Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Romantic Poets

I used to love the Romantics, especially Keats and Yeats. But lately I have been disillusioned with them. The charm of their poetry (charm in the sense of illusion) seems to be the offer of a different reality, a different world. If you explore that world, you come at nothing. It remains an illusion. So they return to this world, and it is this world that they remain to. Their imagery is nothing but a substitute for psychological states of their minds/hearts. The relation between the Romantics and the mystics has often been mentioned. A look at the poetry of mysticism points out the difference. The mystics, especially the Islamic ones have a definite metaphysic behind their poetry. The imagery is used to discover that metaphysical reality, and not a psychological state. And that is why Sufi poetry takes us really to a different realm, while the romantics keep us to where we are; only delude us that this is something else.

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