Ghent UniversityFaculty of Arts and Philosophy

Indivi-Duality, ImmortalityKnowledge and Language in English Romanticism and

Contemporary Indian Philosophy

Paper submitted in partial fulfillmentSupervisor: of the requirements for the degree ofProf. Dr. Gert Buelens “Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde:

Engels – Spaans” by Danilo Gruban

May 2016

Table of Contents

1. Introduction......................................................................................................................1

2. The East-West dichotomy and its influence....................................................................7

3. Indivi-Duality (Knowledge)............................................................................................11

3.1 Objectivity as a Liability (with Lie-ability).............................................................................113.2 Duality.....................................................................................................................................20

4. Indivi-Duality and Western philosophies......................................................................30

4.1 German Idealism......................................................................................................................314.2 Arthur Schopenhauer...............................................................................................................364.3 Plato, Parmenides & Zeno.......................................................................................................44

5. Immortality (Language).................................................................................................52

5.1 Circle........................................................................................................................................525.2 Dot...........................................................................................................................................62

6. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................67

7. Works Cited....................................................................................................................69

Word count: 27,500

Our neighborly insect took one of his usual seats,

requesting permission to pose a series of questions:

“Ti imaš hlače (You have pants). 'You' are the subject, 'pants' the object. Is that how the grammar

functions in Dutch too?—Okay.

“You have a body. 'You' are the subject, 'body' the object; correct?

“You have thoughts, emotions, ideas, experiences and memories, a personality … Those are the objects.

“Then what are you?”

Gruban 1

1. Introduction

What is the point of emphasizing that this is an introduction? Surely, if they appear at the

beginning of the paper, the paragraphs serve to introduce what follows. The functions of the

concept of “introduction,” explicitly or not, seem to be categorizing and facilitating: it raises

expectations, notions of normative communication, and therefore opens up the present

experience to be influenced by former ones—ones that are not here now. Perhaps we might

perceive this not as an introduction, but an assembly of words with meanings that cannot be

bound to the text or controlled by the author, attempting to demonstrate how words

necessarily fail in describing the heartfelt. Then we should not hold them too closely. Words

are moldable, yet in practice regularly become confines for significances and thoughts—

thoughts and significances dungeons for the mind. What if one finds the shimmer of light

falling through the grates, tears fiercely at the bars, breathes freely, wanders tirelessly? And

all this while resisting the urge to carve one's name in the wall, as one would only be trapping

it and what it is deemed to represent.

Spontaneous resistance is what Eastern, particularly Indian, philosophy and English

Romanticism often appear to have in common: a breaking away from norms and standards in

order to clear the perception. It is from such a generally nonconformist perspective that I wish

to approach the writings associated with these mindsets (unsettling as they are, considering

their power of constructive disturbance), for which I also feel a need to stress the I. Personal

implications are unavoidable in this sort of investigation, academic as it may purport to be.

Ideas of identity, “I” and “the Self” are frequently doubted and discussed in Romanticism and

Indian philosophy, requiring a more detailed exposition below (§3.2 Duality); may it suffice

to say for now that whenever a point of view can benefit from proper nuance—in the interest

of accuracy, honesty or simple politeness—subjectivity will neither be concealed nor

obstinately emphasized (from this point forward).

Certain resistance is also necessary in relation to expectations, established methods

and outlined objectives. Although the presentation of this journey is attempted in as clear a

manner as possible, it may benefit from being a rather undetermined journey. The danger

with any sort of determination, distinct from the motivational determination indispensable to

this enterprise, is fixation: laying down even the contours already suggests what may follow.

Instead, it could be more open and more beneficial, even if more dangerous (or precisely

Gruban 2

because it entails a risk), in accordance with the spirit of English Romanticism and Indian

spirituality, to stray away from the preconceived while granting present experiences full

priority. Retrospection, renowned recollection “in tranquility,” also requires freshness

(Wordsworth, “Preface” 303); scenes are then revisited with a keen eye for novelty, and not

with a desire for confirmation or circular trekking (examples are Wordsworth's “Tintern

Abbey” and Coleridge's “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison”). Let us at least momentarily

suspend the looking for something in favor of looking.

Since that last sentence echoes Victor Shklovsky, it becomes apparent that links to

theoretical concepts and frameworks surge unavoidably. These still merit attention for the

sake of embedding the matter at hand within a larger interpretive context as well as raising

the issue that many considerations to follow are not restricted to discourses of English

Romantics or Indian philosophers. Writing as a Russian Formalist in the year 1919,

Shklovsky claims that experience of a text's referents can become automatized, and that,

since “we do not see them in their entirety but rather recognize them by their main

characteristics,” the primary purpose of literature is “defamiliarization” in order to draw

renewed care for the objects described (“Art as Technique” 17; emphasis added).

Just as we denied the status of “that last sentence” at the beginning of the previous

paragraph precisely by pointing to it as such, Deconstruction (here with a capital letter when

referring to the school, to distinguish it from the many deconstructions further down

conceived of before Deconstruction) shall also surface throughout the dissertation. It shares

with English Romanticism and Indian spirituality a concern for 'centers'—the structuring of

experiences and their inherent 'doubleness' inevitably enabling inversion. Deconstruction

significantly differs, however, by accepting that there can be no perpetually fixed center of

experience, while the other two streams consider the center to be the very basis of experience

(which, being the source, cannot be experienced itself; cf. §3.2). Despite this and other

deviations, both Russian Formalism and Deconstruction have touched upon subjects pertinent

—at times explicitly so—to the texts discussed here. Particularly the latter discipline features

prominently in §5. Immortality, where its preoccupations with the constant potential for

contradiction and the shortage of an entirely solid starting point to ground reflection in are

linked to searches for stability and unity.

Regarding English Romanticism and Indian spirituality, terminological clarification

still seems to be in order as well as a delineation and justification of the literary corpus. To

Gruban 3

discuss terminology right after urging the dismissal of barriers is paradoxical, but as this

work is in no small measure reliant on communication, let us at least agree on what we are

looking into and minimize the possibility of misunderstanding (for now—confusion can be

clarifying too). Dubbing the Indian process and progress—specifically referred to as Indian

only as a means of convenient distinction—'spirituality' or 'philosophy' may be misleading

since these two terms imply systems, traditions and established concepts; intuitive and non-

conceptual understanding takes precedence instead. Nonetheless, interchangeably Indian

spirituality or Indian philosophy shall be spoken of for lack of simpler means of designation.

The Romantic movements of the 18th and 19th centuries presumably require no further

introduction; what does merit highlighting is the current focus on Romantic literature

springing from England—not out of political or geographic consideration but because, with

gratitude to writers such as William Blake, William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley, it

appears to be the most transcendentally imbued one, whereas Romantic writing from other

regions, when philosophical, generally concentrates on (psycho)logically accessible

metaphysical issues and the social questions derived from them (as is the case with Larra and

Gautier, for instance, completely noteworthy in their own right; Goethe may very well be an

exception).

In its quest for deeper—or is it higher?—truths, external to mankind yet present

within, English Romanticism is connected to the legacy of philosophers partially represented

by Shri Sadguru Siddharameshwar Maharaj, his disciple Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and

spiritual maverick Jiddu Krishnamurti (born in 1888, 1897 and 1895 respectively, though the

former two dismissed the notion of birth). This is not to claim that these Eastern and Western

movements are entirely alike, but certain similarities, brooded upon at varying times and

locations, strengthen the discoveries of both. By cross-referencing them we may learn more

about their peculiarities. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes in Biographia Literaria: “it is the

prime merit of genius […] so to represent familiar objects as to awaken in the minds of others

a kindred feeling concerning them” (489); Eastern philosophy and Western Romanticism

generally pursue unification in one form or another—be it between nature and mankind,

different social classes or distinct aspects of the same individual—and an investigation of

“kindred feeling” can lay bare the links which transcend (but comprehend) variables such as

nationality, environment or standing (even the variable of philosophy, when it is treated as a

code artificially constructed and therefore distanced from the purely observing inner being).

Gruban 4

Coleridge also mentions “the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful

adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving interest of novelty by the modifying

colors of imagination,” alongside “the practicability of combining both” (491-492). One

might add that 'reality' and the perceptions flowing from it are already inherently linked, but

the main point remains that both can be integrated in literature with visible distinction yet

harmony—that personal modification does not stand in the way of “the truth of nature,” but

can actually bring it to light in an otherwise disregarded manner. As a consequence, it may be

a comparison of a wide array of kindred “modifying colors,” rather than a reliance on one

limited spectrum (indeed every spectrum or combination of spectra is limited), that is to make

light of states and processes unmodified.

To distinguish one specific philosophical stream—itself a markedly heteromorphic

one at that—through the reference of an entire country with a population outnumbering

Europe's raises two principal needs for clarification: what differentiates this Indian

philosophy from other ones (and by extension from other 'Eastern' traditions), and why are its

contemporaneous varieties more closely connected to English Romanticism than those of the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in particular?

Regarding that first question, the most significant difference is this philosophy's

neglect or refusal of a systematic approach, as it emphasizes the very frailty of what is

deemed knowledge. Whereas philosophical disciplines are often concerned with a human

being's position within and disposition towards the world around them, with what defines

people's being, where it stems from and what is ultimately to become of it, Siddharameshwar

Maharaj, for one, speaks of the triviality of these questions—of the relative futility of

philosophy, as it were. An evident symptom of the focus on direct, unmediated, intuitive

insight (as Schopenhauer saw it too—he and German Idealism are discussed in §4) is that the

movement, if it may so be dubbed, does not carry a fixed designation. The concept of

'nondualism' or 'non-duality' might be apt, as a principle of unity underlies the philosophy,

although it features in many schools of thought and is therefore certainly not restricted to the

manner at hand.

In chronological terms, the insistence on straying away from predetermined norms

and concepts became more present with the passage of time. Siddharameshwar Maharaj was

seemingly the first to introduce “The Bird's Way,” differing in its directness from the “The

Ant's Way” represented by his teacher, Bhausaheb Maharaj. Notwithstanding,

Gruban 5

Siddharameshwar's own teachings, focusing on the subjective rather than the objective, were

still strongly rooted in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta, which Nisargadatta Maharaj pays

noticeably less attention to although he is still considered to belong to the same Inchagiri

Sampradaya lineage. (This term does not fully capture the specificity of the philosophy either,

since it designates the causal order of successions within it more than its proper

characteristics; furthermore, thinkers such as Jiddu Krishnamurti are not immediately

connected to it but do exhibit many of the same intuitions, and their respective

consequences.) Without delving too deeply into the technicalities, it is Siddharameshwar's

initial decoupling of philosophy and systematic knowledge—further developed (or, rather,

deconstructed) by Nisargadatta Maharaj directly and Krishnamurti indirectly—that

constitutes a break from tradition in order to focus on the supposedly ever-present that does

not pertain to human or temporal progression. Not coincidentally, perhaps, the gradual

substitution of elaborate mythologies (often celebrating extraordinary feats and saints) for

unmitigated perception and feeling is mirrored to a conspicuous degree in the passage from

William Blake's writing to, for example, Wordsworth's or Shelley's. Where the former would

construct eclectic hierarchies and deeply interwoven allegories, the latter granted precedence

to the limited yet thoughtful observer and their particular, fleeting position within a world

only superficially transient (which may have also been present already in the less

theosophical portion of Blake's work, e.g. in the juxtaposition of the sunflower's pining

through the unbudging nature of time in “Ah! Sun-flower”).

All in all, the most concise factor capable of pinpointing the Indian philosophy in

question appears to be its non-anthropocentrism—or, arguably, its anti-anthropocentrism.

There is an adaptation in time here, too, most relevantly from Siddharameshwar Maharaj's

urging to employ the uniquely human faculties to the benefit of self-realization (before one

returns to life as a lesser being) to Nisargadatta Maharaj's denial of reincarnation, depriving

the human form of importance (Pointers 159, “Confusion about Life and Death”). Still, the

two fully agree on the 'I'—the principal level of existence—being independent from any

human identity. A consequence of this is that premeditation regarding the nature of life and

experience is not required, and maybe not even possible; there is a simultaneous shift from a

concern for 'material' circumstances to that which escapes materiality, and from mankind's

aptitude of analyzing those circumstances to that which eludes analysis. Thus the

'secularization' of this philosophy is executed not only in relation to others' systems of

Gruban 6

conception—religious, metaphysical, social, or of any other sort—but to one's own as well.

We may wrap up the introduction, if it still is that, by questioning the potential,

substantial importance of any of this. Even though Romanticism frequently problematizes

matters of peace, stability and belonging, the ending point of doubt is, be it in various shapes,

assurance. The Indian philosophy treated here achieves a similar effect by eliminating one's

frail safety constructed through assumptions in order to ultimately arrive at unmoving

tranquility; as such, both movements uphold an ideal of 'self-realization,' whether directly or

not. Additionally—whichever forces may have been at work to steadily separate literature

from philosophy throughout the ages—this comparison is partly aimed not at retrogression

towards homogeneity but at retrospection and reevaluation: at wondering why those two

concepts came to be considered as clearly distinct, what they may retain in common, and,

most emphatically, how one influences or considers the other. Romanticism continues to

present mysteries and, though they may never be resolved and seem more enchanting that

way, a different perspective might provide illuminating whisperings concerning the mystical

final lines of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” or Wordsworth's changing revolutionary attitude.

Conversely, Romantic writing provides more concrete embodiments of highly abstract and

subjective Indian philosophical approaches. While both streams of thought call the capacity

of words into question, comparing Indian philosophy and English Romanticism may fill some

gaps—uncover what lurks beyond their concepts and that which eludes direct speech. In the

dialogue the many texts cross-referenced here entertain, what lies at stake is the investigation

of ideas surrounding personal perceptions and practical purposes, immortality of the soul,

timelessness, morality, the faculty of knowledge and its dissemination, but all this taken as a

singular whole representative of reality (and thereby nuancing the opinion that Romantics

through their phantasy stray away from reality). Similarities between two movements that

have had little direct contact with each other serve to strengthen the notion that their mutual

discoveries transcend barriers cultural or of any other type. What ideally remains after

thorough comparison is a recognition of “modifying colors of imagination” as such, coupled

with an approximation of “the truth of nature.” The most concrete focus of the dissertation,

one inevitably underlying it entirely, is directed towards the use of language in pointing out

its own fallibility. Albeit in formally distinct manners, both English Romanticism and

contemporary Indian philosophy highlight the confines of their own work to suggest what lies

beyond—staying their hand at suggestions, for the eventual complexity of their texts serves a

Gruban 7

simplicity ruptured as soon as concepts solidify, whether that unity is titled Nature or

Parabrahman.

2. The East-West dichotomy and its influence

Any argument for wisdom existing independently from culture and general point of view,

“such as will be found in every village and its vicinity where there is a meditative and feeling

mind to seek after them, or to notice them when they present themselves,” benefits from a

scarcity of 'physical' links (Biographia Literaria 492); that is to say, the fewer immediate

connections can be retrieved between Indian spiritual teachings and English Romanticism,

the more significant similarities may become. Nevertheless, a brief overview of the sort of

contact there might have been between the two regions in question and their thinkers (for

what would a poet be if not a thinker as well?) remains indispensable, at least as a

background against which to contrast shared ideas that seem to have come about

independently.

If the limited space available in this dissertation could allow for an extensive analysis

of historical relationships and transactions between India and Britain, the most relevant

component would still be how specific authors conceived of the 'other' culture—and so this

matter might be directly focused on instead. There are not too many biographical links.

Among the more renowned British Romantics, Byron planted his footsteps eastward furthest,

passing through Turkey in 1810 (when he also swam from Sestos to Abydos). A number of

his works offer, “mix'd with Western sentimentalism, / Some samples of the finest

Orientalism” (Beppo LI 7-8). “Orientalism” as later brought to attention by Edward Wadie

Said and its romanticizing, ostracizing and patronizing implications proved itself popular in

the nineteenth century (Byron himself would publish a quartet of “Turkish tales:” The Giaour,

“The Bride of Abydos,” “The Corsair” and “Lara”), but it is noteworthy that the well-traveled

Englishman in Beppo attributes “sentimentalism” to the—otherwise often pretended to be

more rational—West, rather than to the Orient as for instance Gustave Flaubert would. Byron

presumably referred to the sensational reaction those events could induce in the West which

would, at least in the popular imagination, be considered as everyday occurrences in the East

where they were devoid of sentimentalism. Yet perhaps he witnessed a sense of detachment in

regions of Turkey, Cyprus and Greece (the latter's traditional culture not being, Martin Bernal

Gruban 8

argues in Black Athena, as inherently Western and 'Aryan' as it has rather consistently been

portrayed to be)—a sort of emotional detachment not only advised in Indian philosophy but

quintessential to it; Siddharameshwar Maharaj's Amrut Laya affirms that “[n]othing here is

based on emotions” (230). One would be engaging in another form of Orientalism

equivalating Asia Minor to India, but Byron's eventual implication that the East is less given

to sentimental judgments reverses the kind of stereotype a study such as this must be cautious

of.

