Interrogating the Margins- the margins that have defined perhaps divided cartographically not only the nations as a geographical entity but also as a fractured ideological entity. The codification of this kind of mental space has led to certain dominant ‘western’ discourses that have conveniently marginalized the oriental ‘Other’. This paper is an attempt to deconstruct this mystification of the west by discovering it as a fractured entity .It is an attempt not just to interrogate the margins but crossing over the margins in a quest to invent new realities, new world, new imagination where there could be hopes of no margins at all. I will analyze and substantiate this inversion by exploring the relationship between Romanticism and Indian philosophy, especially Yoga, through romantic poets and Patanjali’s Yogasutra.
Synthetically speaking, some key research queries that are thus proposed together to be probed in this paper are:
1. Romanticism’s departure from the binaries of reasoning/sensation, mind/matter that mark most of Western philosophy, and thus its comparability with tripartite Indian thought;
2. Specifically, Romanticism’s comparability with Yoga philosophy, on grounds of:
a) spiritual intent and content of the two
b) the crucial role given to mind application (imagination/concentration) in the two
c) the centrality accorded to the ‘body’ in the two
Western thought since time immemorial has predominantly stood on dichotomous poles, be it the Plato/Aristotle realist/nominalist debate, the Descartes/Locke rationalist/ empiricist debate, or the subsequent idealist/materialist debate.
But the romantic thought does away with this binary dyad. The duality of reasoning and sensation gets replaced by a third epistemology ‘...
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In short, it can be seen that while there are some basic similarities between Enlightenment and Romantic thinking -- because of the fact that they do explore nature-- their convergence, ideologically, ends there. In fact, it seems that nature’s ability to be so subjective has led to the two ideologies being exact opposites in almost every regard. The Enlightenment focuses on human’s achievement in regard to nature, while Romanticism focuses on the insignificance of humans in comparison to the immensity of nature. It seems that, in the end, the movements of Enlightenment and Romanticism were just what the description entailed – moving. It can then be wholly concluded that the two movements were far more different than alike based on their ideologies and creations.
Romanticism has been described as a “‘Protestantism in the arts and letters’, an ideological shift on the grand scale from conservative to liberal ideas”. (Keenan, 2005) It was a movement into the era of imagination and feelings instead of objective reasoning.
This passage marks the first of several types of love, and gives us an intuitive
In the book Toward a Theory of Romanticism the author Morse Peckham gives his own idea on the theory of Romanticism. He gave his opinion on the theory of romanticism because he proclaims that while there is a definition for the romanticism movement, ...
Washington Irving’s use of Romanticism is portrayed in his writings very clearly and boldly. Romanticism is a revolt against rationalism that affected literature and other arts, beginning in the late eighteenth century and remaining strong throughout most of the nineteenth century. Romanticism has multiple characteristics and contrasts...
In the years before Romanticism being contaminated with the strictness of Puritans, imagination and love of nature was simply taboo. Everyone was expected to follow the Church’s rule. When Puritanism died down, a road for Romanticism was opened. David Robinson describes this road:
The Romantic period was an expressive and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century and peaked in the 1800s-1850s. This movement was defined and given depth by an expulsion of all ideals set by the society of the particular time, in the sense that the Romantics sought something deeper, something greater than the simplistic and structured world that they lived in. They drew their inspiration from that around them. Their surroundings, especially nature and the very fabric of their minds, their imagination. This expulsion of the complexity of the simple human life their world had organised and maintained resulted in a unique revolution in history. Eradication of materialism, organisation and society and
Romanticism and Transcendentalism are both literary movements that were appreciated in the American literature. Both movements are quite similar; however, Romanticism is a strong motivational force that depicted emotions, patriotism, and imagination. Dark Romanticism, on the other hand, is a branch of Romanticism that focuses on the evil qualities of the man. Not only it is a branch of Romanticism, however, it is a reaction of Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism focuses on self-realization, empowering the connection between man and nature, and the goodness of man and nature. Throughout the years, American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe projected dark romantic features in their work, “Young Goodman Brown” and “Tell-Tale Heart”, where they show the conflict between the good and evil. However, Emerson portrayed transcendentlistic characteristics in his book “Nature” as he shows the power of knowledge, nature, and divinity.
Toward the end of the eiteenth-century, Romanticism emerged as a response to Classicism. Even though this change was gradual, it transformed everything from art and philosophy to education and science. While the Classicsts thought of the world as having a rigid and stern structure, the romanticists thought of the world as a place to express their ideas and believes. The Romaniticists and Classicsts differed in their views of the relationship between an individual and society, their views of nature and the relationship between reason and imagination.
The Symposium, The Aeneid, and Confessions help demonstrate how the nature of love can be found in several places, whether it is in the mind, the body or the soul. These texts also provide with eye-opening views of love as they adjust our understanding of what love really is. By giving us reformed spectrum of love, one is able to engage in introspective thinking and determine if the things we love are truly worthy of our sentiment.
Keenan, Richard "Romanticism." Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature. London: Continuum, 2005. Credo Reference. Web. 25 April 2014.
Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment as a cultural movement, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind (210). Culturally, Romanticism freed people from the limitations and rules of the Enlightenment. The music of the Enlightenment was orderly and restrained, while the music of the Romantic period was emotional. As an aesthetic style, Romanticism was very imaginative while the art of the Enlightenment was realistic and ornate. The Romanticism as an attitude of mind was characterized by transcendental idealism, where experience was obtained through the gathering and processing of information. The idealism of the Enlightenment defined experience as something that was just gathered.
Of all the emotions celebrated by the Romantics the most popular was love. However, Romanticism should not be confused with romantic love in a sense of candle lit dinners and receiving love notes, flowers and boxes of candy. Instead, it was about a love for nature and beauty, and a sense of all human beings having a connection, empathy was heightened for others in which brought on feeling the pains of other people in the world. To the Romantics love, in which invokes compassion, was a natural God-given right. Back in the Age of Enlightenment people felt marriage depended more on the basis of survival, they would tolerate unhappiness for the sake of living; however, for the romantics love was the necessary foundati...
responses to Malthius and Burke.? Studies of Romanticism, Fall 2001 v40 i3 p345(25). April 15, 2004
The Romantic period has many beginnings and takes different forms; so that in a celebrated essay, On the Discrimination of Romanticism (1924), A.O. Lovejoy argued that the word “Romantic” should no longer be used, since it has come to mean so many things that by itself, it means nothing. On the derivation of the word “Romanticism” we have definite and commonly accepted information which helps us to understand its meaning. Critics and literary historians differ widely and sometimes as violently, about the answer then have differed about love truth and other concepts. Romanticism is concerned with all these concepts and with others with equal importance. It is an attitude toward life and experience older than religion, as permanent as love, and as many-sided as truth. (Watson, J.R. English Poetry of the Romantic Period, Longman Inc. New York)