palmas... These are
the immense outpourings from the depth of the
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140 human heart. But the moderns tend to
give such feelings a different expression. These are articulations but the
moderns want not articulations but incantations. Articulations may make things
beautiful and touching, no doubt, but incantations make things look lifelike.
Eliot's Good Night... Good Night... and the repetition of the phrase – are they
not making the parting vibration physically felt? Another feature of their incantation is not the transparency of
sense, but its mystification. For it is not the sense, but something more. Just as the aim of incantation is to have the descent of the deity,
so the aim of poetry is to present the truth or the object as living and
conscious. So we find that Eliot goes on ignoring reasonable sequences
or the order of prose. By the impact of co-ordination of sound and suggestion
he makes up his presentation of the truth. So he feels no hesitation in mixing
up various tongues. He has expressed his thought by quoting even an Upanishadic
utterance in one of his poems in order to prove the power of poetry as a medium
of incantation. Listen: Poi s'
ascose net foco che gli
affina Quando flam ceu chelidon – O swallow swallow. Le Prince d' Aquitaine à la tour abolie. These fragments I have shored against my ruins. Why then Ile fite you. Hieronymo's mad againe. Datta. Dayadhavam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih. (The This is, however, what may
be called an incantation with a vengeance in poetry. It may be thought that we have here moved a good way from the method
and ideal of turning poetry with the spirit of prose. But it is not exactly so.
This type of incantation is
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141 the quintessence of prose itself. Perhaps
it may have measure but no tune. Yet, in That poetry is incantation may be taken for granted. But incantation
is of two kinds. The moderns follow the incantation of the left-wing tantriks.
The ancient poets took to the Vedantic and the right-wing of the Tantra as the
best. Yat te daksina-mukham tena mam pahi nityam. (Protect
me, O Rudra, by your right aspect.)
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