As for his fellow Romantics, William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell has

Ezekiel, the Israelian prophet, preach that “[t]he philosophy of the East taught the first

principles of human perception” (plate 12, 154). Which philosophy from which part of the

East is never detailed, hinting at a homogenous conception of what lies east of Israel (while

Ancient Persia alone had various schools of thought, Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism

usually forefronted). Ezekiel seems to credit preceding, Eastern philosophy with laying the

groundwork for that which the Israelites would surpass with their principle of “Poetic Genius

[...] all the others merely derivative” (plate 12), and as such, he would be applying an old

trope representing the Orient's value as being outdated. In Western imaginations, the East is

frequently a place of birth but not quite as much one of growth—the West then represents

modern standards, and modernity in turn guarantees progress. William Wordsworth nuances

such a view, in accordance with how he investigated the moral impact of technological

advancements and adults' notions of virtue and knowledge as opposed to children's. “Heaven

lies about us in our infancy!” but “Shades of the prison-house begin to close / Upon the

growing Boy” (“Ode” 66-68); for Wordsworth, physical progress, the growth of the body and

the environment, can mean spiritual degradation—a loss of contact with nature and with a

clearer sense of identity and belonging. As that same “growing Boy” “daily farther from the

east / Must travel” (71-72), “the east” most likely functions as a metonym for the sun—

consecutively a metaphor for untainted life and inspiration—from which the youngling is

steadily and inevitably distanced with the passing of time as he heads off to the darkness of

his corporeal demise. Whether or not the East is in this case, as before, conceptualized as a

place of birth one must be separated from, Wordsworth calls a widespread opinion of growth

into question by implicating a purer mode of living in earlier stages compared to following

ones, drawing some legitimation away from Western presumptions that, simply put, new is

better. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley to the inclination of Orientalist

Gruban 9

writing towards the divertingly spectacular and mysterious add mystical connotations of great

power and wisdom unacknowledged in Europe. The former famously does so in “Kubla

Khan,” the latter via the protagonist of Alastor traveling towards the Hindu Kush or “Indian

Caucasus” that also sets a Sublime scene for Prometheus Unbound (the Norton Anthology

notes that this is “a region that the naturalist Buffon [whom Shelley often read] had identified

as the cradle of the human race” [761]). Additionally, “Ode to the West Wind” demonstrates

some familiarity with Hinduism by hailing the wind as “Destroyer and Preserver” (14),

alluding, the anthology again notices, to Shiva (the Destroyer) and Vishnu (the Preserver),

who—as concepts rather than as gods in a dogmatic, theological sense—feature prominently

in Siddharameshwar Maharaj's teachings. If the wind in this ode is taken to be the inspiration

for freedom blowing from America back to “the old continent” (which in the American

Heritage Dictionary is defined not as the second smallest continent but as “the sixth largest”

[“The Old Continent”]), such inspiration never seems to be fixed in one place, Western or

Eastern, but moves to and fro as warranted, required, or perhaps even summoned. Lastly in

this brief summary (also introducing the principal English Romantics studied for this paper),

John Keats aside from his interest in the Ancient Greeks sporadically included oriental

characters such as the Indian maid in Endymion. That maid later reveals herself to be Cynthia

(also known as Artemis or Diana); whether this is an equivalating (and therefore

discriminating) vision of Indian and Greek culture or simply an expression of things not truly

being as they seem, and of people's whereabouts not being linked to their higher

potentialities, is left to the interpretation. Couple this to the thought, featured in an 1809 letter

to George and Georgiana Keats sometimes given the title of “The Vale of Soul-Making,” that

Christianity and Hinduism share an ancestor in Persian and Greek philosophy, and it becomes

apparent that John Keats was generally interested in the East and its customs insofar as they

could add mystery and exotism to his own tales or affirm an idea in relation to the Christian

thinking surrounding him, while the specifics of Eastern philosophy—as with these other

English Romantics—did not attract his immediate attention (977).

Ultimately, it appears that on the one hand the involvement of that which is perceived

as Eastern in English Romanticism plays a supportive role—the Orient supplied a basis to be

developed by or strengthen the Occident. On the other hand, “Oriental tales feature [...] an

extravagance sometimes countered by wry humor even to the point of buffoonery. It is as

though the 'otherness' of Oriental settings and characters gives the staid British temperament

Gruban 10

a holiday,” and so images of the East allowed for playful variation, enthralling mysticism and

exploration of mores which in turn solidified Western social conventions (“Romantic

Orientalism”). Orientalism is not a main point in this thesis, however, as the direct relevance

lies in the question of if Romantics writing in English had taken note of Indian philosophy

and if they had an interest in studying it. From the few clues available it would seem not,

even if there is often a sense of respect towards Oriental antiquity and, in a paradoxical

fashion, its newness (to the West). Byron, Wordsworth and Shelley in these cases stand out as

respectively a traveler with active interests in the East, a philosopher doubting if rationality

and modernity were always the paths forward, and a young revolutionary ascribing values not

to places but to inspiration and intellectual power. Among his contemporaries, the latter's

knowledge of Hinduism hints at the greatest level of familiarity with Indian spirituality,

though the signs of this are still limited.

Conclusion of this chapter would not be fitting without consideration of the same

matter in the reverse direction, of which there is however not much to add. Although the three

Indian thinkers studied here wrote in the twentieth century, presumably having easier access

to foreign literature and philosophy than those living during the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries, none refer to specific Western authors nor systematic schools of thought.

Siddharameshwar Maharaj only mentions the teachings recorded in Dasbodh and the epic

Mahabharata, which his disciple Nisargadatta Maharaj leaves aside altogether, as Jiddu

Krishnamurti does, insisting on spontaneous and intuitive knowledge instead of the

unbudging variety that has customarily gained more recognition in Western Europe. An

implicit mutual agreement appears to be that “[a]rtwork done without Self-Knowledge is not

art,” and as knowledge of the self comes from within, searching without is only an

obstruction (Siddharameshwar 171). Krishnamurti does pay increased attention to his

physical environment, which he translates into spiritual feelings and considerations, for

example when repeatedly describing the quiet scene in Pine Cottage, California: “There are

no birds as yet singing their morning song. The world is asleep, at least in this part of the

world, far from all civilization, from the noise, the brutality, the vulgarity and the talk of

politicians” (Last Journal 66). His poetical musings and aptitude in English—

Siddharameshwar and Nisargadatta predominantly spoke Marathi—may whisper of intimacy

with Romanticism, but there seems to be no further evidence of that. As the opposite cannot

sufficiently be argued (for the time being), it appears safe to assume that the Englishmen in

Gruban 11

question were not acquainted with the Indian philosophy focused on, and vice versa.

3. Indivi-Duality (Knowledge)

The Romantic period is partly characterized, not only within English-speaking regions, by an

increasing significance of identities. From Walter Scott's Scottish ballads and historical

novels to socioeconomic physiological sketches such as Heads of the People, there is

growing concern for a community's groups, weighed usually against a generalized one from a

different community or against multiple factions within the same environment. Aside from

that preoccupation with greater (frequently caricatural) types, there is a matter more relevant

in this case: the basic identity of an individual. The following paragraphs are dedicated to

Shelley's questing hero in Alastor, Krishnamurti attributing all woes to a misconception of

belonging, and other instances of someone looking for what simultaneously defines and

transcends them. Moreover, the topic of an 'I' touches upon the 'we' as well once it surpasses

aleatory human conditions. To arrive at this, however, requires an exposition of how one is to

gain and manage information about oneself, and by extension even becomes a matter of how

to deal with knowledge in general—of wondering whether there is a way to perceive 'facts'

neutrally, and what such external information implies for the internal instance experiencing it.

A first component to look into is the idea of objectivity, since English Romanticism and

Indian spirituality draw attention to the liabilities of relying on systematic measurements and

believing that it is possible to gauge surroundings, events and attributes without bias.

3.1 Objectivity as a Liability (with Lie-ability)

Romanticism often being seen as opposed to empiricist or rational attitudes of the

Enlightenment, 'subjectivity' (cf. Coleridge's “modifying colors of imagination” [492]) is

considered a typical trait of the movement(s). As in its usual sense, that term then designates

emotionality, the drawing from personal experience, and sometimes, in a more negative

nuance, the warping of 'reality' or 'objectivity' due to affection. Wordsworth's “Lucy Poems,”

for example “She dwelt among the untrodden ways,” demonstrate to a first degree how

subjectivity gained validity: “The difference to me!” is at the end of the poem all that remains

Gruban 12

(12, emphasis added). The importance to the reader can likely only lie in empathy or in

having experienced similar feelings (that is to say, in another form of subjectivity). Straying

away from strict rationality and empiricism, based on observable and predictable rules,

acquires unique importance to Romantics who seek after what is immeasurable by

conventional standards, since objectivity functions within predefined paradigms. These

paradigms, also hailed in Enlightened France for instance, still could not prevent the

aftermath of the French Revolution, would not—or at least not yet—put a halt to slavery, nor

to modern oppression of women (a topic addressed by Mary Wollstonecraft and William

Blake, among others). The use of personal subject matter and personalized form becomes a

manner to deviate from societal norms and present-day conditions, delving more freely into

one's judgments. In Visions of the Daughters of Albion, opening with the bold “ENSLAV'D”

(142), Blake writes:

They told me that the night & day were all that I could see;

They told me that I had five senses to inclose me up,

And they inclos'd my infinite brain into a narrow circle,

And sunk my heart into the Abyss, … (143)

There is a sense of resistance running throughout this book (and, indeed, through a great

portion of Blake's activity), disputing that only “night & day” can be seen, with a mere “five

senses.” Doing so questions the very concept of 'objectivity:' as empiricism (in the West

traditionally reckoned to be the only truly impersonal mode of analyzing the world) relies on

—that is, indispensably requires—some form of limitation (measurement, equipment, laws,

repetition and so forth), Romanticism deems that there is a truth beyond those limits logically

inaccessible to the method that imposed those limits; “Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire,

Rousseau; / Mock on, Mock on, 'tis all in vain,” Blake would taunt (Blake's Notebook 1-2).

Poets such as Blake, in trying to cross these artificial borders (their falseness and force

accented by repetition of “[t]hey told me,” which “sunk my heart into the Abyss”), turn to

what was often criticized as meek sentimentality and an apparently wholly unscientific

method. Even though such criticism has been nuanced throughout the ages, even inverted as

commendation, the consensus still appears to be that the bulk of Romantic writers pursued a

spontaneous and subjective style. Taking the Indian philosophers' views into account,

Gruban 13

however, it may be worth adding that this style was simply an end to a greater means—that

this form of subjectivity, a conspicuous personal presence, was ultimately to lead to a

noninflected and immutable view of life in the broadest sense.

Doubt, skepsis, intuition or, to reiterate, resistance cause the concept of objectivity to

be called into question, and questioning must naturally precede the journey for an answer,

ideally headed towards a state without doubt or any form of anxiety; that objectivity is a

concept must be emphasized, for it refers to the system created by humans in an attempt of

mechanical understanding. Nisargadatta Maharaj in one of the talks compiled in Pointers

dismisses the notion of a reality observable yet 'neutral,' unaffected by human thought:

We consider as 'real' anything that is perceptible to the senses, and yet every

imaginable 'thing' that is sensorially perceptible must pass through an

interpretation by the mind before it is cognized. And anything that is thus

cognized is obviously only an appearance in the consciousness of the cognizer.

If whatever is sensorially perceptible is only an appearance, where then is the

reality of the physical form which seems so very 'real' and tangible? (78-79)

With such reasoning (Wordsworth's is very similar in the 1805 Prelude where the

autobiographical speaker expresses his “deepest feeling that the mind / Is lord and master,

and that outward sense / Is but the obedient servant of her will” [XI, 270-272]), subjectivity

cannot be escaped—the human mind always meddles in perception and even more so in what

people customarily strive for beyond those perceptions: valorization. If one's sight or hearing

is already inflected in the first place, how can judgments based on these impulses be entirely

disconnected from the observer? As implied before, subjectivity goes hand in hand with

resistance, departing from dissatisfaction with preexisting systems and going out in search of

the fountain of the water of life, freely. But subjectivity does not function entirely outside of

systems either—Christian inspiration for one, especially with Coleridge and Blake (and to a

slightly lesser degree Keats), remains palpable even in reinterpretation and modification,

mainly in relation to morality—to say nothing of the personality's proper limitations. Even if

the measurements and expectations of pretended objectivity are shunned, the measurements

and expectations of the author as an individual persist, their upbringing and culture carried

along in a nook subtle but not eliminated. Since objectivity and subjectivity both function

Gruban 14

with systems, then, the distinction between them is quite strongly blurred; the relevant

difference is still that the latter relies on the minimization of instrumentation and the

disregard or at least thorough questioning of principles formed a priori or by others.

When Blake claims that he “must Create a System or be enslaved by another Man's,”

he indicates that leaving the functioning within a system behind altogether is not his

objective, but rather the liberty in creating and adhering to a system (cited in NAEL 114).

Coleridge considered the same in his Lectures on Shakespeare, writing that “[t]he spirit of

poetry, like all other living powers, must of necessity circumscribe itself by rules, were it only

to unite power with beauty. […] For it is even this that constitutes its genius—the power of

acting creatively under laws of its own origination” (501). In “Proverbs of Hell,” part of The

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake makes several esoteric comments, notably in relation to

empiricism and the notion of a philosopher-poet: “Bring out number, weight, & measure in a

year of dearth” (plate 7, 14) suggests that measurement is not wholly dispensable, useless nor

detrimental, but that its temporal absence would induce a necessary refocusing on the

subjectivity that—as argued by Nisargadatta Maharaj—lies at the base of objectivity; the

problem with the latter would then be that its foundation in the former has been neglected. If

discarding empiricism, albeit temporarily, seems too destructive a measure, Blake notes that

“[n]o bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings” (15), implying that one cannot

indulge in proper capacities (Icarus did not fly with his own wings). Building on a tradition

from the Renaissance where fools or jesters such as the one in King Lear are portrayed with

innate, unconventional wisdom, he adds that “[i]f the fool would persist in his folly, he would

become wise” (18). A fool's folly is a magnified example of subjectivity, of straying away

from established norms, and in dedication to what may be conceived of as insanity or idiocy

by others the jester could be the only one to achieve an 'objective' goal—that of wisdom. The

artistic, Romantic bravado often attributed to Byron—due to his athletic displays and

amorous exploits, extraordinary pets, military leadership and his conscious profiling through

more than 40 portraits—is not absent from Blake's character, who did lead a more

unadventurous life in physical terms. His self-righteousness shows in the proverb “[t]he eagle

never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow” (plate 8, 19),

strengthening the poet's confidence in his ability and legitimizing full-fledged focus on the

self, unpreoccupied with the opinions of those deemed less gifted or devoted, “[e]xpect[ing]

poison from the standing water” (plate 9, 6). This confidence seems to have lent itself to all

Gruban 15

of the Romantic authors in question: John Keats, for instance, endured harsh criticism while

consistently continuing to practice his art even in anticipation of early death; Wordsworth's

pastoral poems also required a fair amount of courage in diverging so strongly from

widespread expectations of contemporary literature—a courage implicitly detailed in his

defense of choices made in the preface to Lyrical Ballads, where he added not being disposed

to “suffer [i.e. tolerate] a sense of false modesty” (296). Ironically, subjectivity amassed such

admiration that Coleridge would go as far as exaggerating his subconscious involvement in

composing “Kubla Khan:” John Livingston Lowes demonstrated in The Road to Xanadu that

the poem feeds off of printed sources, and so, contrary to Coleridge's own claims, it was not

brought about (entirely) by his personal fantasies or hallucinations (24-25).

As is apparent, the development of personal styles led to widely varying texts and

approaches. What these poets seem to have had in common was a quest to approach the

indescribable—be it the little girl's intuitive reasoning in “We Are Seven,” the “invisible

inhabitants of this planet” in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (447), or supernatural poetic

possession in Alastor. The “modifying colors of imagination” come to mind again as an

expression of both the attraction personal additions and transformations exert as of “the truth

of nature” which spouts those colors always being the same. Subjectivity—in the common,

intuitive sense of the word—has certainly not been misattributed to the Romantics, but its

purpose and reception may have been. If Romantic poets envisioned an immutable essence

(carefully as this word must be used) beyond individual perception, the latter merely

constituted a necessary stepping stone to be developed independently, unshackled from

pretensions of objectivity.

A particular look into the concept of subjectivity and how it affected the authors

themselves is offered by Wordsworth's lament, after the drowning in a shipwreck of his

brother John, in “Elegiac Stanzas.” A brief hailing of powers and motivations past, of a time

when the speaker would still have “seen the soul of truth in every part, / A stedfast peace that

might not be betrayed” (31-32), is succeeded by an affirmation of intensive change:

So once it would have been,—'tis so no more;

I have submitted to a new control:

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;

A deep distress hath humanised my Soul. (34-36)

Gruban 16

Diffusion of the subjective, harmonizing “power” described up until that point of the poem

leads to submission “to a new control,” which appears to be a reversal of Blake's resistance of

another Man's “System” by creating his own. In this degradation through “deep distress,” use

of the word “humanised” (spelling is not americanized in quotations) stands out. From

Petrarch to Erasmus and through to contemporaneity, it seems that to be humanized—

cultivated, capable, worldly—has been considered an achievement worth striving for.

However, it also includes being concerned with earthly affairs and their functioning, which,

as discussed, Romantic poets often seemed to move away from—Wordsworth in the same

poem notes great “happiness” when “at distance from the Kind [i.e. humankind]” (52, 53). To

be drawn back into society and its sufferings may be the greatest cause for mourning in

“Elegiac Stanzas,” the passing away of a loved one only the worldly event which ruptures a

former, cosmic harmony. It is as though the speaker, a voice very near to Wordsworth

himself, regrets returning to the state of being an individual. The wholesomeness of seeing

“the soul of truth in every part” has disintegrated, and the persona can no longer view

themselves as the embodiment of that soul of truth but merely as a will-less fragment of it, in

resignation clinging to the solace that “[n]ot without hope we suffer and we mourn” (60). The

currently most relevant conclusion that could be drawn from this is that the poet's

'subjectivity,' their personal involvement, seeks to attain an impersonal state whereas being

“humanised” means being dragged back to the mortal, divided plane. We may consider the

following lines from the second book of The 1805 Prelude:

Thou art no slave

Of that false secondary power by which

In weakness we create distinctions, then

Deem that our puny boundaries are things

Which we perceive, and not which we have made. (220-224)

This extract hints at the foundational intention of 'subjectivity.' As outlined above, to function

within a personal system is still to accept limitations. In contradicting the truthfulness of

distinctions—claiming that we perceive them, assuming them to be real, while we have

mentally constructed them—the distinctions seemingly making up an individual personality

Gruban 17

are logically called into question as well. And if there is doubt concerning the existence of an

individual, can there truly be 'subjectivity' in the common sense of the word? Perhaps this

Romantic subjectivity means to reach beyond the subject, to transcend it, to 'forget oneself,'

as it were, accepting neither the scientific limitations of objectivity nor the personal ones of

subjectivity. The reason 'humanization' is mourned is then because it causes the speaker to

“fall back to old idolatry” (Prelude XIII, 432): it disables the unobstructed view that an

undivided stance—or rather, the refusal to create divisions—uniquely offers. This

wholesomely incorporating potential of observation was also expressed in the “Elegiac

Stanzas” by mention of “the soul of truth in every part,” even if it was lost again by personal

grievance which refocused attention to worldly affairs (and here “worldly” equals “divided,”

for to function on earth and in society one creates distinctions out of necessity). If indeed the

goal of Romantic subjectivity is to attain a unifying 'supra-subjective' state (a concept further

developed in §3.2 Duality), significant similarities with Indian philosophy surge.

