Transformation by Sri Aurobindo (The Poem & Summary)

 

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 15^th 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.