Transformation
by Sri Aurobindo
(The Poem
& Summary)
Sri Aurobindo was the poet of the modern age or the age of interrogation and anxiety. The characteristic qualities
of the age are:
· Anxiety
and interrogation
· Art
for life’s sake
· Growing
interests in the poor and the working classes
· Impact
of socio-economic conditions on literature
· Stream
of consciousness
· Impact
of two world wars and
· The
impact of radio and cinema.
The general characteristics of modern
poetry are:
· Tradition
and experiment
· Imagism
· Symbolism
and
· The
Pound-Eliot tradition
The modern poet includes:
· The
transitional poet
· The
war poets
· Georgian
poets
· Oxford
poets
· Poet
of imagism and symbolism and
· The
poets of new romanticism
Sri Aurobindo was known as a saint of Pondicherry.
He was born in Calcutta on 15th August 1872. He had his education in
England and was a professor, politician, freedom fighter, revolutionary poet,
editor, philosopher, mystic and a yogi. He passed the Indian civil service
examination at the age of 21 and has been the principal of Baroda College,
Bengal National College etc. He also had been the editor of English daily Vande Mataram. He was the master of
‘blank verse’.
Sri
Aurobindo, in the poem Transformation,
shows his deep and sincere faith and hope in the Almighty God. The poem also
shows the complete submission of the poet before the God. The poet explains it
and says it could be possible only after the transformation of the body and the
soul.
Transformation
(The
Poem)
My breath runs in a subtle rhythmic stream;
It fills my members with a might divine;
I have drunk the infinite like a giant’s wine.
Time is my drama or my pageant dream.
Now are my illumined cells joys flaming scheme.
And changed my thrilled and branching nerves to fine
Channels of rapture opal and hyaline
For the influx of the Unknown and the Supreme.
I am no more a vassal of the flesh.
A slave to Nature and her leaden rule;
I am caught no more in the senses’ narrow mesh.
My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,
My body is God’s happy living tool,
My spirit is a vast sun of deathless
light.
Summary
The
poem is written in a sonnet form, divided into octave and a sestet. The sestet
develops the thought of the octave. The octave expresses the pleasant situation
of body and soul. The poet says, that to allow the God into his body and soul,
he has to transform his body first. In this condition his breath starts running
“in a subtle rhythmic stream” and all
the parts of his body are filled with a divine might. He says, he enjoys this
situation of his body as a giant enjoys his wine. ‘Time’, for him, has become
his ‘pageant dream’ and the cells of the body become the flaming scheme of God.
In the last 3 lines of the octave, the poet says, his ‘branched nerves’ have
become the fine channels for the influx of the God.
The
poet says, that his body has been transformed to welcome the God in. He is, now,
neither a vessel of the flesh and nor an object of the nature. He considers
himself free from all the beaten rules of nature. He is now no more a slave of
his senses but his soul has widened itself to the measureless sight. The poet
says, to become a happy living tool of God is a new experience for him and it
is necessary for the man to transform his body first and then, submit it to
God, only then his spirit could be the eternal Sun of the deathless light. It
is so, because the grace of God touches the body first and then comes into the contact
with the soul.
The
poem is a sonnet and is divided into octave and sestet. The sestet develops the
thought of the octave. This is a Petrarchan sonnet, having the rhyming scheme: a b b a,
a b b a, in octave and c d c e
f e, in sestet. The poet calls God by different names like Infinite, Unknown and Supreme.
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