Borrowed imagination : the British romantic poets and their Arabic-Islamic sources / Samar Attar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Attar, Samar, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English poetry--19th century--History and criticism.

English poetry.

English poetry--Arab influences.

English poetry--Islamic influences.

Romanticism--Great Britain.

Romanticism.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xvii, 227 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2014]

Summary:

Borrowed Imagination: The British Romantic Poets and Their Arabic-Islamic Sources examines masterpieces of English Romantic poetry and shows the Arabic and Islamic sources that inspired Coleridge, Wordsworth, Blake, Shelley, Keats, and Byron when composing their poems in the eighteenth, or early nineteenth century. Critics have documented Greek and Roman sources but turned a blind eye to nonwestern materials at a time when the romantic poets were reading them. The book shows how the Arabic-Islamic sources had helped the British Romantic poets not only in finding their own voices, but also their themes, metaphors, symbols, characters and images. Borrowed Imagination is of interest to scholars in English and comparative literature, literary studies, philosophy, religion, government, history, cultural, and Middle Eastern studies, and the general public. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : The English romantic poets: their background, their country's history, and the sources that influenced their literary output

Borrowed imagination in the wake of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Arabian Nights

The riots of colors, sights, and sounds: John Keats' melancholic lover and the east

The natural goodness of man: William Wordsworth's journey from the sensuous to the sublime

Poetic intuition and mystic vision: William Blake's quest for equality and freedom

The interrogation of political and social systems: Percy Bysshe Shelley's call for drastic societal change

The infatuation with personal, political, and poetic freedom: George Gordon Byron and his Byronic hero

Conclusion : How valid is Kipling's phrase that east and west can never meet?.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780739187616

0739187619

OCLC:

864709530