There are numerous genre of literature, yet more are the schools of criticism aiming at appreciating and analyzing literature. Like every poet and writer differs from each other, similarly every critic and school of criticism differs from the other. The basis of these differences for the poets and writers may be of that of temperament, style and other techniques; critics differ on the subject and method of appreciation. Even in each school of criticism every critic differs from the other due to the subjective elements and temperamental differences that come in. Regarding the subjectivity in critics, Sri Aurobindo writes, “All criticism of poetry is bound to have a strong subjective element in it and that is the source of all violent differences we find in the appreciation of any given author by equally ‘eminent’ critics.” 1 However, this does not undervalue the importance of critics. To quote Sri Aurobindo again: “The critic can help to open the mind to the kinds of beauty he himself sees and not only to discover but to appreciate at their full value certain elements that make them beautiful or give them what is most characteristic or unique in their peculiar beauty.” 2 Thus we see that critics play an important role to bring forth those elements that an untrained eye might overlook. As mentioned above critics differ in their approach and subject of appreciation, I put forth here an approach which primarily differs from others on these grounds. I focus here on the method of appreciation more than the subject. The tool of appreciation I intend to explain is consciousness. I have taken the concept of consciousness from Sri Aurobindo and have deliberately excluded all other definitions for the want of space and precision.
One of the definitions of consciousness given by Sri Aurobindo is: “Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence—it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it—not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” 3 I have chosen to apply consciousness on the study of literature to find out if this gives us a solution to the conflicts regarding the meaning of the text and role of the author and the reader in understanding the text. As he has declared consciousness to be the ‘fundamental thing in existence’, literature also becomes a part of this (consciousness). I shall try to find out from his own writings, what he says about the author, the text and the reader, and what role does consciousness play there. I have chosen the broad categories based on the author, the text and the reader centric approaches, as almost all the schools of criticism may be grouped under them.
Within the author-centric approach usually the biography of the author or the poet is considered most important. Critics try to read the psychology of the author, his biography which has shaped the author and then probe into the process of creation of his work. When Wordsworth says “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” 4 and yet a premeditated action “recollected in tranquility”, it is interesting to note how these seemingly opposite processes combine and create poetry (at least for Wordsworth). Now let us see what Sri Aurobindo writes about the process of creation. In Sri Aurobindo’s thought we find that these two processes of pre-meditation or preparation and the “spontaneous overflow” both occur simultaneously. This preparation is the concentration and rise of consciousness and the spontaneity is the dawning inspiration. Sri Aurobindo emphasizes that consciousness has an important role to play in creation of a text.
Human beings are complex personalities. We have different levels within our beings to which we keep shifting unknowingly and to which we can also move consciously with effort. We are a composite of different levels of consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo has described different levels of consciousness pertaining to each level of mind. I mention here broad categories of those levels—Mind, Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind and Overmind. Human beings are mostly on the level of mind and embody the mental consciousness. However, with efforts one can evolve into the higher levels. If a poet or writer evolves, and then seeks inspiration from higher levels, he or she might receive some inspiration from these levels. However, this process of climbing up and calling for inspiration is a simultaneous and a continuous process, for Sri Aurobindo says that it is difficult to station oneself on the higher levels. A temporary rise in consciousness may help to catch a ray of inspiration from the higher levels and deliver them into their work. He also mentions that inspiration is very unpredictable. “Inspiration is always a very uncertain thing; it comes when it chooses, stops suddenly before it has finished its work, refuses to descend when it is called. This is a well-known affliction, perhaps of all artists, but certainly of poets.” 5
Sri Aurobindo has shown how few poets like Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley etc have caught the inspiration for few moments and have translated them into their poetry. One of the most celebrated lines of Keats—“Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty – that is all / Ye know on earth and all ye need to know”—was written in such an inspired moment, he says. Another important condition for inspiration to dawn is that the receiver should be a passive recipient, for the inspiration brings with it all the substance, technique and form with it. Sri Aurobindo does not rule out the technical perfection needed by the recipient, but that being there at the base, the inspiration can easily manifest into creation. Regarding this, he writes: “The most genuine and perfect poetry is written when the original source was able to throw its inspiration pure and undiminished into the vital and there takes its true native form and power of speech exactly reproducing the inspiration, while the outer consciousness is entirely passive and transmits without alteration what it receives from the godheads of the inner and the superior spaces.” 6 Sri Aurobindo himself has exemplified through his writings and poetry how with efforts he raised his consciousness and received inspiration from higher and higher levels. Regarding the creation of his magnum opus Savitri, he says: “There have been made several successive revisions each trying to lift the general level higher and higher towards a possible Overmind poetry. As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them.” 7 Poetry coming from the Overmind inspiration he calls mantra. This will be more elaborately described in the point where I shall deal with the text-centric approach.
Now we come to the text-centric approach. The text is all important for those who approach literature this way. The author and his biography have no or little role to play. This text centric approach emphasizes a lot on the language and its structure. This has given rise to linguistic, structuralist, philologist, semiotic and other such dimensions to the study of literature. Ferdinand de Saussure, known as the father of modern linguistics has explained at great length the relation between sound and ideas and signifier and signified making a sign. To quote few of his lines: “in language there are only differences… A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas; but the pairing of certain number of acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass of thought engenders a system of values; and this system serves as the effective link between the phonic and the psychological elements with each sign.” 8
Another critic Jonathan Culler gives us the structuralist approach while he quotes Barthes’ definition of structuralism. Structuralism is “a method for the study of cultural artefacts derived from the methods of contemporary linguistics.” 9 These approaches tell us how text and its word system become important for those critics who have their focus on the text. Text then becomes a subject of study for linguistic system, cultural structures or other co-existing structures in it.