Siddharameshwar and Nisargadatta Maharaj specifically employ 'objectivity' and

'subjectivity' in a different sense—a sense more grammatical in basic functioning but with

ramifications exceeding linguistics. For them, 'objective' designates the object of perception

or thought—an object created by the observer's own distinctions (cf. Wordsworth) that is

therefore seen as different from the observer or subject. Such a manner of comprehension is

called “conditional objective knowledge” since it is affected by cultural and social upbringing

(Siddharameshwar 46). It is treated as the reason why, even when knowing that a chair is

made primarily or even entirely of wood, we still insist on calling the object “chair” and not

“wood” (295). In other words, the shape of objects, the shape humans assign to them and start

recognizing from then on in, clouds a view of entirety by creating divisions:

It has become our habit that when looking at a smaller thing, that which is

objective, we forget the bigger thing, that which is subjective. … The process

is such that even when we look at a wall, we forget the house itself, and when

we discover objects in the light, we forget about the light, and when we are

reading letters written on a piece of paper, we are not conscious of the paper at

all. (56-57)

Subjectivity is considered as “the bigger thing” compared to objectivity for a reason already

Gruban 18

discussed via Nisargadatta Maharaj: the subject or 'observing entity' can absorb all that it

views 'outside' of itself, even as it is twisted by the habits of the mind. In a more implied

manner, English Romanticism also entertains the notion that objects can be comprehensively

integrated by a greater power, for example Coleridge's “fusion to force many into one”

(“Lectures on Shakespeare” 500) and Wordsworth's poet-seer who “sees the parts, / As parts,

but with a feeling of the whole” (Prelude IX, 712-713). Krishnamurti highlights that “[w]hat

thought has created, […] shapes its own thinking,” so that instances of objectivity are layered

on top of subjectivity at an exponentially increasing rate (90). Wordsworth's dreaded

humanization is then brought about by the mind's own reasoning, measuring, recognizing and

comparing. It is important to note the difference between a more standard conception of

'subjectivity' and the meaning of that same word as employed here; the former is still exposed

to those acts summarized above that are otherwise related to 'objectivity' in the empirical

sense, while the latter attempts to rise above them and reacquaint itself with a state before

divisions, one of observation without judgment or attempt at confinement. Comparisons,

Krishnamurti reiterates, are particularly binding:

Measurement is not only by the rule; measurement exists in the very brain: the

tall and the short, the better, the more. This comparative process has existed

for time beyond time. We are always comparing. The passing of examinations

from school, college, university – our whole way of living has become a series

of calculated measurements: the beautiful and the ugly, the noble and ignoble

[...] Measurement has been necessary to man. And the brain, being conditioned

to measurement, to comparison, tries to measure the immeasurable –

measuring with words that which cannot ever be measured. [...] This

comparison has brought a great many fears and sorrows. (84-85)

Due to the conflicting irony that this entire dissertation is built around comparison, it is worth

repeating that the words employed are but pragmatic approximations (cf. §5.1)—to blur

divisions remains the final objective.

The three Indian philosophers treated here consider the 'subject' to be infinite—a

thought shared by, among others, Blake: “If the doors of perception were cleansed every

thing would appear to man as it is, infinite” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell plate 14, 155).

Gruban 19

(Whether or not “every thing” is aimed at 'subjectivity' alongside outer objects, if everything

is reflected in observing subjectivity then that subjectivity would be infinite as well.) Infinity

exposes another debility of measurement and comparison: “That which is immeasurable

cannot be measured by words. We are always trying to put the immeasurable into a frame of

words, and the symbol is not the actual. But we worship the symbol, therefore we always live

in a limited state” (Krishnamurti 72). Such states, Siddharameshwar Maharaj adds, are

created by the intellect and therefore “exist solely in the intellect” (222), from which it

follows that objectivity is the sole obstruction in being unlimited, i.e. free; for Krishnamurti,

peace of mind and liberty reign when learning “[t]o live without comparison, to live without

any kind of measurement inwardly” (85). Nisargadatta Maharaj also designates wrongly

attributed 'subjectivity'—in the usual sense of the word, as in the 'emotionality' and 'personal

involvement' often attributed to Romantics even if it seems they were aware of its limiting

consequences—as the source of man-made delusions: “what happens is that the functional

core of a psychosomatic form (we might call it the 'personal' consciousness for our analysis,

although consciousness cannot be divided as such) gets bestowed with a spurious subjectivity

as a separate entity, although it is itself only an object with the noumenon as the only subject”

(84). “Noumenon” is used with the meaning of “Pure Being” or “Absolute Awareness,” in

Greek traditionally the opposite of “phenomenon,” that which exists without attributes,

allowing for observation of the temporal and relative. Nisargadatta Maharaj's conclusion is

identical to Krishnamurti's when exposing “the desire to capture reality at the mind-level; it

means trying to capture the unknown and unknowable within the parameters of the known! It

cannot be done” (94). Objectivity is explicitly renounced by all three philosophers as a

product of the subjective; with the latter creating and embodying the former, it becomes the

focal point of their attention.

Romantic poets and Indian philosophers alike have recognized subjectivity as a

governing 'body' in relation to objectivity. Questions that might follow are: how does

someone get to know subjectivity, how does one stand in relation to it, and where exactly

does this leave objects? Coleridge writes that “[i]n order to obtain adequate notions of any

truth, we must intellectually separate its distinguishable parts; and this is the technical of

philosophy. But having so done, we must then restore them in our conceptions to the unity in

which they actually coexist; and this is the result of philosophy” (Biographia Literaria 493).

He affirms that distinctions are not present in the world as such but are creations required in

Gruban 20

recognizing the unity which underlies general existence. When that recognition is established,

the 'scaffolding' of concepts, measurements and comparisons can be taken down.

Siddharameshwar Maharaj's words have a similar meaning: “To see everything according to

the established habits of perception, is what is called 'imperfect vision,'” while “Self-

Knowledge means 'perfect vision'” (293). “Self-Knowledge” is a frequently repeated term in

philosophy; in this context it refers to wisdom regarding the subject—that which perceives

and is therefore not the object of perception. Naturally, discordance arises as soon as one

attempts to gain knowledge about that which is not perceived—Nisargadatta Maharaj admits

that “relative reasoning [measuring, contrasting qualities etc.] may be effective, and indeed

necessary, for describing objects by comparison. But how can it work with the subjective?

That which conceives — the subject — obviously cannot conceive itself as an object! The

eye can see everything else except itself!” (107). In wondering how Coleridge's view of unity

might function practically and how one can treat the base of one's functioning instead of its

objects, 'duality' becomes a key topic.

3.2 Duality

The basic distinction between 'subject' and 'object' functions as the pivotal point for duality,

or a disconnection between what perceives and what is perceived. Coleridge, for one, was

actively concerned with such disconnection, seeing it as a rupture of natural harmony. The

Norton Anthology of English Literature treats as “[o]ne of his major legacies […] the notion

that culture, the nation's artistic and spiritual heritage, represents a force with the power to

combat the fragmentation of a modern, market-driven society and to restore a common,

collective life” (“Samuel Taylor Coleridge” 439). However, restoration of such fragmentation

in Coleridge's imagination does not seem limited to social and economic aspects, for it “has

the capacity to dissolve the divisions (between, for instance, the perceiving human subject

and his or her objects of perception) that characterize human beings' fallen state”

(“Biographia Literaria” 487). The “fallen state” has Christian overtones that are nonetheless

not necessarily linked to religious conceptions, for the six Romantic poets studied in this

dissertation all demonstrate inner indications of and inclinations towards harmony and

totality, though warring with conflicting environments and contradicting impulses. The idea

of a fall from grace and unity features prominently in Blake's mythmaking, where the

Gruban 21

“mythical premise, or starting point, is not a transcendent God but the 'Universal Man' who is

God and who incorporates the cosmos as well” (“William Blake” 115). A “transcendent God”

can be understood to be a traditionally theological God: an omnipotent ruler who can either

actively intervene in the world that He has created or passively observe it, and to whom no

mortal being can be likened even if they were made in His image. Nisargadatta Maharaj's

exposition of the objective being reflected in the subjective (§3.1) provides the same

argument as the notions of being “Universal” and “incorporating the cosmos” do. Moreover,

Siddharameshwar Maharaj repeatedly refers to the subject as a godlike power that is itself not

only perceiver but also creator, for simply by conceiving of entities they are impressed upon

the mind. In other words: “The concept is the cause and the world is the effect. God and the

devotee coexist, meaning that one cannot exist without the other. God exists only when a

devotee imagines him, and without God there is no devotee” (114), which his disciple

paraphrases as: “this-here-now, this conscious presence [i.e. the 'subject'], cannot be anything

other than God. It is this which one loves more than anything else because without it there is

no universe, no God” (Pointers 116). Such words summon Percy Bysshe Shelley's final ones

in (and to) “Mont Blanc.” Having enumerated and praised the mountain's powers seemingly

exceeding the observer's in every way, the rhetorical question “[a]nd what were thou, and

earth, and stars, and sea, / If to the human mind's imaginings / Silence and solitude were

vacancy?” (142-144) ultimately implies that all those powers would be null without a

consciousness to witness them.

Yet saying that the subject—consciousness, the Self or however one wishes to call it

—equals or brings forth the existence of God does not yet reveal anything about the nature of

that principal entity itself (if it even is an entity to begin with). “The wilderness,” Shelley

writes, “has a mysterious tongue / Which teaches awful doubt” (76-77); the last two words

are glossed as “Awe-filled open-mindedness” in the Norton Anthology (772). That open-

mindedness itself appears to include an erosion of barriers between perceiver and perceived

—a disconnection from assumptions and preestablished concepts allowing for a more

profound connection between the speaker and his environment: the solemn, foundational,

Sublime “wilderness” from which energy and wisdom spring when reflected in

consciousness. It stands out that the poetic persona's role in the poem is quite limited—

compared to the one in Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey” for example—seemingly doing not

much more than gazing, consistently, while his mind “passively / Now renders and receives”

Gruban 22

(37-38, emphasis added). The physical presence of the poet (it seems fair to liken him to the

speaker in this case, even if it requires particular caution) serves the purpose of a conduit: it is

necessary to establish mutual influencing, but the influencing takes place without concern for

it. What is more is that even the mind appears to function in a similar way, “passively”

transmitting a power that it cannot truly grasp. The “gaze” (34, 99) may feed off of visual

impulses though it remains anything but confined to sight of the external—Blake in this

regard bemoans “a catastrophic change from imaginative insight (which sees the cosmos as

unified and humanized) to sight by the physical eye (which sees the cosmos as a multitude of

isolated individuals in an inhuman and alien nature)” (“William Blake” 115); gazing

effectively achieves witnessing of what cannot be directly seen, and brings about “a trance

sublime and strange” because of which, the speaker claims, he can “muse” on his own

“human mind” (35-37). But as postulated previously, and can otherwise be logically posited,

one cannot be what one observes—“The eye can see everything else except itself!”

(Nisargadatta 107)—so likewise, if one can meditate on one's “human mind,” that which

performs the “musing” must be different from the mind in order to be able to conceive of it.

Shelley does not seem to treat the mind as the center of thoughts either, instead referring to

the unnamed “source of human thought” stemming from “secret springs” at the very

beginning of the poem (4-5). This concept that surpasses knowledge (and is therefore not a

concept in the fullest sense) is circularly brought up again near the end as “The secret

strength of things / Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome / Of heaven is as a law,”

with the addition that it “inhabits thee!” (139-141). The “thee” can once more be interpreted

as part of the apostrophe to Mont Blanc itself, although the lack of clarity in this respect

might be intentional so that “thee” could refer to any entity able to hear the words, including

the reader. While the adjective “secret” is reiterated, that there is a “secret strength” from

“secret springs” is not a secret itself—on the contrary, being in the presence of Mont Blanc

makes existence of the force abundantly, overwhelmingly clear even if its nature cannot be

traced. It could then only intuitively be felt that this “[w]hich governs thought” is the deepest

subjective power, the one that allows all impulses to be brought forth from it and back

towards it, at the same time making it impossible to gain sensory information of it. Without

the possibility of perception of the “secret strength,” it would follow that no attributes, no

characteristics, no inner distinctions can be applied to it whatsoever, and that it would indeed

be indivisible, omnipresent, universal; a 'unity' in every aspect by incorporating any form of

Gruban 23

duality.

Duality is still noticeable within the poem: the speaker, after all, gazes “To muse on

my own separate phantasy, / My own, my human mind” (36-37). This “phantasy,” as part of

the “human mind” and therefore also rooted in “The secret strength of things / Which governs

thought” is arguably another expression of Coleridge's “modifying colors:” even when

transmuting and transforming impulses, it necessarily departs from that which is painted as

immortal (“The everlasting universe of things;” a “primæval,” “perpetual stream” which

“Wraps all in its own deep eternity,” [1, 29, 99, 109]) and inherently unbending (“The still

and solemn power” [128]). As the persona is “Seeking among the shadows that pass by /

Ghosts of all things that are, …” (45-46), looking for the essence existing in everything, they

continue “till the breast / From which they [the “shadows” and “ghosts”] fled recalls them,

thou art there!” (47-48). The destination of the adventurer's quest lies not in the shimmers of

universality, which can only be witnessed indirectly through its concrete manifestations, but

rather in the all-enveloping realization that the universality is already “there,” that is to say,

inside each “shadow” and “ghost” and therefore everywhere. With “the breast” or the source

“recalling” its manifestations, attention is refocused from the physical and temporary to

whatever it is that enables them to be observed in the first place. That this 'life-energy' (a term

Siddharameshwar Maharaj in particular uses frequently, and which might approach Shelley's

conceptions) is inherently present in objects regardless of the shapes they assume is

reinforced on several occasions, from “Power in likeness of the Arve” rushing down (16), to

the rocks that “have overthrown / The limits of the dead and living world” (112-113) and, at

the apex, Mont Blanc (“the power is there” [127]), as the dominating center: an intimidating

indication of just how far that power can reach. Thus Shelley treats manifestations both

imposing and subtle as springing from the same “source of human thought,” dissolving

superficial fragmentation in deep—unknowable, even—subjective unity.

Non-physical coherence also became noticeable, and with Coleridge actively

endorsed, in literary form. In his Lectures on Shakespeare he praises the quality of “oneness”

in skillful description, which stands in particular relation to “nature, the greatest of poets”

(500). On the one hand, nature is emblematic of existential unity, connecting the most

varying of shapes and characteristics to one primordial principle. On the other, it precisely

includes variation to such a great extent that one's attention is more easily captured by

difference than by similarity. Coleridge's idea of a combinatorial poetics condensing

Gruban 24

multitudes of images and impulses into “oneness”—bestowed the name of “organic form” as

opposed to “[m]echanical form result[ing] from imposing a system of preexisting rules on the

literary material” (501)—in its transcendence of distinctions could even be said to surpass the

organic. The ultimate aim is to establish “the power of so carrying on the eye of the reader as

to make him almost lose the consciousness of the words—to make him see everything—and

this without exciting any painful or laborious attention” (500-501). That power bears

resemblance to Shelley's “gaze,” as it also functions without strain nor effort (in Shelley's

words “passively” [37]), and employs “sight” not in a conventional, physical sense but as an

imaginative faculty capable of combination and therefore restoration. Both poets seem to

recognize that the gaze or the effortless, unifying use of organic language is still merely a

facet of whatever it is that escapes human thought—“an implicit wisdom,” Coleridge says,

“deeper than consciousness” (502). If it is deeper than consciousness then such wisdom could

never be attained, let alone utilized, in any conventional way. It may even seem like the poets,

as individuals, can close the distance between their knowledge and this “implicit wisdom” to

a certain extent only when admitting the inaccessibility of that wisdom while retaining a

sense of their own connection to it. Harmonious observation and thoughtful human creation

hence become abilities employed to heighten awareness of what is ever-present though latent

(instead of dominant) in mundane perception. Awareness is key, for if unity can be retrieved

at any place and any time, it need not be searched for actively but rather seen, recognized as

such. Perhaps it cannot even be searched for considering that one starting a search is

implying the current absence of what they are seeking; looking for the omnipresent is a

paradox because the very need to look would deny omnipresence of the sought. Gazing

departs from visual impulses to 'see' the invisible linking them, which is always possible but

can especially be inspired by Sublime environments such as Mont Blanc's. Similarly,

Coleridge's idea of organic language and syncretic imagery uses combination to bring

connections to light. Keats, in writing a letter to John Hamilton Reynolds, seems to have been

wary of artificial combinations in his Hyperion, or “the false beauty proceeding from art” as

opposed to encountering spontaneous and inherent qualities, highlighting “the true voice of

feeling” (cited in the NAEL 953). In the abandoned epic poem, the speaker takes note of:

A power within me of enormous ken,

Gruban 25

To see as a God sees, and take the depth

Of things as nimbly as the outward eye

Can size and shape pervade. … (303-306)

Among several meanings of the word “ken,” the Oxford English Dictionary offers “[m]ental

perception or recognition” and “exercise of vision; look, gaze” (emphasis added). This

“enormous power,” like Shelley's and Coleridge's, is treated as a divine property departing

from “size and shape,” peering into a “depth” not visible to the (bodily) eye alone, with the

eventual implication that the specifics of the material form are at best of secondary

importance just as Coleridge advised a literary style that would leave the precise words in the

background to put organic unity and the richness of combination in the forefront. All three of

these poets describe the ability of uncovering greater significance within physically lesser

units as a “power,” capitalized or not, and as one employed knowingly (Coleridge 502), even

when it is passive or effortless.

