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Shelley’s Quest for Persian Love

Shelley’s Quest for Persian Love Elham NilchiaN The Romantic period bears witness to a scene where the Romantic subject is capable of selflessness and loss of self in its interaction with an ideal visionary beloved. The Romantics pursue a sense of mystical oneness with the divine--God, Nature, or an ideal beloved--in a moment in which the Romantic subject seeks perfection through obliteration of its own self in the face of the idealised other conceived as a whole. The male subject's search for an ideal female other and his desire to lose self in order to become one with her has connections with Sufism, where this loss of self is referred to as fanaa. In this article I intend to examine such moments of the Romantic subject's self-loss in his beloved other, with special reference to Persian Sufi literature and the extent to which Shelley was inspired by and employed its motifs and images in his poetry. In order to gain insight into Shelley's perspective on the idea of self-loss and how he was inspired by Persian literature to draw on this Sufi idea, I will look into the critical field in relation to Romanticism and Gender-Orientalism. I will then discuss the eighteenth-century Scottish http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Comparatist University of North Carolina Press

Shelley’s Quest for Persian Love

The Comparatist , Volume 40 – Nov 11, 2016
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University of North Carolina Press
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Copyright © Southern Comparative Literature Association.
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1559-0887
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Abstract

Elham NilchiaN The Romantic period bears witness to a scene where the Romantic subject is capable of selflessness and loss of self in its interaction with an ideal visionary beloved. The Romantics pursue a sense of mystical oneness with the divine--God, Nature, or an ideal beloved--in a moment in which the Romantic subject seeks perfection through obliteration of its own self in the face of the idealised other conceived as a whole. The male subject's search for an ideal female other and his desire to lose self in order to become one with her has connections with Sufism, where this loss of self is referred to as fanaa. In this article I intend to examine such moments of the Romantic subject's self-loss in his beloved other, with special reference to Persian Sufi literature and the extent to which Shelley was inspired by and employed its motifs and images in his poetry. In order to gain insight into Shelley's perspective on the idea of self-loss and how he was inspired by Persian literature to draw on this Sufi idea, I will look into the critical field in relation to Romanticism and Gender-Orientalism. I will then discuss the eighteenth-century Scottish

Journal

The Comparatist – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Nov 11, 2016

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