LITERATURE AND CONSCIOUSNES
Shruti Bidwaikar
"… neither the intelligence,
the imagination nor the ear
are the true or at least
the deepest or highest
recipients of the poetic delight,
… they are only its
channels and instruments;
the true creator, the true hearer
is the soul."
There are numerous genres of literature, yet more are the schools of criticism aiming at appreciating and analysing literature. Like every poet and writer is unique and different from each other, every critic and school of criticism offers a different and unique perspective. 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 different critics may differ due to the subjective elements and temperamental differences that come in their interpretation of a creative work. Regarding the subjectivity of 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 one such unique approach of literary criticism whose difference from other approaches lies more in the method of appreciation than the subject. The tool of appreciation I intend to explain is CONSCIOUSNESS. I have taken the concept of consciousness as explained and elaborated upon by Sri Aurobindo, and have deliberately excluded all other definitions for want of space and to keep the focus of the article more precise.
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 an insight into the conflicts emerging from the different possible meanings of the text, role of the author and role of the reader in understanding the text. As Sri Aurobindo 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. I have chosen these 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