There is a misleading hint of a paradox in that Romantic poets and their characters

often seem able to discover their connection to the surroundings, and perhaps to all of

creation, only when they are solitary—a major attribute of Byron's work is “its insistence on

his or his hero's self-sufficiency,” while “Wordsworth had already characterized his poetic

experimentation in Lyrical Ballads as an exercise in artistic self-sufficiency” (“The Romantic

Period” 19). As hypothesized in the previous paragraph, recognition of universal values

requires no true discovery nor active enterprise, but rather a proper scenario for such

understanding to arrive spontaneously. That scenario, in English Romantic literature, is

frequently one occupied by (supra-)natural forces and not by humans, sparking intense

feeling and not analytical thinking. “The Eolian Harp” revels in the stillness of the scene, as

“pensive Sara” (presumably Sara Fricker—Coleridge's wife) is silently reclined, with all the

time in the world to “watch the clouds” and “mark the star of eve / Serenely brilliant (such

should wisdom be)” (1, 6-8). The notion of being serene—tranquil, undisturbed, clear-minded

—but brilliant—vibrant, remarkable, active—at the same time brings together seemingly

irreconcilable states in one simple, natural, organic image, especially when the slow waning

of the clouds is compared to the evening star that “Shine[s] opposite!” (9). The solemnity in

its near-soundlessness does not mean there is a lack of impulses and the inspiration that could

Gruban 26

arise from them; on the contrary, it is precisely the absence of excessive motion that allows

natural forces to go about unobstructed, and the observer(s) to witness them with undivided

attention. In “the world so hushed” (10), silence is not void but “Music slumbering on her

instrument” (33). Akin to the Eolian harp's functioning with the wind alone, the poet finds

“Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where” (29) when contemplating the elements

without rushing after them, becoming aware of “the one life within us and abroad, / Which

meets all motion and becomes its soul” (26-27). The repetition of “all”—once more in the

afterthought that “Methinks, it should have been impossible / Not to love all things in a world

so filled” (30-31)—underlines universality and unity; “all” is indeed everywhere, and it

appears to be the same energy, i.e. “the one life within us and abroad,” that gives motion to

the speaker's surroundings and to themselves. Calling omnipresent potential for activity and

experience “the noumenon” or “that-which-is” instead of “the one life,” Nisargadatta Maharaj

alludes to the same “secret strength:” “Noumenally, I can have neither presence nor absence

because both are concepts. The sense of presence is the concept which turns the unicity of the

Absolute into the duality of the relative. Unmanifested, I am the potential which in

manifestation becomes the actual” (157, author's emphasis). Nisargadatta's negation of the

present-absent dichotomy provides insight into universality, for if something can be

conceived of as 'present,' the diametrically opposite concept 'absent' is conjured as well—

either as a possibility under certain circumstances or as an already relevant state—and as long

as there is the slightest trace of 'absence,' there can be no 'omnipresence' or universality.

Moreover, with Coleridge (or his speaker) minimizing the differences between what he views

as himself and what he sees or feels around him, he emphasizes the singularity of “one life”

assuming varying shapes. Siddharameshwar noted above that perceivers tend “not [to] look at

the basic thing itself, but are influenced by the shape it takes” (293); this shape can be likened

to what Nisargadatta in the preceding quotation dubs “manifestation:” the (temporary and

changeable) form something appears in, stemming from an essence but at the same time

clouding vision of that essence. Coleridge's erosion of objective attributes and distinctions—

connecting the clouds to the stars, Eolian harp to poet, music to philosophical thought—is

arguably, again like Shelley's gaze, a transcendence of material allowing its immaterial

similarity to be witnessed (and praised, “lov[ing] all things”). In the poet's self-leveling to

their surroundings, where the slightest increase in wind brings forth poetic contemplation,

there is no 'greater' and no 'lesser,' no true measuring and comparing as denounced by

Gruban 27

Krishnamurti, but quite simply “all”—totality, making the very question of distance or

connection obsolete. The bravado of the Romantic artist as a genial and singular creator is

thus drawn into doubt:

And what if all of animated nature

Be but organic harps diversely framed,

That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps

Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

At once the Soul of each, and God of All? (44-48)

Rather than viewing themselves as an inimitable and independent force, the poetic persona

questions if they may simply be an “organic harp:” a physical composition for an immaterial

power, “one intellectual breeze,” to manifest itself in, as that same one power is manifested in

all other varieties of “animated nature” as well. The repetition of “all” is once again

noteworthy, alongside use of the word “plastic,” which in this case could refer equally to the

characteristic of being moldable and to the ability of molding. In other words, the “breeze”—

non-physical, invisible, immortal—would not only be shaped by the forms it interacts with

but also shapes the forms itself. Comparable to the subjective incessantly and thoroughly

influencing the objective that it views (§3.1), this existential power goes against the

instinctive (or conditioned, or instinctive because it is conditioned) assumption that the

manifestation modifies what is manifested—i.e. that the “diversely framed” physical

constructions impact the nature of the “breeze.” If there is indeed exactly one breeze, an

indivisible unity, it would follow that this “Soul of each” could not be changed as to assume

multiple, differing natures. The conviction of the unity of the intellectual power described as

a breeze is an entirely intuitive one, and can only be intuitive, stemming from gazing and

dissipating notions of the 'ego' as a separate entity by witnessing similarities in the

environment, by recognizing the perceiver's role in interpretation, and hence by mutual

influence; if any evidence of this intuitive impulse can be offered, it is that it is a

spontaneously recurring one, encountered explicitly within Indian philosophy too.

If Coleridge considers his body to be an organic apparatus through which a greater

Gruban 28

creative power could interact with other physical manifestations, he strongly echoes the

words of Siddharameshwar and Nisargadatta Maharaj. For these two thinkers, there exists no

such thing as an individual (in this I would be mistaken to refer to them as two separate

philosophers, but it seems to be a necessary convention). The premise is that within each

conscious being there is a faculty of awareness—an ability to observe and to experience.

Nisargadatta Maharaj points to this subjectivity, “pure Being” or, in Siddharameshwar

Maharaj's words, “the Great-Causal body,” by reasoning that regardless of one's age and the

changes a personality can go through with the passing of time one inherently feels an essence,

which itself does not change and defines the sense of “I am” (1-2). The body is treated as a

mechanism brought forth through and defined by circumstances out of its reach:

Think. What happened in your mother's womb? What was developing into a

body with bones, blood, marrow, muscles etc., over a period of nine months?

Was it not a male sperm cell that combined with ovum in the female womb

thus beginning a new life and, in the process, going through numerous

hazards? Who guarded this new life during this period of hazards? Is it not that

very infinitesimally tiny sperm cell which is now so proud of his

achievements? And who asked particularly for you? […] Did you have

anything to do with being born to these particular parents? (Nisargadatta 2)

This view of the body as an accidental phenomenon is carried over concerning the mind.

One's physical construction comes into being through the consumption of food, is ultimately

to become food itself, and is altered by various environmental parameters—likewise the mind

is affected by body, society, preferences, aptitudes; by chance, so that its functioning may not

be as independent as it is customarily assumed to be. Coleridge seems to give voice to the

same in regarding his body as (possibly) no more than an “organic harp:” a construction

endowed with the capacity to “tremble into thought” although the faculty initiating the

trembling is an “intellectual breeze” not contained by neither body nor mind, instead exerting

its influence freely on “all of animated nature.”

But what is the “breeze,” where is it and how does it come about? Coleridge's implicit

claim is that it cannot be the body nor the mind because these are influenced by the breeze.

Gruban 29

To the Indian philosophers in question, it is the capacity to feel a creative strength that is

itself the prime principle:

What is it without which no one would be able to perceive anything or do

anything? Without which you would not be able to ask any questions and I

would not be able to answer? If you and I were not conscious, could we have

had this conversation? What is 'consciousness'? Is it not the sense of being

present, being alive? This sense of Conscious Presence does not really have

reference to any individual being present: It is sense of conscious presence, as

such. (Nisargadatta 179)

Blake's works may present the clearest Romantic illustration of such significance attached to

a constant driving force. “To Me This World is all One continued Vision of Fancy or

Imagination,” he wrote in a letter to Dr. John Trusler, adding that “to the Eyes of the Man of

Imagination Nature is Imagination itself” (163). This would suggest an intricate connection,

if not complete equivalence, between the functioning of humans and their surroundings. What

“Imagination” is to Blake appears to represent the same as the “sense of Conscious Presence”

to Nisargadatta Maharaj: in a way, it is a life-giving power, imbuing otherwise inanimate

objects (including the physical body) with a quality that relates them and grants them

meaning. That the meaning is granted is important to note, since these objects would be

'neutral' in their properties—that is to say, basic, conditioned, independent of moral, artistic or

philosophical value—without it. To the age-old question of whether a tree falling in an

abandoned forest would make a sound, Indian spirituality responds that nothing (including

the very idea of existence) can be in the world without a consciousness to observe it: “If I am

not (conscious), […] the world is not (as in deep sleep). It is only when I am conscious that

the world exists for me” (Nisargadatta 179). Romantics might either retort that there is never

such a thing as an abandoned forest (considering that life can be found all around—that the

forest itself teems with it), or, like the Indian philosophers, that it is experience itself that

causes and creates.

In the concise treatise “All Religions Are One,” Blake explicitly claims that “the true

faculty of knowing must be the faculty which experiences” (116), or that knowledge is

Gruban 30

governed by the consciousness enabling it to take hold. That thought carries two significant

implications. First, if the irreplaceable quality of consciousness is the dominant trait

characterizing a wide spectrum of entities, the precise form of those entities is of lesser

importance: “As all men are alike in outward form, So (and with the same infinite variety) all

are alike in the Poetic Genius,” while “the forms of all things are derived from their Genius”

(ibid.). Appearances are then manifestations of the ungraspable potential that is the Genius,

based on it and not affecting it. The second point, which ties into this, is that of unification.

Whichever unspecified distinctions (if any) may exist between Poetic Genius, Fancy,

Imagination or Pure Consciousness, they have in common that they transcend mundane

divisions. All matters of what, how, where and even when or why converge in the very

possibility of posing such questions. Then there remain no physical considerations to

distinguish people, nor metaphysical ones to separate their concepts, nor anything of the sort.

“The true Man is the source, he being the Poetic Genius,” Blake maintains (ibid.), so that it is

from the primal creative force that all else follows.

In terms of duality, one might thus detect the problematization of divisions, practical

as they may be, departing from a unifying principle though simultaneously obscuring it from

human perception. What is still to be said about a number of specifics on the subject might be

more efficiently treated in combination with more established and accessible Western

disciplines; that is what the following section intends to serve. Keeping in mind concerns for

subject/object dichotomies, the perceiver's position possibly being obstructed by themselves,

and an identification surpassing the individual, a comparison of English Romanticism with

the philosophies of German Idealists, Arthur Schopenhauer, Plato, Parmenides and Zeno may

assist in differentiating Romanticism from these schools, pointing out some of its

peculiarities in a more direct manner, while suggesting why its eventual connection to Indian

spirituality might be more comprehensive.

4. Indivi-Duality and Western philosophies

The question of how English Romanticism relates to (other) Western philosophies has been

delayed until now so that considerations from §3 might feature in more direct comparisons.

Additionally, this section recapitulates some of the main similarities between Romanticism

Gruban 31

and Indian spirituality, leading towards the relatively concrete but theoretically laden §5.

Immortality. Perhaps Wittgenstein's statement that “[m]ost questions and propositions of the

philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language” is

valuable to keep in mind (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 4.003). (Wittgenstein is not

compared in detail due to lack of space and his focus on linguistic systems with little direct

reference to what transcends their boundaries.) This thought will feature more extensively in

§5., increasing the focus on knowledge and language, but at present calls attention to the

fairly artificial nature of the following extrapolations: language establishes duality,

subsequently becomes aware of it, and then tries to resolve it for itself.

Diverse the philosophical approaches below certainly are (German Idealism even

fluctuates considerably within its own sphere)—what brings them together is the will to

fathom the principles that guide them, not to mention that English Romanticism is regularly

asserted to be connected to these legacies. Due to the latter, and in order to restrict

superfluous repetition, differences will be forefronted rather than similarities, as a pertinent

matter remains why Indian spirituality might be considered more suitable a backdrop against

which to project the metaphysical content of Romantic texts.

4.1 German Idealism

Amidst a general “idea that human beings do not see the world directly, but through a number

of categories” and several authors, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, claiming an explicit

correlation between Romanticism and Idealism, the two cultural and philosophical

movements are regularly linked together (McQuillan; Brewster online). A basic similarity

tying into the notion that a subject cannot perceive itself as an object reoccurs in Emerson's

writing: “For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble

on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or

pleasure. I can never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe

any thing but the perception” (Treatise I.IV.6.3, cited by Brewster). In its recognition of

knowledge being structured categorically, German Idealism appears to share this view

implying that the cause of such structuring cannot be its consequence as well. Furthermore, it

also attaches primary significance to the role of the subject, emphasizing the influence one's

Gruban 32

mental faculties exert on perception and action: “We do not directly see 'things-in-

themselves'; we only understand the world through our human point of view. […] This leads

to Idealism; the belief that what we call the “external world” is somehow created by our

minds” (Brewster).

Notwithstanding, there seem to be several incongruities between the logical

deductions made by German Idealists on the one hand and English Romantics on the other.

These are in discordance with Hegel's philosophy in particular. “Like other idealists, he

agrees with Kant that the mind is not simply a passive absorber of the external world, but

actively organises it. As the mind can not know things-in-themselves, what becomes the real

is Geist: mind, spirit or soul. As Hegel says, 'The Real is the Rational and the Rational is the

Real'” (Jones online); the archetypal German Idealist's conception of “The Real” differs in its

rational attribute as well as in the value of the time-bound Geist. Rationality, as seen in §3., is

in the opinion of English Romantic poets a harbinger of confines, while they insist on the

boundless nature of reality. It could be argued that Hegel employs “rationality” in a sense

exceeding empiricism and objectivity—that his conclusions approach those of Parmenides

and Zeno (cf. §4.3) stipulating that, when faced with the irreconcilable choices of trusting

either empiricism or logic that reaches beyond observable phenomena, the latter is to be

prioritized. However, rationality is presumably accessible to humans. Considering that to

know the real would place the possessor of this knowledge 'outside' of the real, in addition to

Shelley's underlining the secrecy of Mont Blanc's strength (§3.2), Hegel's axiom conflicts

with both Indian spirituality and English Romanticism (insofar as Shelley can be

representative of it).

This opposition leads to distinctions on a more practical level too. The process of

progression illustrated by continuous dialectic shifts, ideally leading up to a harmonized

climax, cannot be applied to an outlook on the unbudging. When Wordsworth turns his gaze

to “Steamboats, Viaducts and Railways,” the suffusion of his nature-worshiping poetics and a

topic that might threaten it can be interpreted as a dialectic move, the antithesis to the thesis

of his earlier work resulting in a synthesis of wary acceptance: “Wordsworth demonstrates, as

he had predicted in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, that the poet will assimilate to his subject

matter the 'material revolution' produced by science” (NAEL 348). Yet the acceptance of what

might otherwise be so unwelcome to an admirer of pastoral tranquility seems to be grounded

in the belief that its underlying “soul” can, by contrast, not be “marred” or obstructed:

Gruban 33

Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar

The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar

To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense

Of future change, that point of vision, whence

May be discovered what in soul ye are. (4-8)

Thus the dialectics modifying the earthly plane have no grasp of its non-physical foundation.

In the realm of the atemporal, there cannot be an ultimate culmination of progress either; the

“Geist developing through history, each period having a Zeitgeist (spirit of the age),” set to

“eventually reach the telos […] of self-understanding, that is when Geist comes to know

itself,” then applies not to the unalterable 'real' but to its concrete manifestations (Jones

online). Again, the problem of knowing oneself—a subject regarding itself as an object—

arises as well. From Immanuel Kant onwards, Western metaphysics and epistemology have

been centered, albeit in varying manners, around a belief that one's mental faculties can entail

reality or at least a considerable portion of it, and that as a consequence they should be both

excavated and honed. Kant's famed exclamation of “Sapere aude!”, or “dare to know,”

explaining that “Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is

the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance,” affirms mankind's

self-liberating potential (cited in Keunen 12). The sentiment seems to have been carried over

by Hegel (and other German Idealists); as Roger Jones paraphrases: “It is only when Geist

comes to know itself that we can be free: it is only possible to be free if we understand reality.

If we do not understand reality we are not in a position to make a free judgment, we struggle

in vain against that which we do not understand. [...] By following the Real or the Rational,

each individual would achieve self-fulfillment.” John Keats's Lamia, on the other hand, may

depict strict adherence to rationality as adverse to spiritual liberation: “Do not all charms fly /

At the mere touch of cold philosophy?” (229-230). Apollonius's act of aggression impacts

each of the wedding guests and brings all merriment to a lasting halt:

The many heard, and the loud revelry

Gruban 34

Grew hush; the stately music no more breathes;

The myrtle sicken'd in a thousand wreaths.

By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased;

A deadly silence step by step increased,

Until it seem'd a horrid presence there,

And not a man but felt the terror in his hair. (262-268)

While the philosopher's damning stare eradicates Lamia and her illusions, it condemns Lycius

to perish alongside them. If Apollonius reveals truth (presumably benevolently, though at a

violent cost), Keats arguably ponders what meaning that reality can hold for those whose

delights must be purged in order to see it. Such skepticism regarding the value of knowing

tangible from illusory, coupled with Shelley's praise of a “secret spring” (§3.2) or Blake's

harper singing “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds

reptiles of the mind,” reflects English Romanticism's ambiguous stance towards the

wholesome capacity of the human mind—a topic elaborated upon in §5. Immortality

(Language) (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell plate 19, 157).

Aside from the range of dialectic processes, the importance of Geist, and the latter

getting to know itself, another relevant difference between Hegel's ideas and those of the

English Romantics or Indian philosophers in question concerns his observations of 'the

Other.' The significance he attaches to 'otherness' has been influential in a number of modern

academic disciplines—such as gender studies, postcolonialism, and Deconstruction—and has

certainly not been rendered null (in this respect it merits clarification that the purpose here is

not to discredit German Idealism, but to detect certain discrepancies that distance it from

English Romanticism) (Collins online). Our contemporary Indian philosophers share a

different view, however, to that expressed by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Mind, where he

“writes that the Other Self is the only adequate mirror of my own self-consciousness self; the

subject can only see itself when what it sees is another self-consciousness” (Berenson 77).

Such thought raises a contradiction, for if Hegel acknowledges that a self-consciousness

cannot witness itself, how is it, by contrast, possible for knowledge or Geist to observe itself?

Perhaps wisdom, too, may retrieve a mirror in which to watch its reflection, but then that

Gruban 35

mirror would be a separated part of such wisdom—would not the reflection be an inherent

part of the knowledge; then how is it distinguished? Thinkers such as Siddharameshwar

Maharaj avoid stumbling across these questions by renouncing duality. Whereas Hegel may

speak of 'his own' self-consciousness as distinct from another's, which is why the latter can

indicate the former, for several Indian philosophers there is no division of self-consciousness.

