Sri Aurobindo

A POET KNOWS THE MASTERS AND THE CLASSICS: READ THE FUTURE POETRY & SAVITRI

Yogi, accomplished mystic, Guru (which means "Jupiter" and "remover of ignorance" in Sanskrit), political activist, journalist, and philosopher, SRI AUROBINDO belongs to the long tradition of polymath poets. The author of Savitri, an epic poem of 24,000 verses recounting the soul's journey from humanhood to divinity and back, he was also a ferocious literary critic.

In The Future Poetry, a monstration on the essence of poetry, he wrote: "To the ordinary mind, judging poetry without really entering into it, it looks as if it were nothing more than an aesthetic pleasure of the imagination, the intellect and the ear, a sort of elevated pastime. (...) Pleasure, certainly, we expect from poetry as from all art; but the external sensible and even the inner imaginative pleasure are only first elements. For these must not only be refined in order to meet the highest requirements of the intelligence, the imagination and the ear; but afterwards they have to be still farther heightened and in their nature raised beyond even their own noblest levels, so that they may become the support for something greater beyond them; otherwise they cannot lead to the height on which lives the Mantra."

The audible voice of the Master fell silent; his work is now immortal: Happy Birthday, divine Father of poets!