Traces of Mysticism in Wordsworth’s Aesthetics of Nature: A Study on William Wordsworth’s Nature Philosophy in the Light of Ibn Al-‘Arabi’s Ontology

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is generally known as a nature poet or a “worshipper of nature”. Yet, his nature poems are not merely confined to the portrayal of the physical elements of nature but are marked by his enlightened spiritual vision. The belief in one life flowing through all, which is a prominent feature of Wordsworth’s nature poetry is a prevalent theme also in the treatment of man and the universe in Ibn al-‘Arabi’s philosophy_ a Sufi mystic whose philosophy is most famously associated with the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud or “the oneness of being”. This paper is an attempt to critically analyze the traces of pantheistic and mystical elements underlying Wordsworth’s poetry, and more importantly compare this with Ibn al-‘Arabi’s stand on the matter. Through analysis of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s ontology, particularly his concept of unity of being and his emphasis on the importance of the faculty of imagination, this study first meets the controversy surrounding the pantheistic elements in Wordsworth’s nature philosophy and then attempts to demonstrate that the mystical doctrine of unity in all beings and the reliance on intuition and imagination as a means of perception of divine immanence is evident in both Ibn al-‘Arabi’s ontology and Wordsworth’s nature poetry. This study also reveals that Wordsworth’s attempt to get to coalescence of subject and object via imagination and its sublime product, poetic language, resembles the mystic’s yearning for transcendental states of consciousness and unification with the divine.

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Chaucer’s and Wordsworth’s Vivid Daisies

The Middle Ages in the Modern World ◽

10.5871/bacad/9780197266144.003.0012 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Elizabeth Robertson

Keyword(s):

William Wordsworth ◽

Rural Poor ◽

Poetic Language ◽

Natural Objects ◽

Close Observation ◽

Close Study ◽

Primary Focus

In 1802, shortly after William Wordsworth read and translated Chaucer, he set down to write a series of poems that mark a shift from his primary focus on the rural poor to tiny and seemingly insignificant natural objects, insects, birds and small common flowers such as the celandine and, above all, the daisy. While Wordsworth’s identity as a nature poet has long been observed, literary critics have yet to notice that among the poems that Wordsworth read and indeed knew well was Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, written in 1386 or thereabouts, a poem whose prologue also includes not only close observation of the daisy but also a consideration of the kind of poetic language one should employ when encountering nature. Close study of Chaucer’s poem and Wordsworth’s multiple poems to daisies within the frame of Timothy Morton’s stimulating theory of ecomimetic ambient poetics reveals that for Wordsworth, Chaucerian medievalism offered a language for thinking through the strengths and limits of poetic encounters with nature.

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Yoga and The Physics of Higher States of Consciousness

Research-Based Perspectives on the Psychophysiology of Yoga - Advances in Medical Diagnosis, Treatment, and Care ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-2788-6.ch018 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 335-358

Author(s):

Alex Hankey

Keyword(s):

Quantum Cosmology ◽

Sense Perception ◽

Pure Consciousness ◽

States Of Consciousness ◽

Action Refinement ◽

Higher States Of Consciousness ◽

Modern Physics ◽

Inner Light ◽

The Universe

Higher states of consciousness are developed by meditation, defined by Patanjali as that which transforms focused attention into pure consciousness, the 4th state of pure consciousness - a major state in its own right, with its own physics, that of ‘experience information'. Phenomenologies of states 5 to 7 are explained from the perspective of modern physics and quantum cosmology. The role of the 5th state in life is to make possible witnessing states 1 to 3 resulting in ‘Perfection in Action'. Refinement of perception involved in the 6th State results in hearing the Cosmic Om, seeing the Inner Light, and seventh sense perception. All require special amplification processes on pathways of perception. Unity and Brahman Consciousness and their development are discussed with examples from the great sayings of the Upanishads, and similar cognitions like those of poet, Thomas Traherne. Throughout, supporting physics is given, particularly that of experience information, and its implications for Schrodinger's cat paradox and our scientific understanding of the universe as a whole.

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Transcending Self-Consciousness: Imagination, Unity and Self-Dissolution in the English Romantic and Sufis Epistemology

International Journal of Linguistics Literature & Translation ◽

10.32996/ijllt.2021.4.8.2 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 (8) ◽

pp. 08-18

Author(s):

Maryam Soltan Beyad ◽

Mahsa Vafa

Keyword(s):

William Wordsworth ◽

Samuel Taylor Coleridge ◽

Percy Bysshe Shelley ◽

William Blake ◽

Human Mind ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

Specific Reference ◽

Romantic Literature ◽

States Of Consciousness ◽

Life Journey

English Romantic literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries often recounts an individual life journey which depicts physical and spiritual pilgrimage and traverses both the inner and outer world to liberate the self and reach a revelatory moment of unification where the division between human mind and the external world is reconciled. For the Romantic poets this reconciliatory state cannot be achieved through rational investigation but via the power of imagination. In this regard, there is striking resemblance between the mystical and philosophical thought of Sufism and the idealistic thought of the English Romantic poets as they both strive for a sense of unification with the Divine or the Ultimate reality, and they both rely on imagination and intuitive perception to apprehend reality. Applying an analytical-comparative approach with specific reference to Northrop Frye’s anagogic theory (1957) which emphasizes literary commonalities regardless of direct influence or cultural or theological distinctions, this study endeavors to depict that certain Romantic poets’ longing for the reconciliation of subject and object dualism via imagination and its sublime product, poetic language, echoes the mystic’s pursuit of transcendental states of consciousness and unification with the divinely infinite. Through analysis of the concept of self-dissolution (fana) in Islamic mysticism and Sufi literature, particularly the poems of Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi (1207-1273) known in the West as Rumi, the outcome of this study reveals that the Romantics’ yearning for a state of reconciliation, which is prevalent in the major works of the Romantic poets such as William Blake (1757-1827), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), and John Keats (1795-1821), corresponds to the mystic’s pursuit of unity or the Sufi’s concept of self-annihilation or fana.

