A Flight Within: Keat’s Nightingale In Light of the Sufis

Hend Hamed Ezzeldin

Abstract


Sufism is the mode of religious life in Islam in which emphasis is placed on the activities of the inner self than external rituals and performances. The essence of Sufism lies in its internal transcendental experience. The aim of Sufis is to delve into the human soul and see through its darkness in order to reach the ultimate truth. Sufi poetry is abundant with images that present the human soul as a mystery that could be decrypted via contemplation, meditation, and inner vision. The target of Sufis is to reunite with the Universal Self that is the ‘truer’ self of every human (i.e. God). Likewise, Romanticism is founded on the doctrine that all creation began in harmonious unity. Romantic poets share Sufis’ quest for truth and an illuminating path towards reaching the essence of the Divine. A renowned Romantic poet, John Keats, contrary to his fellow Romantics, never alluded to sharing any interest with the orient or the spirituality it incarnates. However, by attempting a Sufi reading of his poem ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, this research paper will attempt to highlight the underlying philosophy and uncover the spiritual implications hidden within Keats’ ode and propound a solid connection between Sufi and Romantic ideologies.

Keywords


Sufism, Romanticism, Annihilation, Nightingale, Keats, Spirituality

Full Text:

PDF

References


Attar, Samar. Borrowed Imagination: The British Romantic Poets and the Arabic-Islamic Sources. London:Lexington, 2014.

Al-Daghistani, Raid. “Taffakkur and Tadthakkur – Two Techniques of Islamic Spirituality.” Kind Logos. May 2016. 13 March 2017. Web.

Angha, Nahid. “Practical Sufism and Philosophical Sufism”. International Association of Sufism. 6 March 2017. Web.

Badri, Malik. Contemplation: An Islamic Psychospiritual Study. London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2000. Print.

Hossein, Nasr. “Persian Sufi Literature: Its Spiritual and Cultural Significance”. Classical Persian Sufism: From Its Origins to Rumi. Ed. Leonard Lewisohn. London & NY: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992. 1 10. Print.

Barth, J. Robert. Romanticism and Transcendence: William Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Religious Imagination. Missouri: U of Missouri P, 2003. Print.

Blake, William. Blake: The Completed Poems. Ed. W.H. Stevenson. NY: Routledge, 2014. Print.

Burkhardt, Titus. Introduction to Sufi Doctrine. Indiana: World Wisdom, 2008. Print.

Ciecko, Anne T. “Androgyny”. Encyclopedia of Romanticism: Culture in Britain, 1780s-1830s. Ed. Laura Daburdo. Oxford: Routledge, 2010. Print.

Coleman, J.A. Dictionary of Mythology. London: Arcturus P. Limited, 2007. Print.

Dabashi, Hamid. “Ayn al. Qudat Hamadani and the Intellectual Climate of his Times.” History of Islamic Philosophy. Ed. Sayyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman. NY & London: Routledge, 2002. 374-419. Print.

“Ecstasy”. Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam Webster, 2011. 12 December 2017. Web.

Fogle, Richard Harter. “Keat’s Ode to a Nightingale”. PMLA 68 (1953): 211-222. Print.

Geoffroy, Eric. “Approaching Sufism”. Sufism: Love and Wisdom. Ed. Jean-Louis Michon and Roger Gaetani. Indiana: World Wisdom, 2006. Print.

Hartman, Geoffrey, “Romanticism and Anti-Self Consciousness”. The Geoffrey Hartman Reader. Ed. Geoffrey H. Hartman and Daniel T. O’Hara. Edinburgh: Edinburgh U P, 2004. Print.

Huhn, Peter. “Plotting the Lyric: Forms of Narration Poetry”. Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric. Ed. Eva Muller-Zettlemann and Margarete Rubik. Frankfurt: Rodopi, 2005. Print.

Keats, John. The Letters of John Keats. Ed. H.E. Rollins. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1958. Print.

- -. Selected Poetry. Ed. Elizabeth Cook. NY: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.

Khan, Jalal Uddin. “Keat’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’: An Appreciation in Keatsian Aesthetics with Possible Sources and Analogues”. Dogus Univetsitesi Dergisi 6 (2002): 77-96. Print.

Kirschner, Suzanne R. The Religious and Romantic Origins of Psychoanalysis: Individuation and Integration in Post-Freudian Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Print.

Lewisohon, Leonard. “Romantic Love is Islam”. Encyclopedia of Love in World Religion. Ed. Yudit Kornberg. Greenberg: California ABC-CL10, 2008. Print.

Lussier, Mark. “Enlightenment East and West: An Introduction to Romanticism and Buddhism”. Romantic Circles. February 2007. 4 February 2016. Web.

Moore, Thomas. Letters and Journals of Lord Byron. Project Guttenberg. London: Murray, 1830. Web.

Mukherjee, Dipanjoy. “A Monarch of Mysticism: Re-reading Wordsworth”. Research Journal of English Language and Literature 3 (2015): 134-9. Web.

Murray, Christopher John. Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004. Print.

Nagar, Anupam. Recritiquing John Keats. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2005. Print.

Ober, William B. “Drowsed with the Fume of Poppies: Opium and John Keats”. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 44 (1968): 862-81. Print.

Oueijan, Naji. “Sufism, Christian Mysticism and Romanticism”. PALMA 7 (2001): 9-21. Print.

Perreira, Todd L. “Die Before you Die: Death Meditation as Spiritual Technology of the Self in Islam and Buddhism”. The Muslim World 100 (2010): 247-267. Print.

Rumi, Jalal al-Din. An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi: The Rumi Collection. Ed. Kabir Helninski. Colorado: Shambhala P, 2005. Print.

- -. The Spiritual Poems of Rumi. Trans. Nader Khalili. Massachusetts: Wellfleet P, 2018. Print.

Schimmel, Annemarie. Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam. Albany: SUNY, 1994. Print.

Shah, Idries. The Way of the Sufi. New Delhi: Rupa P., 2007. Print.

Sharda, S.R. Sufi Thought: Its Development in Panjab and Its Impact on Panjabi Literature. From Baba Farid to AD 1850. New Delhi: Murshiram Manoharal, 1998. Print.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Adonais. Aukland: The Floating Press, 2010. Print.

Spens, Janet. “A Study of Keat’s Ode to a Nightingale’. The Review of English Studies 3 (1952): 234-243. Print.

Spugein, Caroline F.E. Mysticism in English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.

Stoddart, William and Nicholson R.A. The Mystical Doctrines and the Idea of Personality. Delhi: Adam Publishers, 1998. Print.

Tamer, Georges. Contributor. Islam and Rationality: The Impact of Al-Ghazali. Papers Collected on His 900th Anniversary. Vol. 1. BRILL, 2015. 2 April 2016. Web.

Watson, J.R. English Poetry of the Romantic Period 1789-1830. London & NY: Longman, 1992. Print.

Wellek, Rene. “The Concept of ‘Romanticism’ in Literary History”. Comparative Literature 1 (1949): 1-23. Print.

Wordsworth, William. The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth. London: WW Editions Limited, Cumberland House, 1994. Print.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.3p.121

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2010-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Advances in Language and Literary Studies

You may require to add the 'aiac.org.au' domain to your e-mail 'safe list’ If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox'. Otherwise, you may check your 'Spam mail' or 'junk mail' folders.