It includes all. Since consciousness is the basis of experience, there would be nothing in

worldly events—including birth and the 'possession' of a body—to differentiate one self-

consciousness from a supposed 'other.' In The 1805 Prelude Wordsworth recollects his

Childhood and School-time, giving voice to the following epiphany upon leaving London:

Trances of thought and mountings of the mind

Come fast upon me. It is shaken off,

As by miraculous gift 'tis shaken off,

That burthen of my own unnatural self,

The heavy weight of many a weary day

Not mine, and such as were not made for me. (I, 20-25)

This speaker requires no other self-consciousness in order to become aware of their own.

Simply distancing themselves from the distractions of life in the city (and those of communal

norms) allows for the “unnatural self” to slide away. The artificial identity appears to consist,

at least in part, of an ego appropriating experiences and placing itself at the center of events,

which is remedied by the realization that the 'natural self,' so to speak, precedes and exceeds

such concerns. To be sure, this approach differs strongly from that taken up by a considerable

portion of Romantic writing lauding national and regional characteristics, placing these at the

base of one's acting and being. Here we have instead an identity rejecting the attribution of

traits, and therefore perhaps no identity at all but rather that which enables it in the first place.

In seeing all distinctions as artificial or secondary at best, the creation of an 'other' would

entail the neglect of the 'self.'

Despite these differences between English Romanticism and German Idealism, a

Gruban 36

couple of similar principles are upheld by Friedrich (von) Schelling and Johann Gottlieb

Fichte.

Schelling defended Fichte’s idealism in On the I as Principle of Philosophy [or

On Self as principle of philosophy], where he maintained that the I is the

unconditioned condition of both being and thinking. Because the existence of

the I precedes all thinking (I must exist in order to think) and because thinking

determines all being ([a] thing is nothing other than an object of thought),

Schelling argued, the absolute I […] must be the fundamental principle of all

philosophy. (McQuillan)

Several schools of Indian philosophy, including the one Siddharameshwar and Nisargadatta

Maharaj are related to, distinguish the “Self” from the “I”—'worldly' identity and

transcendental being or Atman and Brahman respectively (other streams treat these as quasi-

synonyms). Nonetheless, they come to the same conclusions, as English Romanticism also

appears capable of, regarding the “stateless state” of being (as Amrut Laya is subtitled) and

consciousness constructing actions or referents. Particularly striking is that “Fichte considers

the I to be the absolute and denies the identity of the I and the not-I. He privileges the subject

at the expense of the identity of subject and object,” through which he too dismisses the

notion of any duality in existence (McQuillan).

4.2 Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer's familiarity with (and appreciation of) Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism

and Vedanta, alongside his criticism of German Idealism, motivate his being approached

separately. It is likely that he was inspired by both of these (partially) Indian traditions when

“he concluded that the general root of the principle of sufficient reason is the distinction

between subject and object that we must presuppose as a condition for the very enterprise of

looking for explanations (The Fourfold Root, Section 16) and as a condition for knowledge in

general,” while still placing the uncompartmentalized subject at the center of experience

Gruban 37

(Wicks online).

Inasmuch as dialectics are concerned, Schopenhauer occupies a position in part

agreeing with that taken up by the English Romanticism and Indian philosophy at stake here,

yet significantly deviating from it as well. The concordance lies in that “Schopenhauer's

denial of meaning to the world differs radically from the views of Fichte, Schelling and

Hegel, all of whom fostered a distinct hope that everything is moving towards a harmonious

and just end” (Wicks). Nature's immoral and unconcerned functioning would stem from what

is repeatedly called “the world as Will ('for us').” This non-rational, though not irrational, all-

pervading driving force does contrast with many Romantic conceptions of how and why life

on Earth functions: generally speaking, authors such as Blake or Wordsworth portray a

Nature from which morality can be distilled by the observant mind. The passage of time and

the material or mental progress this brings about are not directly linked to those observations,

however, in which respect this view converges with Schopenhauer's. As Byron writes in The

Age of Bronze: “The 'good old times'—all times when old are good— / Are gone; the present

might be if they would” (1-2); German Idealists' vision of 'good' incrementing or solidifying

through time is thus called into doubt.

Where Schopenhauer arguably deviates from English Romantics in terms of dialectics

is in the belief that the structure of reality can be apprehended by introspective humans.

[T]he German Idealists maintained that dialectical logic mirrors the structure

not only of human productions, both individual and social, but the structure of

reality as a whole, conceived of as a thinking substance.

As much as he opposes the traditional German Idealists in their metaphysical

elevation of self-consciousness (which he regards as too intellectualistic),

Schopenhauer stands within the spirit of this tradition, for he believes that the

supreme principle of the universe is likewise apprehensible through

introspection, and that we can philosophically understand the world as various

manifestations of this general principle. For Schopenhauer, this is not the

principle of self-consciousness and rationally-infused will, but is rather what

he simply calls “Will” — a mindless, aimless, non-rational urge at the

foundation of our instinctual drives, and at the foundational being of

Gruban 38

everything. (Wicks)

Once again, determining where these interpretations coincide with Romantic ones and where

they do not is a rather complicated task; compatible views are interlaced with more

conflicting ones. 'Understanding' Will is the key issue here: how is a “mindless” urge to be

captured by the mind? First determining humans' position vis-à-vis this Will helps approach

the matter.

The thought that one “general principle” or force underlies all is found at the heart of

many a Romantic or spiritual Indian text. Blake in “A Memorable Fancy” appears to blur the

distinction between his “Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence, and […] are

in truth the causes of its life & the sources of all activity” and God, who “only Acts & Is, in

existing beings or Men” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell plate 16, 155). Within this

mythology, “one portion of being is the Prolific, the other, the Devouring;” both are

responsible for restricting perception of the Giants, and the product of “the cunning of weak

and tame minds which have power to resist energy” (155), so that it is humanity's intellectual

meddling in creation that brings forth duality—constructively or, indispensably, destructively

(parallel with the Vishnu and Shiva correlation in Hinduism). Thus there appears to be a

hierarchy of influence, although the influence is most visible at the lower end, from

omnipresent God to actively formative Giants and, ultimately, manipulative humans

suppressing the 'energy' of the former in favor of a diametrically opposite struggle. Only of

the Prolific and the Devouring does Blake explicitly affirm their co-dependence: “These two

classes of men are always upon Earth, & they should be enemies; whoever tries to reconcile

them seeks to destroy existence” (plates 16-17, 155)—creation and decay go hand in hand (in

the earthly plane), establishing a cyclic system of duality. It might be said, nevertheless, that

God (who notably displays no rational characteristics in this case), the Giants, and humans all

harken back to one another, as the earlier two forces or concepts are manifested in the latter

while only these have any chance of acknowledging what brought them forth. Blake's

recurrent image in which he is summoning the “infernal method” of Hell to divulge heavenly

truths—i.e. corroding his etches appropriately with acids—is effective here in the sense that

one plate 'contains' all that can be said, but by “melting apparent surfaces away, and

displaying the infinite which was hid” one certain depiction takes hold (plate 14, 154). Just as

Gruban 39

Schopenhauer's “position is that Will and representations are one and the same reality,

regarded from different perspectives” (Wicks), Blake's God, Giants, and humans appear to be

inextricably connected, with nothing to separate them wholly (keeping in line with his other

projects reinstating unity, such as when he asserts that “the notion that man has a body

distinct from his soul is to be expunged” [154]).

With this close interrelationship in mind, we can return to that earlier question: how is

a human, from a position both limited and obscurely overlapping with 'higher' potentialities,

to know themselves governed by a Will—a non-rational one at that? “Schopenhauer's

originality,” after all, “does not reside in his characterization of the world as Will, or as act —

for we encounter this position in Fichte's philosophy — but in the conception of Will as being

devoid of rationality or intellect” (Wicks). Just as spontaneous is the attitude of the “little

cottage Girl” in Wordsworth's “We Are Seven,” maintaining that the burial of her siblings

does not nullify their importance (5). (On a related note, children usually feature in Romantic

writing as focal points for empathy and innocence [e.g. Blake's “The Chimney Sweeper” and

“Nurse's Song”], or as voices lending insight into still unconditioned, eventually uncorrupted,

observations—this sort of portrayal being most relevant to the dissertation.) The first stanza,

contributed by Coleridge, presents a rhetorical question concerning the little heroine's

unconventional classifications, or her disregard of divisions altogether:

———A simple Child,

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death? (1-4)

Indeed knowledge of death can be brought about only through familiarity with its concept, or

indirect experience of it. One who so fully feels life as this “simple Child” does—and surely

her simplicity is viewed as an asset—has not the abstract sense of its possible absence to

project the opposite of “death” on. For there to be such a background, duality must be

instilled: an otherwise holistic experience is to be separated into two mutually exclusive

categories. The poem's “rustic” and “wildly clad” girl resists compartmentalizing life not

Gruban 40

through any concrete knowledge but through her intuitive connection to her surroundings and

familiars (9-10)—an aspect reinforced by such physical descriptions, her uncomplicated

demeanor (eating her “little porringer” near the graves after sunset [45-48]), and her recalling

of memories through seasonal features (“when the grass was dry” or “when the ground was

white with snow, / And I could run and slide” [54, 57-58]). Formal characteristics

contributing to the simplicity and unconsolidated content of the text are the straightforward

language and the end-stopped quatrains in interlocking rhyme, which are replaced in the

concluding stanza by a quintain, its envelope rhyme excluding the word “dead” (65).

Wordsworth apparently wrote the last line of “We Are Seven” first, followed by the preceding

four, so that the very manner of composition may be interpreted as resisting conventionality

(NAEL 278). Particularly noticeable in relation to Schopenhauer is the word “will” in this

final stanza. Having attempted to convince the girl that two of her siblings are dead and thus

only five of them remain in all, the speaker recognizes that “'Twas throwing words away; for

still / The little Maid would have her will, / And said, 'Nay, we are seven!'” (67-69). Her will,

like Schopenhauer's Will, is non-rational, warrants no justification, and permeates her actions.

While the speaker and the reader can observe “her will” as such, however, she herself cannot:

to the “cottage Girl,” a stable, unified vision is just that—there is nothing of hers specifically

to discern, nor any trace of a will imposing itself. Hypothetically, if she were to acknowledge

an individual, conscious role in this, she would be deconstructing that very vision by

installing the duality necessary for judgment: 'my life' versus 'life of sibling,' or 'experiencing

body' paired with 'perished body' would then dismantle the integrity intuitively grasped by

the heroine.

This idea that divisions can be understood, though not that which they are established

within—that, in fact, categories are created precisely because the overarching can be

approached only thusly—was explicitly addressed by the Polish-born philosopher as well.

“Schopenhauer concludes in The World as Will and Representation that we create the violent

state of nature, for he maintains that the individuation that we impose upon things, is imposed

upon a blind striving energy that, once it becomes individuated and objectified, turns against

itself” (Wicks). Ultimately, these classifications are unavoidable for practical functioning in

life, but obstruct, or effectively reverse, the sense of a holistic harmony—as

Siddharameshwar Maharaj has been quoted above: “The process is such that […] when we

discover objects in the light, we forget about the light” (56-57); in Schopenhauer's

Gruban 41

(paraphrased) words: “Our very quest for scientific and practical knowledge creates a world

that feasts upon itself” (Wicks). This statement appears to contradict the claim that Will is

“apprehensible through introspection,” for if the seeking after concrete understanding brings

about violence without, it presumably spawns division within as well.

Nevertheless, Schopenhauer evades the contradiction by treating knowledge on the

introspective level differently from that established in order to make sense of the outward,

and it is the manner in which he does so that sets him apart from the Romantic and Indian

thinkers in question. Since in his “renowned pessimism” Schopenhauer “claims that as

individuals, we are the unfortunate products of our own epistemological making, and that

within the world of appearances that we structure, we are fated to fight with other individuals,

and to want more than we can ever have,” his resolution lies in dismantling the individual

(Wicks; emphasis added). This starts with the body, which according to him can be witnessed

in two ways: either as a physical object surrounded by other such entities, or through the

conscious awareness one has of 'dwelling' in a body, controlling it, and experiencing through

it. The act of moving a hand is to Schopenhauer not one that follows the mental impulse to do

so, but an inextricably linked part of one sole occurrence—an act of Will objectified, if one

pleases. Because such subjective perception of an object cannot be extended to anything but

the proper body, he regards “the double-knowledge of his own body as the key to the inner

being of every other natural phenomenon” (Wicks). All objects would, in this vision,

inherently possess two metaphysical aspects, and while the inner power of other things could

not be accessed directly, analogies departing from what can be immediately felt offer insight

into the more distant (not unlike the practice relatively frequent in astronomy, whereby

characteristics of celestial objects, or even distances, are gauged on the grounds of

comparable facts). What arises from this subjective form of sensation can hardly be called

knowledge, although we do not seem to have a more suitable term at our disposal either, for it

is not concrete information that is gathered and combined. Rather, the 'introspective

apprehension' is non-rational as the Will is, and resists being categorized as knowledge due to

the division this would enforce on a process of unification.

In it being a process, however, Schopenhauer's method appears to diverge most

noticeably from that of the Romantic poets. As through time one learns to connect with one's

innermost being and analogously gain a sense of others', the implication is that one is still to

some extent separated from a counterpart, similar as it may be. The extension of a sphere of

Gruban 42

influence would mean that this influence was not previously present in what it is being

extended towards. By treating the body as a center on which 'external' existences are

modeled, both an implicit denial of the omnipresence of the inner metaphysical aspect as well

as another type of duality take hold. English Romantics, on the other hand, tend to regard the

body as a vessel for otherwise intangible forces to manifest themselves in directly, completely

and immediately. Akin to the tranquil action in Coleridge's “Eolian Harp,” Shelley's

protagonist and speaker in Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude solicits:

I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain

May modulate with murmurs of the air,

And motions of the forests and the sea,

And voice of living beings, and woven hymns

Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. (45-49)

There is no question of dialectics here—since the breath of the “Great Parent” (an

unidentified, all-pervading power) effectuates a synthesis in everything and does so without

passing through several stages—nor of projection onto separated objects of what is deemed to

be the 'self.' Even the “hymns / Of night and day” are interlaced—readers might recall

memories of leisurely having spent time in a garden or on a terrace, when looking up and

wondering at that it has so suddenly, by imperceptibly light degrees, become dark outside;

similarly, the impressions of winds, forests, seas and “the deep heart of man[kind]” appear to

arrive in one wave where they are unified rather than discerned. As it is the speaker's “strain”

or disposition that is modulated—adjusted to harmonize—it is not the 'inner metaphysical

aspect' that reaches outward but perhaps the very other way around. Moreover, the passive

waiting of Shelley's hero contrasts with Schopenhauer's active introspection, so that there is a

difference in one's control of and involvement in understanding as well. Wordsworth too, in

the second book of The 1805 Prelude, recalls “nourishment that came unsought” (7). This

hint of sustenance, of subtle mental impulses being satiating, might be interpreted as a

reversal of Schopenhauer's “paradigm image [...] of the bulldog-ant of Australia, which when

cut in half, struggles in a battle to the death between its head and tail” (Wicks): the tranquil

Gruban 43

soul escapes the trap sprung when a restless mind sets out to know itself and thereby divides

itself. It ought to be stressed that these Romantic conceptions do not coincide explicitly with

those of the Indian philosophers studied for this dissertation and who repeatedly emphasize

that that which wants to be nourished is itself the nourishment (save Krishnamurti, whose

appreciation of nature results in a highly similar sense of spiritual sustenance). Still, as

Siddharameshwar and Nisargadatta Maharaj dismiss the importance ascribed to their

surroundings, so do English Romantic poets venture beyond the simply visible and arrive at

the unseen stability beyond it. In addition, they allow that power to speak to them, rather than

wanting to impose their own voice in vying to discover it, indirectly leading to a basis shared

with the Indians' teachings: the dissipation of the ego.

Concluding the section on Schopenhauer is another approach of his—aside from

introspection and projection—meant to raise “a person into a pure will-less, painless, and

timeless subject of knowledge (WWR, Section 34),” departing from aesthetic perception

(Wicks). The aesthetic seems to correlate with the ascetic, insofar as Schopenhauer's

characteristic self-distancing from trivial pleasures and luxuries simultaneously includes a

profound valorization of art, the greatest purpose of which would be to draw attention to

Platonic Ideas (Wicks). This renunciation of material matters and the joy they might bring

about could be paradoxical when paired with praise for creative activities needfully embodied

in, and eventually induced by, tangible, (hu)man-made objects. However, art raising Platonic

visions of what transcends the merely material does not instill a fixation on one's own

circumstances; on the contrary, it casts aside trivial distractions to the benefit of the

everlasting, which is worthy of the dedication and cultivation required to appreciate it

adequately, for Schopenhauer also remarks that “[o]nly the artistically-minded genius can

supposedly remain in the state of pure perception, and it is to these individuals that we must

turn — as we appreciate their works of art — to obtain a more concentrated and

knowledgeable glimpse of the Platonic Ideas” (Wicks). It might be said that artistic

contemplation fulfills the same role as the introspection treated above does, since the

witnessing of a Platonic idea, or ideal, serves the dismissal of the limited individual

consciousness and replaces it with the refocusing on a transcendent essence—one not

restricted to boundaries physical or of any other sort. Rather than being absorbed by the

world and the duality necessary to function within it, one may tune in to the higher

frequencies of art and abandon the ceaseless struggle below altogether. Schopenhauer, in

Gruban 44

contrast to his usual originality, does not build further on the modern incorporation of

Platonism; because of this and the irony in Plato's own skepticism (if not cynicism) towards

art, the following section has been reserved for the Greek philosopher and two quasi-

contemporaries with an unspoken connection to English Romanticism and Indian spirituality.

4.3 Plato, Parmenides & Zeno

Percy Bysshe Shelley's oeuvre possibly exhibits most clearly the affinity between Romantic

poetry and Platonic idealism, be it through his translations of Ion and the Symposium or

through poems maintaining a contrast of troubled mundane existence to the impeccable

ethereal; in Adonais, for example, it is noted that “Life like a dome of many-coloured glass /

Stains the white radiance of eternity” (462-463).

He deviates from Plato, though, when recognizing the limitations of human insight

and perception—which by implication raises the value of the imagination and its artistic

creations. As surmised earlier, “[w]orks such as 'Mont Blanc' are shaped by his sense that

there are narrow limits to what human beings can know with certainty. Out of this divided

intellectual inheritance, Shelley developed […] a 'skeptical idealism'” (“Percy Bysshe

Shelley” 750). “Skeptical idealism” may be seen as a combination of Platonism and British

empiricist philosophy—since Shelley was particularly influenced by David Hume as well

(750)—but it is just as important to note that both these approaches are, in a sense, nullified.

