Hi Shah,
Thanks for posting this - it's a fascinating read!
I sometimes feel sad that we often feel satisfied when we get the sanitised
version of what poets from the past were like. I tend to think they were as
scatty or idiosyncratic or odd as we are ourselves. I remember once
horrifying someone at Dove Cottage, the Wordsworth place in the UK, because
I wanted to know if Wordsworth had ever written a shopping list and if one
were in his papers, could I see it!
I do know, however, that he was an avid reader of all kinds of things so the
things the article tells us are good. I guess the local shepherd in the pub
would have got pretty bored watching them sat round a table talking about
kharma instead of the price of wool!
Bob
>From: c s shah <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: How Gita Influenced Romantic Poets
>Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 09:19:58 +0530
>
>How Gita Influenced Romantic Poets
>Times News Network; The Times of India, dated 21 April 2003
>
>Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelly, Keats, Byron, Blake,
>Southey, and Walter Scott were influenced by the philosophy of the
>Bhagvad Gita, according to an exhaustive, 20 year study, undertaken by a
>scholar of English Literature. It also successfully explores the hidden
>strains of Indian thought in their verse.
>
>"Bhagwad Gita and the English romantic movement, a study in influence,"
>authored by Dr Krishan Gopal Srivastva and published by MacMillan India,
>is receiving rave reviews in the country and abroad. It has already sold
>more than 500 copies following its release last year. Recently the BBC
>World Today Radio Service also telecast live interview with Srivastva,
>in a bid to get first hand account of his work.
>
>Comprising nine chapters, the book presents evidence linking romantic
>poetry with the Gita. Many obscure passages of romantic poets become
>clear when understood in the light of the Gita. The concept of rebirth,
>'karma', universal soul, immortality, and incarnation make the
>fascination of romantic poets with the Gita quite apparent.
>
>The study thus seeks to highlight the contribution of India to the
>growth and enrichment of the English romantic movement. "La renaissance
>Orientale," which supplemented the movement grew out of the research
>conducted by English orientals like Charles Wilkins, Sir William Jones
>and others at the end of XVIIIth century. Prose translation of the Gita
>by Charles Wilkins, published in London in 1785 under the aegis of the
>British East India Co., best conveyed this spirit.
>
>The book establishes that all the great romantics like Blake,
>Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelly, and Keats had not only read Wilkins Gita,
>but imbibed its spirit, which found creative expression in their great
>poems.
>
>Srivastava, a visiting professor at the UNiversity of Glasgow, has
>published several books and articles ... His article in the "British
>Journal of Aesthetics and Explicator" has earned him international fame.
>His rendering of 'Ode to Nightingale' is displayed in the reading room
>of the Oriental Section of the Cambridge University library.
>--
>c s shah
>http://www.geocities.com/neovedanta/gita.html
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