SOURCE: "The Future Poetry of Sri Aurobindo," in Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, No. 11, 1962, pp. 149-53.

In the following essay on The Future Poetry, Ghose discusses Aurobindo's equation of poetry with mantra.

Romain Rolland described the contribution of Sri Aurobindo as the greatest synthesis as yet achieved of the genius of the East and the genius of the West. Today Sri Aurobindo is widely known as yogi and thinker, but few have heard of him as a poet, fewer as a literary critic. This in spite of the fact that his writings are characteristic and commanding, and indeed copious. But even more than the scope—which includes [letters] ranging from Aeschylus to the Age of Anxiety—it is the quality of writing which sets him apart, and makes the task of assessment both mandatory and difficult. Above all, there are the serial essays, The Future Poetry, written...