Classical and Romantic

     The two terms, Classical and Romantic, have caused havoc in literary criticism down the centuries, precisely because no one has been able to define them accurately. No wonder Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, after dealing with the subject in extenso gave vent to his frustration "I advise that it may help our minds to earn an honest living if we dismissed the terms ‘classical' and ‘romantic' out of our vocabulary for a while".

     Not so with K.D. Sethna, the voracious reader, poet, critic. He opens his contribution with a bird's eye view of the royal battle between the two terms that has led to the publication of thousands of volumes, though according to him, "not always has much light been shed". Why not then seek light from India? So we get introduced to Sri Aurobindo on the sixth page, and there is no looking back after.

     Sri Aurobindo digs deep into the subconscious and introduces the subliminal self:
      "Poetry, like all art, draws considerably on the subliminal and discloses that domain's surprising realities in diverse patterns of image and sound. It can also draw on another domain – the superconscious – which is a diviner secrecy and ultimately the origin of all art-inspiration whether openly recognised as superconscious or no."

     This is the Delight of Existence which the poet gathers and showers upon the listener. There are several planes in this Delight which is distilled through the Mind to create poems. ‘Classical' and ‘Romantic' are two of them. ‘Classical belongs to the lane of "creative poetic intelligence" which seeks to convey universal truths and realities.

     European Classicism has had several phases (Graeco-Roman, Renaissance, French and Augustan) studded with brilliant names: Aeschylus, Homer, Dante, Milton, Corneille, Racine, Pope and Dryden among them. No two classical poets are alike, but how they do ravish our mind, especially when we meet them in the sumptuous pages of choice quotations called by Sri Sethna! Here is his translation of Virgil (ah! a warning as well):
      "Easy the descent into Darkness;
      Turning our feet and escaping back to the shining spaces
      There lies the task and that is the labour."

     After this tremendous introduction to Classicism, we move to Romanticism and enter the world of Shakespeare. Here is verily "the joy of a multiple poetic vision of life." There are the other Elizabethans too. Webster on the sorrow and struggle in Time:
      "I am acquainted with sad misery
      As the tanned gally-slave is with his oar."

     The plane of Romanticism is not easily defined: it is actually a mix of intellectual reflection and rainbow tinted emotion, though we may view it with some accuracy as belonging to the plane of creative Intelligence. The post-Elizabeth Romantic phase reveals this very well, for the scientific temper had complicated the creative process. Speaking of the modern intelligence, Sri Aurobindo says that it "sets more comprehensively to work, opens itself to all manner of the possibilities of truth and to a crowding stream and mass of interests, a never satisfied minuteness of detail, an endless succession of pregnant generalisations."

     The French Revolution and after saw the Romantic Movement grow lush with inspirations from Rousseau. Sri Sethna notes a vital connection between Rousseau's mystical experiences of his mind being "dazzled by a thousand lights" and Wordsworth's "forgers of daring tales". An electric freedom marks the best writings of the English Romantics. ‘Kubla Khan' is the high water-mark of this Movement and Coleridge's poem was hailed by Sri Aurobindo as "a genuine supraphysical experience caught and rendered in a rare hour of exaltation with an absolute accuracy of vision and authenticity of rhythm". Thus do we enter the world of mysticism and spirituality.

     The rest of Classical and Romantic may be termed as, aftercourses. The mystic vein in the great Romantics is a first step towards spiritual poetry of the future. Certainly it is neither a ‘loss of nerve' (as F.L. Lucas would have it) nor decadence if poets choose to twang the lyra mystica.

     Though he wanders happily over such a widespread subject with the help of his closeness to other languages and daunting scholarship, Sri Sethna never lets go his firm hold on the Aurobindonian approach to the two terms. There is an enviable clarity as well as a bubbling enthusiasm that spills through the cold print in this handsome publication. One can only imagine the Delight that must have pervaded the classroom when the chapters were being delivered as lectures by the author. It is well the Ashram has chosen to publish the lectures and make them available to a larger audience outside Pondicherry. For, Classical and Romantic is a perfect guide for the pedagogue who has to deal with graduate courses in English literature in India's sprawling academia.

— Dr. Prema Nandakumar
Critic and Freelance Writer

April 1999