The New Horizon

Here below is an interesting comment by Sri Aurobindo to Amal for his defence for the lexicographer - Fowler :

' Where the devil have I admitted that "treason" and "poison" are monosyllables or that their use as dissyllables is a poetic licence? Will you please quote the words in which I have made that astounding and imbecile admission? I have said distinctly that they are dissyllabic, ? like risen, dozen, maiden, garden, laden and a thousand others which nobody (at least before the world went mad) ever dreamed of taking as monosyllables. On my own showing, indeed! After I had even gone to the trouble of explaining at length about the slurred syllable "e" in these words, for the full sound is not given, so that you cannot put it down as pronounced maid-en, you have to indicate the pronunciation as maid'n. But for that to dub maiden a monosyllable and assert that Shakespeare, Shelley and every other poet who scans maiden as a dissyllable was a born fool who did not know the "current" pronunciation or was indulging in a constant poetic licence whenever he used the words garden, maiden, widen, sadden etc. is a long flight of imagination. I say that these words are dissyllables and the poets in so scanning them (not as an occasional licence but normally and every time) are much better authorities than any owl ? or fowl ? of a dictionary-maker in the universe. '
- Sri Aurobindo - Vol. 26 , p. 323.