The short poem “Mutability” (a title shared with Wordsworth's sonnet remarkably kindred in

content) illustrates a chaotic balance of life in which both Idealism and the epistemic faculties

are deprived of metaphysical significance. Considering “A dream has power to poison sleep,”

just as “One wandering thought pollutes the day,” neither an uncontrolled impulse nor a

conscious attempt seem capable of representing experiences in a noninflected manner (9-10).

Nonetheless, however mankind may tumble through life, whichever way it lunges at an

elusive though steadfast center, “It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow, / The path of its

departure still is free” (13-14); actions or thoughts and the way they are interpreted have no

impact on its source (to which all ultimately returns). That channel of asymmetrical influence

also remains free because it exists independently of humanity's rejoicing, suffering or

reasoning. The poem finally resolves: “Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; /

Gruban 45

Nought may endure but Mutability,” and it might be inferred that visions of the inescapable

mutability are in themselves mutable (15-16). As a consequence, the archetypes Plato takes to

be the embodiment of truth, the foundation for all logic and philosophical thought, can for

Shelley be only vague, shifting conceptions—their 'true form' unattainable since unaffected

by the incessantly revolving shifts they spawn. (Or, as David Bowie would have it in

“Changes,” “time may change me, but I can't trace time.”)

Imaginatively imbued heroes such as the one in Alastor can nevertheless presume the

presence of the Ideas, and set out to catch glimpses of them. “He seeks in a vain for a

prototype of his conception,” Shelley indicates in the preface, and is thereby condemned to

“disappointment” and “an untimely grave” (753). Perhaps the futility of the poet-visionary's

quest is most pithily expressed by that possessive pronoun: he fails to find his desired object

because it is an internal given searched without. The Norton Anthology considers it “a goal

beyond possibility” as well, yet uncovering the primal source of poetry may be impossible

only as long as it is a goal (753); arguably, the essence of imagination and creation is present

everywhere—certainly, its prototype is even less fixed to a specific location—but searching

for the omnipresent denies it precisely that status.

A comparable thought of Wordsworth's may be discerned in the thirteenth book of

The 1805 Prelude, where it appears that “higher minds” are such for not disconnecting

themselves from the wisdom around them (90):

… in a world of life they live,

By sensible impression not enthralled,

But quickened, rouzed, and made thereby more fit

To hold communion with the invisible world.

Such minds are truly from the Deity,

For they are powers; and hence the highest bliss

That can be known is theirs—the consciousness

Of whom they are, habitually infused

Through every image, and through every thought,

Gruban 46

And all impressions; … (“Vision on Mount Snowdon” 102-111)

The 'consciousness infused through all' is particularly noteworthy—as it implies that wisdom

of Platonic Ideas or Shelley's “prototype” equally rests within the seeker of that wisdom—

and all the more so since “habitually,” a priori and effortlessly present. Therefore a contact

with it is also established swiftly and routinely, though remaining extraordinary. “Sensible” is

glossed as “sensory” in this case, so that Wordsworth, too, or at the very least his speaker,

advocates perception beyond the mere stimulation of the senses (NAEL 401). This is in

contrast to Plato, who places great importance on the visual while extrapolating that

primordial forms of all one sees must exist; these Ideals may belong to an invisible sphere but

are still separated from each other, presumably on the basis of visually recognized (not only

recognizable) properties. The characteristic Romantic gaze, on the other hand, whether

explicitly employed or not, transcends initial impulses to immaterialize objects and behold

how they are connected rather than distinguished. An archetype is then not a specific

representation, but one beyond the perceivable and differentiating (and transmissible).

A prevalent issue at stake in the three streams of Platonism, Romanticism and Indian

spirituality is remembrance—specifically in the sense that one's fixed identity could be

retrieved instead of created or discovered. Interestingly, Shri Sadguru Siddharameshwar

Maharaj himself paraphrases Plato and the importance the latter lends to remembering what

has been buried under trivial fancies (although he counters it infra): “The rising and setting of

all ideas are in the womb of this one 'Forgetfulness,' which is the common ground for all

human beings. It is by reason of this Forgetfulness that each human being feels he is ignorant

and strives to obtain knowledge. During this struggle, the majority unfortunately only gain

worldly knowledge, thus missing the Knowledge of their 'True Nature'” (42). One of the

Greek's (often reiterated) arguments against poetry would be that it makes people indulge in

their passions, while the rational path to choose is that which, by revealing timeless

precedence, dismantles base instincts such as the desire for imitation (mimesis) of others.

Romantic poetry, however, can concern itself with the same. In accordance with the telos of

The 1805 Prelude to “fix the wavering balance of my mind” so that it might be “revived,”

Wordsworth summons days past questing for identity ever-present (I 650, 665). He mentions

in an 1843 letter to Isabella Fenwick his having “communed with all that I saw as something

Gruban 47

not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature,” while admitting that such

thoughts were startling or mesmerizing enough to feel obliged to “[grasp] at a wall or tree to

recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality” (cited in NAEL 336).

Notwithstanding, as “[i]n later periods of life I have deplored […] a subjugation of an

opposite character,” works such as “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of

Early Childhood” came to be—at first sight—embracing of Platonic ideas of otherworldly,

essential existence and the possibility of reconnecting to it (ibid.). That “Ode” takes the

“prior state of existence” as a subject (ibid.):

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home (58-65)

Although the last two lines cited here carry religious overtones, the preceding ones certainly

conflict with Christian doctrine. Believing in the preexistence of the soul is incompatible

with, for instance, Isaiah 44:24 (“your Redeemer, / who formed you from the womb”) and

Psalm 102:27 (“your years have no end”), propagating that each soul, though immortal, is

formed only at birth. As Plato would have it, birth is described in the “Ode” as the cause of

forgetting one's original source, but the tie is not severed entirely. The divergence between

Platonism and Romanticism concerning origin and essence is represented by how the

reconnection is established.

Considering English Romantic poetry focuses intently on subjective experience, the

extraordinary figure of the poet-philosopher, and the self-reliant character of the poetic

persona, like Indian spirituality it seems to place one's nature in nature. That is to say, rather

Gruban 48

than man-made and thus time-influenced logical or pragmatic approaches to understanding, it

privileges communion with natural principles, which becomes communion with oneself as

well (after all, philosophy may simply constitute another form of “endless imitation” [“Ode”

107]). Siddharameshwar Maharaj remarks that remembrance cannot be brought about of the

self, for one's identity is instilled within the one who might be searching for it:

Even when we consider our usual daily gross experiences, we are in a natural

state that is without any remembrance of forgetfulness. Does anyone have an

experience like 'I have forgotten myself,' or 'I was remembering myself'? […]

We do not ever forget ourselves, nor is it necessary to remember ourselves. We

are always naturally in a state that is beyond the state of remembrance or

forgetfulness. That is really our True Nature. Remembrance or forgetfulness is

always of something 'else' that is separate from ourselves. (51)

Some canonical Romantic poetry states the same whether implicitly or unknowingly. To

continue with Wordsworth for the nonce, the speaker of the “Ode” admits the possibility that

“nothing can bring back the hour / Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,” yet still

finds “Strength in what remains behind; / In the primal sympathy / Which having been must

ever be” (177-178, 180-182). “Primal” is a noteworthy adjective for conveying a sense of

noninflected, inescapable, but partially suppressed in contact with more modern or cultivated,

functioning. Time itself seems to be excluded from “what remains behind”—or at least the

past and future are, leaving only the present. Such thought may bear a stronger connection to

Parmenides than to Plato, since it upholds no division between a truthful, timeless plane and a

false, shifting one. As Wordsworth encounters solace in immortal solitude, unified in

elimination of the momentary, so does the Greek philosopher preceding Plato write in his

only known text—On Nature:

And there is not, and never shall be, any

Time other, than that which is present, since fate has chained it

So as to be whole and immovable. Wherefore all these things are

Gruban 49

But the names which mortals have given, believing them, to be

True. (VIII, 36-40)

What this implies regarding the localization and attributes of identity seems to be that it is

“whole and immovable” as well. Instead of Plato's relatively distant and divided Idealism,

Wordsworth may be envisioning, like Siddharameshwar Maharaj and Parmenides, an all-

suffused world where the distinctions mankind imposes upon it have no coherent impact. A

'true nature' is then a state, which unlike an ideal or a collection of characteristics stands

outside the range of recovery or memory.

Byron, in what he describes as his “metaphysical” drama, comparably treats life as

markedly untouched by the scope of knowledge (cited in NAEL 638); in this case, too, the

implication lingers that one's sense of being the 'self'—connected to, though of a more

primary order than, what it observes—is a sole center. From the onset, the Byronic hero

rebukes all claims to his independence, which will lead to his tragic but consciously self-

imposed fate:

The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.

Philosophy and science, and the springs

Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world,

I have essay'd, and in my mind there is

A power to make these subject to itself—

But they avail not (Manfred 1.1 12-17)

Knowledge and experiences, as the boundaries of the former are dramatized throughout the

play (or poem), fail to grant Manfred satisfaction emotional or intellectual—when the First

Spirit inquires what it is that he wishes to forget, for example, he cannot answer, nor is he

aware what sort of understanding might grant him tranquility (1.1 135-138). This bilateral

obstruction is concisely expressed by that same spirit: “We can but give thee that which we

Gruban 50

possess” (1.1 139); each instance of wisdom or forgetfulness being inextricably connected to

a specific referent, the paradoxes are that something must be known before it can be known—

so that nothing entirely new can arise—and that to yearn to forget something is already to

remember it (additionally, some of the few human characters' names—Manfred, Herman,

Manuel—suggest a much wider issue is at stake than the protagonists' well-being

exclusively). Even the magical spirits who transcend time (“We are immortal, and do not

forget; / We are eternal; and to us the past / Is, as the future, present” [1.1 149-151]), cannot

circumvent these logical clashes. Parmenides addresses them as well: “you cannot find

thought without something that is, to / Which it is betrothed” (VIII, 35-36), thus recognizing

the fallacy in taking one's ideas to exist independently, or in believing that they can extend

thought to completely different realms.

This is not to say that all Romantic poetry deviates from Platonism, and that it does so

in this or a similar fashion. The claim is that, at a certain point, reading Romantic poetry (or

what is traditionally regarded as 'Romantic' and 'poetic'—two classifications not exempt of

vacillation) from a Platonist perspective is bound to stumble upon blockage, for figureheads

of the movement represent the transcendent Ideal as incapable of being an ideal to, or within,

the human mind.

Instead, Parmenides and Zeno's philosophy (which, like Plato in the dialogue titled

Parmenides, I consider to be a coherent whole, making it less relevant to distinguish between

these two Greeks) may shed light on English Romantics' managing reality and their limited

position within it, specifically as the former stipulate the impossibility of change. Preserved

in Aristotle's Physics, Zeno's paradoxes form the most accessible illustrations of this idea.

The one based on Achilles and the tortoise, for instance, states that Achilles—regardless of

his speed and stamina—could never catch up with the much slower turtle if it is granted a

head start, since by the time the hero reaches the tortoise's initial position, the animal will

already have progressed slightly; by the time Achilles reaches that point, the turtle will again

have advanced marginally, and so forth. These paradoxes would serve to demonstrate that the

information one gains from one's senses are irreconcilable with pure logic, and that, as such,

the latter must be privileged over the deception of perception. The consequences of this

reasoning include monism—the belief that one sole principle underlies and unites what may

otherwise be regarded as separate actions and entities—and the denial of movement.

While quite clearly coinciding with Indian philosophers who treat reality as

Gruban 51

immutable and the ever-revolving as Maya (illusion or delusion), the relationship of this

worldview to that of some of the English Romantics is less directly apparent. A first point that

can be made for the comparison is that even when Romantics capture change, their focus

mainly seems to lie with the eternal mechanism making it possible. The lyric speaker of

“Mont Blanc” may mention “rapid waves” and other attributes of the landscape prone to

shifts, though these are all but manifestations of “[t]he everlasting universe of things” making

it more approachable (2, 1). Byron's Manfred might tie into this when it treats the

acquirement of information as perpetually insufficient on its own: “with my knowledge

grew / The thirst of knowledge” (2.2 94-95); it is then little more than a change applied to the

changeable (for, as proposed throughout the dissertation, the unchangeable is never known—

in fact, it could be argued that if it were knowable or unknowable, it would possess a binary

characteristic which would imply the possibility of a change of status). As Parmenides and

Zeno maintain that the seen is an illusion, but cannot elaborate on the nature of the unseen,

Manfred becomes aware of his destructive yearning but satisfies it only with his death. All

that his knowledge can reveal is that a continuity lies beyond it. A more specific consequence

of profoundly calling the conceptualization of reality into doubt is that any sense of realism

becomes relativized as well; if 'truth'—or at least our disposition towards it—is uncertain,

then the rules of what is permissible within it are also unsettled. Perhaps Keats seems to have

been so fascinated by changes and mysteries precisely because he accepted the world's

appearance as devoid of a noticeable steadfast quality, and not in spite of it. In the Grecian

urn of his famed poem, the Norton Anthology suggests, “Keats found the perfect correlative

for his concern with the longing for permanence in a world of change” (930). However,

especially if a number of details or the assembly of them existed “only in Keats's

imagination” (ibid.), it is difficult to dismiss the possibility that he could allow himself to

utilize his creative potential so freely due to the recognition of stability in that potential itself.

Arguably, his artistic process embodies the same as Shelley's “Mutability” does, pointing to

the infinite changes of the world while nevertheless alluding to a static driving force. If “[a]

thing of beauty is a joy for ever” and “[b]eauty is truth, truth beauty,” it might follow that

neither beauty nor truth are transitory; moreover, “beauty” may not be interpreted in an

objective, tangible sense, but as the very feeling which can cause all that is objective to be

diminished in value, leaving nothing save perception in incapacitation behind (Endymion 1,

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” 49).

Gruban 52

Partly since the unknowable and unchangeable cannot be a direct or fully developed

subject of writing, the next section focuses on the particularities and limitations of language

itself in relation to Indian spirituality and English Romanticism. We have seen that Western

philosophies often brought into relation with Romanticism may add a more comprehensive

perspective to its specific conceptualizations, although they can end up clashing with them as

well. Parmenides and Zeno's thought-denigrating thinking perhaps approaches it most closely

out of all these, but as it demonstrates the futility of demonstrations, it is only logical that

such ideas are more than arduous to incorporate into literary expression. Does language not

generate divisions in itself? How can it then be used to give voice to non-duality? How have

English Romantics addressed that which appears to remain outside the reach of words? By

linking these concerns to contemporary Indian philosophy, the final paragraphs preceding a

series of conclusions and afterthoughts hope to offer some ways of managing the intricate

nature of language as a cognitive and artistic system.

5. Immortality (Language)

5.1 Circle

When we wish to understand or discuss an eternal basis—Shelley's secret springs, for

example, or the core of being as Brahman—we have no choice but to neglect it. From the

individual's quest for unity the duality of knowledge arises, bringing forth subject and object,

or known and unknown, or signified and signifier. And whichever word or construction might

be invented with the purpose of referring to an everlasting metaphysical concept, that concept

itself always stands in a double relationship to what it is ideally meant to represent. Immortal

it will never be, as it stems from life and therefore invites death; besides a spontaneous and

quickly dissipating meaning, however (say, Phoebe Buffay's “plinky-plunky music” as her

distracted friend hears it in a certain sitcom), it can also carry highly recognizable and

specific values (such as “plinky-plunky music” in the ears of a Friends enthusiast). The

extended lifespan of expressions entails many practical benefits: it allows, among other

advantages, for an accumulation of meanings, more streamlined communication without the

need for additional explanations, and subtle modifications due to the relatively stable base.

Yet all of this can be viewed as a potential obstruction as well. With each repetition, a

Gruban 53

signifier may be distanced from what it once pointed to more immediately. Additionally, a

word such as 'tree' cannot capture the shape of the tree or the insects beneath its bark

inseparable from it, nor is it likely to evoke its essential roots hidden from sight either, so that

a meaning is always limited. Numerous branches must be cut off for it to fit—to say nothing

of those that were never even noticed, the ignorance surrounding which also instills itself in

standardized communication.

Language's influence is very much double-sided. As Paul Fry touches upon the

eruption of language (and, with it, culture) being layered on top of nature, he notes the

tension of “overwhelming nostalgia for the immediacy of nature, which is distanced and

corrupted by culture. Derrida points out, however, that this nostalgia brings into existence

what we are nostalgic for. There is no nature unless there is culture to give it meaning, part of

which is regret for its disappearance” (139). Although language can cloud its referents

through its norms, it also brings forth that which is to be communicated, enjoyed or yearned

for. The pining after aspects of nature may be said to arise from their very concepts—from

knowing what they are supposed to represent and desiring the repetition of their perception.

In this respect, one might wonder to which extent mankind's cognitive mechanisms fabricate

substitutions for the world external to them: do we see what lies around us or only what we

have constructed over the preceding, and in the way we have constructed it? In case a

conviction of the latter is present, once more it can be voiced only through another

construction.

Deconstruction, as a theoretical movement, grapples with the same. It can point out

the disparity of meaning, the impossibility of a complete and stable signifier, or what Joseph

Hillis Miller calls “the abyss,” but “[t]o name the abyss is to cover it, to make a fiction or

icon of it, a likeness which is no likeness. What is a likeness of the sun? Of what is the sun a

likeness?” (29). In the end, Deconstruction juggles significances: it keeps them swirling

through the air as they switch from hand to hand, eyes fixated, showing that to just stand

there holding the pins or clubs firmly does not accomplish much. But no-one has been made

to be a perpetual juggler, and it seems inevitable to land on stable meanings—temporarily

stabilized patches of meanings, perhaps—to make sense of the world and what we generally

view as ourselves (that is, our opinions, ideas, preferences, liabilities—maintaining this

image requires solidifying its components and sheltering them from deconstruction).

Deconstructors insist that texts already deconstruct themselves, yet without the analyst or

Gruban 54

critic there would be no mention of such a process, and with their involvement certain

assumptions, points of view or norms of communication necessarily become present too; all

the more so in academic texts, which, albeit to varying extents, are usually expected to distill

ambiguity and present clear, solid stances. Again, then, the limitations inherent to

conceptualizations are at odds with both the wish to convey fully and the realization of its

futility, leaving language as an imperfect though indispensable (or at least unavoidable) tool

—Preserver and Destroyer in one, maybe.