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AESTHETICS OF THE LINGUISTIC SIGN-SYMBOL THE SOURCE IN THE POETIC CONTINUUM OF VASYL HOLOBORODKO

Research Bulletin Series Philological Sciences ◽

10.36550/2522-4077-2021-1-193-140-147 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (193) ◽

pp. 140-147

Author(s):

Tetyana Betsenko ◽

Keyword(s):

Water Cycle ◽

Water Extraction ◽

Poetic Language ◽

Poetic Discourse ◽

Linguistic Sign ◽

The Sixties ◽

Terrestrial Life ◽

The Individual ◽

The Universe

The article attempts to consider the semantics and connotative shades of the linguistic-aesthetic sign-symbol well in the poetic language of Vasyl Holoborodko. The peculiarities of the use of synonymous equivalents for the designation of hydro objects for water extraction and consumption, which are used by the artist as figurative-poetic signs-symbols, are clarified. The semantic and emotional-expressive load in the texts of the word-image is characterized. The specificity of the artist's figurative rethinking of the ethnonym is substantiated. In the process of analysis it was established that the well is a sign-symbol inherent in all civilizational cultures; the name of the well is poetic, characteristic both for everyday use and forfolklore. In V. Holoborodko's poetic discourse we mostly fix the word-image of a well in unity with the concepts of water, bucket and actions to drink water, go for water, dig a well, etc. Krynytsia - in the poetic world reproduction of V. Holoborodko - a symbol of earthly life, a symbol of eternal existence, a sign of cosmic existence. At the same time - it is a source of truth, the key to knowledge of the universe, its laws, the reality of ethno-being. The token well as a word-image in V. Holoborodko's poetry is attested with the seeds "memory", "genealogy", "succession of generations", "earthly life focused on high spiritual principles". The well is also a "measure of the honesty of the individual." The word-image well is also based on the seeds "quenching thirst", "source of inspiration", "life". The image-symbol is characterized by a positive emotional and expressive load. We record a significant expansion of the occasional semantics of the word-image in the idiolect of the artist of the sixties, which occurs due to the analogy: the depth of the well - the depth of thought, soul; purity of the well - purity of thought, soul; well - terrestrial life, reaching the cosmic heights (water cycle).

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THUTOAH - The Holographic Universe Theory of Art History

Artnodes ◽

10.7238/a.v0i25.3323 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Suzanne Treister

Keyword(s):

Contemporary Art ◽

Art History ◽

Hadron Collider ◽

Altered States Of Consciousness ◽

Holographic Principle ◽

Particle Accelerator ◽

Altered States ◽

States Of Consciousness ◽

The Universe ◽

Cave Painting

This text is an edit of the audio transcript of interviews with scientists John Ellis, Alessandra Gnecchi and Wolfgang Lerche from my video, The Holographic Universe Theory of Art History (THUTOAH). THUTOAH investigates the holographic principle and the theory that our universe could be understood as a vast and complex hologram, and hypothesises that, beyond acknowledged art historical contexts and imperatives, artists may have also been unconsciously attempting to describe the holographic nature of the universe. Projecting over 25,000 chronological images from art history (from cave painting to global contemporary art, including outsider and psychedelic art), THUTOAH echoes conceptually the actions of CERN's particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), accelerating at 25 images per second in a looped sequence. Alongside this colossal library of images is a soundtrack of interviews with, and watercolours by, the scientists at CERN - illustrations and articulations of the holographic principle. THUTOAH hypothesises a reality that has perhaps been intuited over the ages, a reality beyond the already documented intentional depictions of spiritual, mystical or transcendent realities or altered states of consciousness; the reality of the holographic nature of the universe.

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The Morphology of Vacuolated Cells in the Liver Following Administration of Vitamin A.

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100072484 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 31 ◽

pp. 408-409

Author(s):

Odell T. Minick ◽

Hidejiro Yokoo ◽

Fawzia Batti

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Body Weight ◽

Vitamin A ◽

Light And Electron Microscopy ◽

Liver Cells ◽

Prominent Feature ◽

Vascular Space ◽

Vacuolated Cell ◽

Vacuolated Cells ◽

Vacuolated Cytoplasm

Vacuolated cells in the liver of young rats were studied by light and electron microscopy following the administration of vitamin A (200 units per gram of body weight). Their characteristics were compared with similar cells found in untreated animals.In rats given vitamin A, cells with vacuolated cytoplasm were a prominent feature. These cells were found mostly in a perisinusoidal location, although some appeared to be in between liver cells (Fig. 1). Electron microscopy confirmed their location in Disse's space adjacent to the sinusoid and in recesses between liver cells. Some appeared to be bordering the lumen of the sinusoid, but careful observation usually revealed a tenuous endothelial process separating the vacuolated cell from the vascular space. In appropriate sections, fenestrations in the thin endothelial processes were noted (Fig. 2, arrow).

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