Romanticism and Esoteric Tradition

Book excerpt: Spititual quest is at the very heart of poetry, but in the materialistic climate of the late twentieth century this has been almost forgotten, even by those claiming to be experts in interpreting literature. How does the worldview common to the main esoteric traditions of East and West correspond to the aims of such Romantic poets as Shelley, Keats, Blake, Coleridge, and Wordsworth? In Romanticism and Esoteric Tradition, Paul Davies maintains that only in the light of the spiritual teachings of these traditions can the poetry and thinking of the Romantics be understood as they intended. This is one of the first books to connect the creative nature of poetry to the core teachings of the esoteric tradition, and thereby to bring out the true meaning of several Romantic writers whose works have been trivialized by a culture that has marginalized the spiritual and tied itself to material, historical, and social issues. The author also shows that the Romantics were the first Western poets to imagine the relationship of the self to the environment as personal encounter. In this sense the Romantics were recalling a long-held secret of the esoteric "human sciences," not inventing a new one. This book brings the deepest interests of the Romantics directly into contact with issues closest to present-day students of the spiritual traditions and holistic perspectives.