Indian spirituality elaborates on what the consequences of this tension are in the

search for a stable basis to life (and it is the assumption of an unbudging fundament that

distinguishes it from Deconstruction, which operates, or vies to do so, without any fixation on

a center). Siddharameshwar Maharaj, Nisargadatta Maharaj and Krishnamurti all insist on the

temporary and divisory character of their language use. Their point of view stands in close

relation to what has been discussed above regarding knowledge, since language is not treated

as a basis for experience but as a mechanism that always entails a risk of muddling

experience; that (dis)connection becomes apparent when concepts are deemed perpetuators

and linguistic manifestations of division: “Noumenally, I can have neither presence nor

absence because both are concepts. The sense of presence is the concept which turns the

unicity of the Absolute into the duality of the relative” (Nisargadatta 157). Just as knowledge

is, in a sense, to be disbanded, so language ought not be clung to. “Truth must be

apperceived; it becomes a concept when given expression to,” so that the urge to form

signifiers is considered detrimental in gaining a clear outlook on consciousness and its

functioning (Nisargadatta 178). This implies that the Maharaj's own speeches also to some

extent cloud what he would convey. Being aware of the contradiction, Nisargadatta Maharaj

maintains with an image of the “fasting” mind that the listener's role is to be eliminated. To

'hear Truth' would place the hearer outside the ambient of that truth, once again instilling a

division within inherent unity. By releasing the will to comprehend, words hover past without

calling for interpretation:

[I]n that state of intuitive listening, when the 'listener' no longer intrudes,

words would throw up and expose their subtle, inner meaning, which the

'fasting' or open mind will grasp and apperceive with deep and instant

Gruban 55

conviction. And then will words have achieved even their limited fulfillment!

When the listener remains in a state of suspension without intruding on the

listening as such, what in fact happens is that the relative, divided mind is

automatically restrained from its natural proclivity to engage itself in tortuous

interpretation of words, and is thereby prevented from maintaining a

continuous process of objectification. It is then the whole mind that is enabled

to be in direct communion with both the talking and the listening as such, and

thereby to bring about the Yoga of words, enabling the words to yield their

innermost meaning and their most subtle significance. (157-8)

These significances and their “Yoga” are, as one might expect, self-explanatory to those who

absorb or practice them, but unable to be explained directly without refashioning the same

pitfall of interpretation. To nevertheless attempt illustrating them, Romantic poetry can offer

glimpses of such simplicity and tranquility.

Detailing the intentions of his style in the preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth's

approach seems to consist of a subtle and in itself uncomplicated application of what Russian

Formalists would later treat as 'deviation:' words and constructions are unshackled from

habitual, automatized connotations in contexts that heighten the reader's awareness of them.

There is no need to delve further into Russian Formalism for the time being—especially since

we are already jumbling Deconstruction with Romanticism and Indian philosophy—but the

technique of deviation can be said to stand in direct relation to these other three movements

as well, all of which are capable of (occasionally even delighting in) inverting customary

interpretation. Deviate Wordsworth certainly already did through his selection of 'common'

characters and vocabulary, and even his most basic words appear intended as decoupled from

an urbanized reading, so to speak. His straightforwardly described “golden daffodils” are not

distant even when absent (“I wandered lonely as a cloud” 4), nor do they contain mythical

echoes or function as a metaphor (at the very least, not as an obtrusive one). On the one hand,

they are simply daffodils—mesmerizingly “Fluttering” (6), mentally imprinted, supremely

tranquilizing, indeed, but ordinary daffodils all the same. On the other, their simplicity is

complex; as the speaker “but little thought / What wealth the shew to me had brought,” they

may have been experiencing a “Yoga of words” as well (17-18). The daffodils already stand

Gruban 56

in connection to all around them—nurtured by earth, sun and cloud, moved by wind, and

treated as eternally beautiful since “[c]ontinuous as the stars that shine” (7)—and when they

are absorbed by the observer who can subsequently summon them at will, this personality

dissipates and (again) becomes an indistinct part of the unity too. Deviation is concerned in

all this in the sense that the flowers otherwise so easily overlooked or undervalued are instead

“gaz'd—and gaz'd” upon to find meanings arguably inherent to them, in a broad sense,

though usually neglected (17). The manner in which the deviation is established is

remarkable in being fairly unremarkable, and seems to concord with what Coleridge regards

as “the power of so carrying on the eye of the reader as to make him almost lose the

consciousness of words—to make him see everything—and this without exciting any painful

or laborious attention, without any anatomy of description […] but with the sweetness and

easy movement of nature” (author's emphasis, “Lectures on Shakespeare” 500-1).

Wordsworth accomplishes this lightness and continuity through peculiar enjambment: even

when a line can be syntactically complete and independent, there is always a direct

continuation of it. For example, the opening “I wandered lonely as a cloud” is already self-

sufficient—it might even be a(n Imagist) poem on its own—yet it is quickly followed up on

with: “That floats on high o'er vales and hills” (1-2). The same goes for “When all at once I

saw a crowd, / A host of golden daffodils,” and further (3-4). Whenever a line might be

clearly separated from the subsequent, instead it is consistently elaborated on. Some would

presumably view the succession of main clauses by subordinate ones as seamless, and others

as a rhythmical, minimally disrupted transition like gently clanking along a railroad; either

way, the reader is allowed to float as the cloud and flutter as the daffodils do, breezily

onward. What is ultimately accomplished by this inconspicuous deviation is precisely what

Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj advocates: the observer no longer interferes in a process of sense-

making since they are drawn into the observations as an active though equal participant,

allowing a “subtle, inner meaning” to be witnessed and this—very importantly—without the

desire to explain or motivate it (157). “[D]irect communion with both the talking and the

listening” takes place as the two modes are fused (158); the speaker effectuates a mimesis of

what they see, but an entirely subjective one carried in the “inward eye” where perception is

rid of its usual duality or separation considering the perceiver notes themselves in what they

perceive (Wordsworth 21). In other words, the poem can be interpreted as a deviation from

habitual observation towards a state of mind in which the signifiers' necessary imprecision

Gruban 57

becomes highlighted: it becomes ever so palpable that the poet's writing about “golden

daffodils” does not capture the flowers' splendor fully, but it is exactly because of this

discrepancy that a reader may glide past the terms, wave along the composition's rhythm, and

conjure a proper image of unity and solace. Like the speaker who can clear their head and

revel in the beauty of the daffodils without needing to elaborate on it or describe it minutely,

the listener can lay aside the pinning down of significances as well as overarching

frameworks—social, metaphysical, historical or of any other sort—to function without the

automatized meddling of the intellect. And due to the lack of descriptive accuracy or

communicative clarity, the poetic persona seems to be addressing none and nothing but what

they are already directly communicating with—that is to say, their very sense of feeling and

being, expanded with the inclusion of the natural scenery. To arrive at this extent of

unmediated experience of one's surroundings, while minimizing the intrusion of

objectification and interpersonal communication, is where the spontaneous inspiration of

Romantic poetry and Indian spirituality's free-flowing “Yoga of words” coincide effortlessly.

Simultaneously, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” might exemplify poetry's status in

English Romanticism (at least from the poet's perspective)—one which is elevated to not only

indicate a particular use of language, but a profound capacity for acknowledgment and

admiration. That “ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way” is an

oft-repeated intention of Wordsworth's work as he outlined it in his preface of 1800 and 1802,

but seemingly less frequently mentioned is the objective of “tracing in them […] the primary

laws of our nature” (295). Thus his lyrical writing, howsoever it may appear confined to one

specific detail such as a daffodil or one particular attitude, is meant to reflect the fundament

of life and to paint it in a light that may call new attention to it. Naturally, “primary laws”

might be detected in everything using assessments broad enough; the “tracing” here mainly

constitutes an indirect focus on presumed governing principles, thereby releasing habitual or

sheerly pragmatic judgments, without pointing to those principles immediately as doing so

would both summon the potential for duality again and undermine the effect of the deviation.

From this perspective, poetry is not restricted to functioning as a craft or means of

communication: it becomes a faculty in its own right. “Poetry is the first and last of all

knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man” writes Wordsworth, the implication being

that it is not a determined form of knowledge as much as it is a timeless capacity for

understanding (Prelude 302). The lofty Romantic positioning of imagination and creation

Gruban 58

may account for one of the many interpretations of the puzzling “all / Ye know on earth, and

all ye need to know” from the conclusion of Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (49-50), i.e. that

from an inherently limited human point of view, recognition of beauty—being truth—is the

one attribute granting mankind hints of the immortal world's eternal mechanisms,

superseding whatever derivative or pragmatic practices may be deemed instances of

knowledge, and indeed being one regardless of beautiful manifestations infinite in number or

quality. When Wordsworth adds to this that “[t]he power of any art is limited,” it would

appear that poetry is not even conceptualized as an art form the way it usually would be today

(Prelude 304). It remains free of the constraints of possible applications if it is considered the

instance to be gauged by language rather than the exact expression of that language.

Romantics' preference of spontaneous feeling over academic thought is a consequence

of this, and overlaps with Indian philosophers' insistence on direct though unforced

experience. “Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books,” spurs the opening line of “The Tables

Turned,” countering the intellectual significance attributed to fixated works, and by extension

the idea that study and interpersonal communication are better suited to convey the ways of

the world than the world itself is (1). As the song of the “woodland linnet” transmits “more of

wisdom” than scriptures might, the poem—albeit quaint and simply written, possibly without

any pretense of containing wisdom when simply pointing out where moral and philosophical

knowledge might be found in its purest shape—partly undermines itself (which is a typically

Deconstructive move) (10-12). Although still distinguished, particularly so in the time it was

composed, from the bulk of other literature by presenting itself not as a basis for

understanding but a mere, perhaps entirely dispensable, indication of where it lies, “The

Tables Turned” turns its tables and primarily stands for what remains outside of the text

rather than for the modicum of such splendor it would be able to grasp. But once again the

poem may stand for it only by hinting at it lest it be subverted and dragged within the reach

of language. Not only mocking its own capacity, it taunts its analysts as well: whoever wishes

to uncover a deeper meaning in it, or attribute one to it, must stumble across the fact that

“[w]e murder to dissect” (28). Wordsworth's refuting the value of “[o]ur meddling intellect”

in such a collective manner addresses the general issue of how it “[m]is-shapes the beauteous

forms of things,” looking to substitute this impulse—however natural and logical it may be in

its own right—for “[s]pontaneous wisdom” stemming from the self-regulating environment

instead of the subservient, inflected mind that is constantly modified by its experiences and

Gruban 59

therefore incapable of truly independent, free thought (26-27, 19). This short piece entertains

no delusions of presenting any ideas nurtured without impact of the surroundings since, in

Deconstructionist terms, it consciously maintains the deferral of sense-making as it displaces

this process away from itself altogether. Having “[e]nough of Science and of Art,” poetry, as

a faculty, disavows at least momentarily the power of poetry as an artificial, derivative

construct (29). In accordance with what was discussed in the previous paragraph, the capacity

to recognize the beauty of how “the throstle sings” or the moral knowledge that can be passed

on by “[o]ne impulse from a vernal wood” is deemed separate from formal expressions of

such recognition (13, 21). Yet here an important explicit addition is the invitation first to

“[c]lose up those barren leaves” or pages, then to “[c]ome forth, and bring with you a heart /

That watches and receives” (30-32). So one leaf advises the reader to lay aside all leaves

—“barren” since disconnected from their source and life support, as the writing on them

perhaps is too—and once more “The Tables Turned” denies its own power. Where the

inspiration hinted at does lie remains clear: those who can suspend their drives to circle

around fixed meanings can all too easily find it in the world around them. The key,

Wordsworth's speaker suggests, is simply to maintain a receptive disposition to these natural

impressions. “Come forth” may be interpreted not only in the concrete terms of stepping out

into the open, but also in the sense of drawing out one's own initiative in experience rather

than having one rely on, at best, second-order observations. From this point of view, it is a

call to also set aside any assumptions formed by oneself, to venture into the direct witnessing

of the splendor of life unburdened by preestablished concepts and notions, thereby making

visible the “Truth breathed by cheerfulness” (20). This line in particular can come across as

vastly understated due to its simplicity and its leaving both the nature of “truth” and the

quality of the “cheerfulness” unspecified. Then again, especially when the former is painted

as being “breathed” by the latter, the understatement might become an overstatement in two

senses. First, in a more literal manner, the verb bestows animation onto the state of joy, which

strictly speaking cannot be animate itself but does characterize the fully living soul. The ease

with which “truth” is conveyed by such a customary action is, in addition, somewhat

hyperbolic, considering no (generally recognized) shared attributes make the breathing a very

appropriate vehicle; arguably, it is selected to stir the reader with its connotations of energy,

active tranquility, dynamic constancy—maybe even of love and comfort. However, what the

speaker seems to be describing, if we view it independently from this concise description,

Gruban 60

more closely resembles not a process as embodied by breath, but an unmoving essence: not

an eternal back-and-forth, but something that is and does not have to go anywhere, do

anything, or be done by anything—not an act, and certainly not one identical to base, animal

functioning, but a core. The slightly contradicting image therefore appears to serve, not

unlike the rest of the poem and how it negates itself, to establish a closer connection between

the reader and that which is actually static (perhaps even by definition so, for how could an

archetypical 'Truth' shift and thus deny its previous form?). A second way in which the line

can be interpreted as an overstatement is that it is an over-statement, covering (concealing)

what in covering (relating) it stimulates to be discovered, like pouring water on a surface to

enhance its usual dryness. Language may not be able to lend precise form to the formless, but

through its cracks, when these are apparent instead of passed by, it can to some extent imply

the significances that remain out of reach—or, better yet, allow those significances to imply

themselves freely. Hence the ability to accept the fleeting quality of such shimmering images

without seeking to stabilize them in one's mind and grant them a fixed position, as discussed

throughout §3. Indivi-Duality, reprises its role here. To step into the open with an attentive,

receptive heart as the poem proposes, is to acknowledge the limitations of the intellect and its

fabrications while prioritizing the experience of those most basic of impulses (e.g. that of the

“vernal wood”), which through their direct connection, unimpeded by concepts or norms, to

the moral and metaphysical principle that underlies them can convey its nature. Still, what is

conveyed is but another impulse. When unable to translate this in order for it to be

communicated to one distanced from the proper stimulus, the sole alternative, it seems, is to

revel precisely in it being so ephemeral and submerge oneself in it. Submerge, that is, so

whatever instinct of the ego it is that wants to wrap itself around perception is traded for

selfless “watching and receiving” without judgment nor desire—not for knowledge nor

stability (knowledge may be passed, since you can “[l]et Nature be your Teacher,” but not as

long as there is a demand or desire for learning, through which the receptiveness Wordsworth

lauds would be reversed by personal intrusion [16]). We might call it a willing suspension of

belief.

So it might be said that Romanticism shares the main concerns of Deconstruction, but

does not approach them in precisely the same manner. While with the latter the impossibility

for definitive communication appears to be embraced completely (purely figuratively

speaking—otherwise it would be turned into a center), these Romantic poets do discover

Gruban 61

something to lean on in the chaos after all. Wordsworth's alluded source of wisdom,

Coleridge's shifting winds being governed by the same divine inspiration, Blake with his

enlightening eccentricities; Shelley interpreting the given of constant mutability as stable,

Byron's dramatic character finding solace in his will to determine his downfall, and Keats's

urn presenting however vague a point of tranquility: it can all be traced back to the one

(undefined and therefore diverse, even when keeping the preface to Lyrical Ballads in mind)

initiative not to assign unwavering significance to the warping concepts one maintains out of

necessity, but to see it. The “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is rather similar to “The Tables Turned”

in the respect studied above: having captured a scene of dynamic grace, the now and forever

immobile image, the “silent form, dost tease us out of thought / As doth eternity” (44-45).

The “Sylvan” depiction guides away from their thoughts—their prejudices, assumptions,

desire of comprehension—the entranced gazer, who pleads: “ye soft pipes, play on; / Not to

the sensual [i.e. sensory] ear, but, more endear'd, / Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone” (3, 12-

14). Just as important as what they are seeing is the observer's disposition towards it,

allowing them to perceive as lively and meaningful that which is, objectively speaking, an

utterly lifeless mutation of stone. It goes even further: the speaker can endlessly detect fresh

impulses in the motionless engraving, hearing the “happy melodist, unwearied, / For ever

piping songs for ever new” (23-24). If the urn is a signifier, containing one fixed,

comprehensible image (regardless of how complicated its composition may be), the

imaginative witness still finds its (temporary) signified varying in limitless range, and not by

any means set in stone. This may be a typically Deconstructionist approach in its recognition

of ceaseless permutation, yet, through mention of “eternity” or the possible implication that

the songs “of no tone” harken back to an immortal essence (hence one not expressed through

audible, changing tones), a sense still stays on that there may be an invisible stability beyond

these constant shifts.

Schematically, Deconstruction might be represented as moving in circles—not with

the negative connotation that it would not be going anywhere, but rather in that it is

perpetually in motion, necessarily passing by known concepts though always leaving them

behind again, and finding them resurge once more. Paul Fry offers a pithy portrayal of the

basic issue at stake: “can we know what things are—not that things are but what things are—

using the instrument of language?” to which Deconstructors appear to respond with an

acceptance of relativity and uncertainty (143, author's emphasis). If there is a center to the

Gruban 62

world and how humans understand it, language is nevertheless resigned to revolve around it.

In this the Romantic poets follow suit; however, from their perspective there seems to exist a

dot to the circle: a point without contention, without revolution, which is and remains what it

was.

5.2 Dot

The premise for this final section is that, although Romantics can circle around meanings

(and purposefully keep them circulating), their focus is the dot—the single, unbudging, only

highly abstractedly representable basis. In accordance with the preceding, it is also that

swiveling around the dot is an inevitability as far as communication and conceptualization is

concerned, because of which language cannot fully bridge the gap between purely perceiving

subject and objectified speaker. Techniques to shorten the distance, however, include the

formulation of paradoxes and the deviation from standard patterns, as both would redirect

attention to one's automatized (network of) assumptions and establish that what mankind,

broadly speaking, tends to consider its deeply rooted problems are in a sense their own doing,

being a result of conceptual clashes or misguided prejudices; in the words of Ludwig

Wittgenstein: “Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical

matters, are not false, but senseless. […] Most questions and propositions of the philosophers

result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language. […] And so it is not

to be wondered at that the deepest problems are really no problems” (4.003).