Let us see what Sri Aurobindo has to say about language and its importance.
For the reason why sound came to express fixed ideas lies not in any natural and inherent equivalence between the sound and its intellectual sense, for there is none—intellectually any sound might express any sense, if men were agreed on a conventional equivalence between them; it started from an indefinable quality or property in the sound to raise certain vibrations in the life-soul of the human creature, in his sensational; his emotional, his crude mental being. An example may indicate more clearly what I mean. The word wolf, the origin of which is no longer present to our minds, denotes to our intelligence a certain living object and that is all, the rest, we have to do for ourselves: the Sanskrit word vŗka, “tearer”, came in the end to do the same thing, but originally it expressed the sensational relation between the wolf and man which most affected the man’s life, and it did so by a certain quality in the sound which readily associated it with the sensation of tearing. This must have given early language powerful life, a concrete vigour, in one direction a natural poetic force which it has lost, however greatly it has gained in precision, clarity, utility. 10
Thus we infer that language had its own life and vitality. A word or an utterance has power. Sri Aurobindo tells us how the power of the Word and that of the inspired Word acts upon the author and the reader both.
“The word has power, even the ordinary written word has a power. If it is an inspired word it has still more power. What kind of power or power for what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches. If it is the Word of the great Scriptures, Veda, Upanishads, Gita, it may well have the power to awaken a spiritual and uplifting impulse, even certain kinds of realisations… The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as Mantras, they were the vehicles of realisation for other...Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body.” 11
Here comes the importance of mantras, for mantras are the carriers of higher truths. Mantras are created when the inspiration comes from the Overmind level of consciousness. For this indeed the poet has to prepare himself and evolve his consciousness to a level where he can hold, receive and transliterate the Word received from above. As clear from the quote above, mantras have great power which can help one in spiritual opening. This is how the role of the author/ poet as a perfect recipient of the inspiration from above becomes important. It is not by the biographical detail that we ought to relate text and the author, but by the consciousness the text embodies. Any creation embodies the consciousness of the creator. This is how the author and the text are related. Sri Aurobindo describes how Vedas and Upanishads embodied the consciousness of the author, although no or very little biographical details are available about the authors of these scriptures. “The hymn was to the Rishi who composed it a means of spiritual progress for himself and for others. It rose out of his soul, it became a power of his mind, it was the vehicle of his self-expression in some important or even critical moment of his life's inner history.” 12
Next is the reader-centric approach. Rolland Barthes, one of the proponents of this approach, writes- “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.” 13 He rules out the author’s role in the interpretation of the text completely. However, the negation is of all the biographical details or the attempt at studying the motive or the psychology of the author. According to him, the author ceases to be once the text is on the paper. He says it remains only with the reader to relate and draw meaning from the text. This brings us to think about the role of reader in interpreting the text. We have already discussed how the author and text are connected through consciousness. Similarly, the reader can also connect to the text through his or her consciousness. Despite the fact that the text has its own consciousness, the reader’s interaction with the text might produce something which might be an amalgam of both. The reader also in a way becomes the recipient. While the author receives inspiration from above, the reader receives it from the text. Thus, he also becomes a channel of the word. Sri Aurobindo clarifies the nature of the recipient of inspiration thus: “Neither the intelligence, the imagination nor the ear are the true or at least the deepest or highest recipients of the poetic delight, even as they are not its true or highest creators; they are only its channels and instruments; the true creator, the true hearer is the soul.” 14 So whether the poet/ author or the reader it is their soul which receives, their consciousness which translates and the ears, intellect and imaginations are mere outer tools of reception. Sri Aurobindo stresses the point that a certain kind of preparation is always required if one has to read scriptures or texts embodying the higher consciousness. In relation to Vedas, he makes it clear how: “One of the leading principles of the mystics was the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true knowledge of the Gods. This wisdom was, they thought, unfit, perhaps even dangerous to the ordinary human mind or in any case liable to perversion and misuse and loss of virtue if revealed to vulgar and unpurified spirits. Hence they favoured the existence of an outer worship, effective but imperfect, for the profane, an inner discipline for the initiate, and clothed their language in words and images which had, equally, a spiritual sense for the elect, a concrete sense for the mass of ordinary worshippers. The Vedic hymns were conceived and constructed on this principle.” 15
A certain amount of competence is certainly required to read a text. This competence might not necessarily be ‘literary competence’ as Culler puts it, but a preparation of consciousness; the competence to receive the consciousness of the text. This is certainly more so for reading the scriptures.
Thus we see how consciousness plays an important role in creation and reception of a text. The words, as they have power, create the corresponding vibrations and can deliver this vibration into the creation and subsequently into the recipient if he or she is prepared to receive it. We see how beautifully consciousness binds the author, the text and the reader. All the disputes and differences of opinions end when we find these three (the author, the text and the reader) as parts of a continuum and not as distinct entities.
References:
1. Sri Aurobindo: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 9, p. 471
2. Ibid., p. 472
3. Sri Aurobindo: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 22, p. 236
4. Jones, Edmund: English Critical Essays Nineteenth Century, (London: Oxford University Press, 1943) p. 6
5. Sri Aurobindo: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 9, p. 296
6. Ibid., p. 291
7. Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, p. 730
8. Vilas Salunke: Contemporary Critical Theory, (Nashik: AV Publishers and Distributors, 2004) p. 84
9. Ibid., p. 88
10. Sri Aurobindo: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 9, p. 12
11. Ibid., p. 510
12. Sri Aurobindo: On the Veda,
13. Vilas Salunke: Contemporary Critical Theory, (Nashik: AV Publishers and Distributors, 2004) p. 119
14. Sri Aurobindo: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 9, p. 10
15. Sri Aurobindo: On the Veda,