Sri Aurobindo’s use of imagery and symbolism

Image, Symbol and Myth in Sri Aurobindo's Poetry — G. S. Pakle ISBN: 81-86622-84-5 Publisher: Harman Publishing House, New Delhi Binding: Hard CoverPages: 356 Price: Rs 700 Web: http://www.sabda.in/

Sri Aurobindo once claimed, somewhat humorously, that he had been a poet and a politician, but never a philosopher. That he was first and last a poet is beyond doubt. His earliest poems were written in 1890, while he was a student in England, and his revisions to Savitri continued until he left his body in 1950. G.S. Pakle’s new book Image, Symbol and Myth in Sri Aurobindo’s Poetry, which is introduced below, examines Sri Aurobindo’s use of these poetic devices through the entire range of his poetry.

In the first chapter Pakle follows the evolving definition of the poetic image: how poets beginning in the late 17th century equated image with simile and metaphor; then in the 19th century poets infused images with passion, emotion, and a vivid imagination; and by the 20th century, the approach to images was psychological rather than pictorial, rhetorical or imaginative. Here he places Sri Aurobindo’s use of image both within this context of English poetic development and beyond it, to a future poetry:

Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, an image should present a rich and bright picture of the thing seen. On the whole, we find that Sri Aurobindo accepts the neo-classical view of the term ‘image’. However, he emphasizes the importance of the Romantic and the Imagist’s views of the term, adding to it the element of the ‘visionary’ initially taken from Shelley and later imbibed within his poetic being from his zealous study of the Vedas and the Upanishads. He emphasizes the fusion of the poetic soul’s vision in a visual image, with the truth-hearing sense in the auditory image, in order to create the poetry of ‘the Mantra of the Real’. (p.4)

Beginning with a literary survey of the terms image, symbol, and myth, this critical study of Sri Aurobindo’s poetry sets his unique use of these devices in the context of English poetic development. The author analyses Sri Aurobindo’s use of imagery and symbolism by examining in detail the entire range of his poetry. He concludes by placing Sri Aurobindo as one of the greatest symbolists of modern English poetry for the way he uses image, symbol and myth to represent not only past and present realities but also the future. This fusion creates a new poetic mode, crafted to express Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual vision of the future.