Keats in one of his letters to John Hamilton Reynolds hints at another mode

overcoming this innately human tendency—one more directly implying a holistic vision of

the world: “when the Mind is in its infancy a Bias is in reality a Bias, but when we have

acquired more strength, a Bias becomes no Bias. Every department of knowledge we see

excellent and calculated towards a great whole. I am so convinced of this, that I am glad at

not having given away my medical Books” (970). The extract may be a puzzling one and

receives little support in the rest of the document, but becomes clearer when paired with an

elaboration of Siddharameshwar Maharaj's:

If someone is given a description of what sugar is like and is given a laddoo [a

Gruban 63

spherical sweet] and told that the sweetness in the laddoo is sugar, he will

never get the knowledge of the true nature of sugar. However, if he is given

pure sugar unmixed with any other ingredients he will know exactly what

sugar is. […] When Pure Knowledge, or Consciousness, is known, then even if

it is mixed with objective knowledge, or is in any other state, the aspirant will

understand correctly that the entity that is called “the world” is not separate, or

different from that which is called “The Knowledge of the Self” (Self-

Knowledge). (47)

So as Keats deems an undeveloped mind's biases to be effectively obstructing, but a more

experienced one's free from the influence of prejudice, he seems to be addressing the

Maharaj's very same principle: one who has known an essence in its most basic form will

continue to know it regardless of additions, and be able to distinguish the latter adequately. To

the Englishman the 'essence' is the “great whole” that unites all forms of knowledge. Because

of this, medical know-how establishes a connection with broader wisdom as well, the

visionary poet managing to deduce the general from the specific or the universal from the

local. Some similarity with the conclusion of Shelley's “Mutability” may reside in that the

ever-changing and partial is considered as inherent to an unchanging union. Regarding

language, it could be inferred that Keats in a markedly positive manner believes that its use

can never be severed from the noninflected, impersonal instance beyond it.

Yet that leaves the matter of discharging one's biases fully enough to be able to

recognize them as such when they return. Moreover, it might well be impossible to convey

this clarity via texts; in the words of Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist: “Since authors

model whole worlds, they are ineluctably forced to employ the organizing categories of the

worlds that they themselves inhabit” (278). To relate this broad observation more intimately

with the immediate issue at stake, Romantics poets too, regardless of how aware they may be

of the limitations of their art, also impose on it their own categorizations of the world. The

universes they create in writing may exist according to their own rules, but cannot be

unshackled altogether from basic cognition and the structuring that entails. This would mean

distancing oneself from the influence of one's mind and its endeavors to comprehend and

classify can only be brought about outside of the text (if that). Here another point is presented

where Deconstruction notices the same issue, but distills different ways of dealing with it: “In

Gruban 64

Of Grammatology, Derrida notoriously said 'there is nothing outside the text.' What he meant

by that is that there's nothing but text. The entire tissue, structure, and nature of our lives—

including history, which we can only know as a text, including the text of memory—is

readable as and only as a text” (Fry 142-143, author's emphasis). For Deconstructors, that

often otherwise interpreted phrase of Derrida's indicates the inevitable conversion of what

one sees to a format appropriate for the human mind. Even 'memory' is not directly stored and

accessed as such, but as a specific collection of images inherently tied to the way its bearer

understood or can understand it—with all the possible permutations Deconstruction later

views in it. Up to this point, Romantic poets seem likely to agree: Byron's Don Juan or

Shelley's Alastor are demonstrative of their characters' restrained (whether socially or

naturally) mental liberties and of the resignation to codes, shift as they may, to say nothing of

Blake's work and the fervor to create his own system lest he “be enslaved by another Man's”

(cited in NAEL 114). However, Romanticism generally points to extralinguistic features as

well—in fact, its awareness of the fragility of human thought and language can be seen as a

subtextual endorsement of looking towards that which cannot be put in language, that which

precedes and eludes it: the extra- (as in “outside,” not “additional”) linguistic.

Despite the archetype of the Romantic poet-philosopher-adventurer, who or what the

audience is put into contact with is perhaps not so much the inspired author, but a (necessarily

less inspired) text shaped in an attempt to inspire the reader to seek inspiration elsewhere.

Oftentimes, the creator of a text will be an ungraspable entity rather than the author and their

indivi-duality, as previous examples of Coleridge's “Eolian Harp” or Wordsworth's fixation

on daffodils suggest—highly personal though the latter may be, it either functions

independently from the ego or incorporates it. Keats would go an explicit step further and

claim that “[a] Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no

Identity—he is continually in for—and filling some other Body—The Sun, the Moon, the Sea

and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an

unchangeable attribute—the poet has none; no identity” (“To Richard Woodhouse” 973).

Naturally, this complicates the relation between 'reality' and text to no small extent, for the

author supposedly fades away in what their writing cannot even approach but still operates as

its focal point. As readers we are faced with a lifeless artifact from the hand of a living person

(if not biased in observation then certainly when restrained in communication) who rendered

themselves more lifeless as to better convey what they deemed fully living.

Gruban 65

Although the difficulties arising from this are multiple, perhaps countless, ranging

from the capacity of letting an external identity feature accurately to the matter of identity

and whence it stems, the response formulated by Indian philosophers and English Romantics

alike to these complications is, in either sense of the term, singular. Among the former,

Nisargadatta Maharaj most lengthily elaborates on divisions existing exclusively within the

mind, which would mean that the varying aspects of a text—referent, author, interpreter,

language, and so on—as well as the discrepancies between them are distinguished from the

creative power itself. In a summary notably similar to Keats's position on personal inflection,

Nisargadatta explains: “Once you see the false as false, it is not necessary any further to seek

the truth” (128). Important to add to this is that discerning secondary from primary does not

take place as a process of elimination—were that the case, it would deny that the root of the

'problem' (that is, the chaotic chain of complications and its resulting confusion) is one's basic

disposition towards perception and understanding, which is transformed not gradually but

totally. “There is no need of any specific identification between noumenality (Avyakta) and

phenomenality (Vyakta) as such,” Nisargadatta indicates; “Such need arises only when there

is manifestation of the noumenal-Absolute in separate phenomenal objects, a process of

objectivization which necessarily requires 'dualism'” (128). In other words, only when the

immortal (or what is considered that) becomes split in concrete components do the

complexities of the world arise. Conversely, one who accepts this as a practical method of

sense-making but not as observations of reality does not concern themselves with getting to

understand their environment nor with the concept of 'immortality,' which, after all, implies

its opposite as well. As per Siddharameshwar Maharaj's particular eloquence: “I was not

originally born having any Ignorance or Knowledge. Ignorance and Knowledge were born

out of 'me,' and were mistakenly taken to be me. […] [I]t can be seen that the arising of both

Ignorance and Knowledge within me, points to me as their creator” (32). Such unifying

reasoning—“me” is here taken to be what transcends the individual yet enables them to view

themselves as individual—dispels those issues of truthfulness or accurate portrayal.

Among (high-profile) Western movements likewise addressing the accumulation of

meanings vis-à-vis their individuation being artificial, a tendency to return to dualized norms

often seems inescapable nonetheless. Deconstruction approaches Indian spirituality closely in

this regard, as with de Man's analysis of “Among School Children” stating that, aside from

the grammatical level, one truly cannot separate dancer from dance, or when he postulates

Gruban 66

that “if truth is the recognition of the systematic character of a certain kind of error, then it

would be fully dependent on the prior existence of this error” (Fry 148; de Man, quoted in

Fry 144). However, writing, for instance, that “[t]he chain that leads Rousseau from the birth

of his consciousness to his present state of impending death [...]” reveals a discrepancy (The

Rhetoric of Romanticism 107). How can Rousseau's consciousness be 'his?' What is it born

from? What distinguishes it from supposed 'other' consciousnesses? From the focus on a

person arises a necessity to divide them, which in turn carries the deeper ramification that one

eventually divides the unity sought after to make sense of the divisions. According to

Krishnamurti this is a recurring issue, persisting as long as one grapples with the automatized

thought that one specific person must find one particular resolution to one defined matter:

We never consider the problem itself, but with agitation and anxiety grope for

an answer which is invariably self-projected. Though the problem is self-

created, we try to find an answer away from it. To look for an answer is to

avoid the problem […]. If the answer is separate from the main issue, then we

create other problems: the problem of how to realize the answer, how to carry

it out, how to put it into practice, and so on. (Commentaries on Living Series I

82-83)

This is not at all to say that findings of Deconstruction are baseless, but rather that

Deconstruction (like many other Western traditions) can in the end only go so far in

deconstructing itself before resorting to a certain logic of structures and categories.

On no few occasions do Romantics commit (to) the same—this is, after all, how

knowledge is garnered. The character of literature, though, allows gaps in representation that

may circumvent not only patterns of thought but the very need for understanding too. While

movements such as Aestheticism aim to do this out of pure artistic consideration,

Romanticism does so, arguably, as to witness however slightly the nature of perception

without the tendencies that bring forth duality. Having to limit a brief attempted illustration of

this to one short piece, Shelley's “Ozymandias” is perhaps best suited. The language of this

sonnet, creating a written testimony to an oral account of deserted writing, goes as far as to

topple itself—including its usual interpretation as a moralistic point on humility taking

Ozymandias's “[l]ook on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” to be an ironic indication of ill-

Gruban 67

founded bravado, considering “[n]othing beside remains” (11-12). Yet the statement can also

be considered as entirely in the right, for “despair” one certainly might upon realizing even

this potent ruler's exploits are eventually reduced to dust. The inscription is both subverted

and reinforced by its context. Aside from this standard Deconstructionist view on self-

contained binary opposites, a recognition of incomprehensibility is palpable, but only

'underneath' the text, vitally, as in the fashion of Indian spirituality the perceiving subject

does not try to grasp (at) it. That the final lines are dedicated to “[t]he lone and level sands”

appears to be enough of a resolution (14): being “bare,” they can be seen without obstruction

where there is no human monument to interfere; being “boundless,” they stretch further than

the senses can reach (13). This forms a combination of clear vision and inherent limitation,

leaving nothing to comprehend intellectually and therefore no foothold for duality. Whether

one gets the supposed ethical or social point does not make a great difference either; that, too,

seeps into the sands. And flaunting stable understanding of the poem around could make an

Ozymandias of one as well.

Most importantly in conclusion of the section, there is no presumption of truth to the

language used. Between the utterly unidentified speaker and the citation of a supposedly

accurate description of a supposed remnant, the text does not maintain nor reflect a stance or

judgment. Such ideas could only intrude from the reader. Rather than offer one meaning,

which then carries another (be it in addition or reduction), the sonnet avoids circling around

concepts and rhetoric because it minimizes their involvement—except where it cites

Ozymandias' reversible message, though that is equally enveloped by the surrounding

language. Eliminating questions of validity, reliability and concrete knowledge, the work

leaves but one relevant factor, un(r)evolving as a dot: the perpetual force of existence.

6. Conclusion

What little room is left may be used to reflect on this thesis in relation to what it wishes to

approach. For one, the categorical division into Indivi-Duality, chiefly treating matter, and

Immortality, stressing manner, ought to be highlighted as forced. In both Indian spirituality

and English Romanticism, these aspects correlate and unite—they must, in order not to create

a dichotomy between substance and form where substance is deemed to include form.

Furthermore, works of authors such as Borges and Dostoyevsky can also be read with regard

Gruban 68

to an incomprehensible immobility beyond human complications; the two movements

concentrated on here indeed discard the idea that their 'conclusion' (i.e. that no conclusion can

be made without instilling division, which would obscure the overarching unity) is restricted

to a specific set of thoughts. There is also the greater issue of the dissertation's own use of

language, in a sense (in essence) distancing what the thinkers studied might have wanted to

approach when trying to explain it and bring it closer. As for that paradox, it simply warrants

emphasis that the incessant circling of words cannot reproduce the point around which they

turn, though this revolution, when recognized as such, may indirectly hint at its underlying,

undefinable mechanism.

Ultimately, the two schools share a concern for the identity that ironically ceases to be

fundamental once expressed and thus divided between perceiving instance and observed

phenomenon. While language use—by default working with distinctions, habitual(ized)

notions and categories—is thus complicated on the one hand, on the other there is a certain

unshackling of it from its context and any necessity to stay 'true' to it. These writers can mold

their poetry and speech in a highly personalized manner for their words are consciously freed

workarounds toying with concepts, presenting paradoxes, suggesting the wordless, shaped

with an eye for beauty or tranquility or autonomy, and thereby resisting being ascribed a fixed

meaning. For us, as contemporary readers, the most relevant aspects of this are arguably the

distinct stance on subjectivity and the remarkably implicit anticipation of postmodern

problematizations of significances, but brought about with an (intuitive) eye for a center that

nevertheless does not center—on the contrary, it allows its witness to reshape the world

around them all the more liberally. And then we might ask: why deem this a conclusion?

Gruban 69

7. Works Cited

Barua, Arati. Schopenhauer and Indian philosophy: a dialogue between India and Germany.

New Delhi: Northern Book Centre, 2008. Print.

Berenson, Frances. “Hegel on Others and the Self.” Philosophy 57.219 (1982): 77–90. Web.

25 Feb. 2016.

“Biographia Literaria.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 487.

Blake, William. “All Religions Are One.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 116.

Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 149-159.

Blake, William. “Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau.” Blake's Notebook. Stephen

Greenblatt et al. 160.

Blake, William. “Two letters on Sight and Vision: To Dr. John Trusler (Aug. 23, 1799).”

Stephen Greenblatt et al. 162-163.

Blake, William. Visions of the Daughters of Albion. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 141-148.

Brewster, Vince. “Emerson, Ralph Waldo.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. James

Fieser, n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.

Byron, George Gordon, Lord. The Age of Bronze. Byron: Poetical Works. Frederick Page, ed.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970. 169-178. Print.

Byron, George Gordon, Lord. Beppo: A Venetian Story. The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4.

Ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge. London: John Murray, 1901. 159-189. Print.

Byron, George Gordon, Lord. Manfred: A Dramatic Poem. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 638-672.

Clark, Katerina and Michael Holquist. Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 1984. Print.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 488-499.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The Eolian Harp.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 439-441.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures on Shakespeare. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 499-502.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 443-

459.

Collins, Ardis B. “Hegel and the Other.” SUNY Press. State University of New York Press,

n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.

De Man, Paul. The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

Print.

Gruban 70

“The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 952-953.

Franklin, Michael J. “Accessing India.” Romanticism and Colonialism: Writing and Empire

1780-1830. Eds. Tim Fulford and Peter J. Kitson. New York: Cambridge University

Press, 1998. 61-78. Print.

Fry, Paul H. “Deconstruction I.” Theory of Literature. Ed. Paul H. Fry. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2012. 123-136. Print.

Garber, Marjorie. Quotation Marks. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. D.

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. Print.

Guyer, Paul and Rolf-Peter Horstmann. “Idealism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Spring 2015 ed. Center for the Study of Language and Information

(CSLI), Stanford University, 30 Aug. 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

Jones, Roger. “Romanticism.” Philosopher. n.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.

Keats, John. Endymion. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 906-910.

Keats, John. The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 953-964.

Keats, John. Lamia. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 935-950.

Keats, John. “Letter to George and Georgiana Keats ['The Vale of Soul-Making'].” Stephen

Greenblatt et al. 974-977.

Keats, John. “Letter to Richard Woodhouse ['A Poet Has No Identity'].” Stephen Greenblatt et

al. 972-974.

Keats, John. “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 930-931.

“Ken.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Print.

Keunen, Bart. Ik en de stad: Fantasmagorie-, ideologie- en utopiekritiek in literatuur en

cultuur 1800-2010. Ghent: Academia Press, 2015. Print.

Krishnamurti, Jiddu. Commentaries on Living Series I. Wheaton: Quest Books, 1956. Print.

Krishnamurti, Jiddu. Krishnamurti to Himself: His Last Journal. Bramdean: Krishnamurti

Foundation Trust Ltd, 1987. Print.

Lowes, John Livingston. The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination.

Project MUSE. Princeton University Press, 2014. Web. 5 March 2016.

McQuillan, Colin. “German Idealism.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. James Fieser,

n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.

Miller, Joseph Hillis. “Stevens' Rock And Criticism As Cure: In Memory of William K.

Gruban 71

Wimsatt (1907-1975).” The Georgia Review 30.1 (1976): 5–31. Web. 7 April 2016.

Nisargadatta, Maharaj and Ramesh S. Balsekar. Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Durham (New Carolina): The Acorn Press, 1998. Print.

“The Old Continent.” American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 5th ed.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011. Web. 20 Aug. 2015.

Parmenides. On Nature. Ed. David Gallop. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1991. Print.

“Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 748-751.

“Romantic Orientalism: Overview.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Norton

Topics Online. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., n.d. Web. 19 Aug 2015.

“The Romantic Period.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 3-27.

“Samuel Taylor Coleridge.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 437-439.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Adonais; An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion,

Hyperion, etc. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 839-854.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 752-769.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Mont Blanc.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 770-773.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Mutability.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 751-752.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ode to the West Wind.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 791-793.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 776.

Shklovsky, Victor. “Art as Technique.” Russies formalisme: Teksten van Sjklowskij,

Jakobson, Ejchenbaum en Tynjanow. Trans. Wilfred Oranje. Nijmegen: SUN, 1982.

11-32. Print.

Siddharameshwar, Maharaj. Amrut Laya: The Stateless State. Tres Piedras: Sadguru

Publishing, 2011. Print.

Wicks, Robert. “Arthur Schopenhauer.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spring

2015 ed. Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford

University, 3 March 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

“William Blake.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 112-116.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. D. F. Pears and B. F.

McGuinness. New York: Humanities Press, 1961. Print.

Wordsworth, William. “Elegiac Stanzas: Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm,

Painted by Sir George Beaumont.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 343-344.

Wordsworth, William. “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 334-335.

Gruban 72

Wordsworth, William. “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early

Childhood.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 335-341.

Wordsworth, William. “Preface to Lyrical Ballads.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 293-304.

Wordsworth, William. “She dwelt among the untrodden ways.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 305-

306.

Wordsworth, William. “Steamboats, Viaducts and Railways.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 348.

Wordsworth, William. The 1805 Prelude. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 356-402.

Wordsworth, William. “The Tables Turned: An Evening Scene on the Same Subject.” Stephen

Greenblatt et al. 281-282.

Wordsworth, William. “We Are Seven.” Stephen Greenblatt et al. 278-279.