MYSTIC IDEAS AND IMAGES IN JALAL AL-DIN RUMI AND WALT WHITMAN Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Fayez, Ghulam Muhammad Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 30/09/2021 21:59:32 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/298459 INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. 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THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, PH.D., 1978 University Microfilms International 300 n zeeb road, ann arbor, mi 48io6 MYSTIC IDEAS AND IMAGES IN JALAL AL-DIN RUMI AND WALT WHITMAN by Ghulam Muhammad Fayez A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 7 8 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by Ghulam Muhammad Favez entitled Mystic Ideas and Images in Jalal al-Din Rnmi and Walt Whitman be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Director Date As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read this dissertation and agree that it may be presented for final defense. LJ)y, *7kv /y.-'i'V M-gmw, Ar-X/-/97* id/ ? /?T~^ it/<rJ \]i) "N /' / - ' I. • / i jf<'/s1As,hA. ' i- C/j'</'h '/X. Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense thereof at the final oral examination. STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to bor­ rowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or re­ production of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very grateful to The Asia Foundation for having granted me a Bicentennial Fellowship to study American literature in the United States without whose full commitment this manuscript would not have taken shape. It is also my pleasure to thank my dissertation advisors, Professors Cecil Robinson and Richard M. Eaton, for having read the manuscript in its various stages of development and given me the benefit of their reactions. I would also like to thank Professor Arthur M. Kay, Professor William R. Royce, Professor John H. McElroy, and Professor William J. Wilson for having read the manuscript and made suggestions for improvement. Acknowledgment is also made to Professor Annemarie Schimmel of Harvard University who read a part of the manu­ script in its preliminary shape. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT v 1. INTRODUCTION 1 Jalal al-Din Rumi 2 Kinship Between Rumi and Whitman 8 Rumi's Indirect Influence on Whitman ... 13 2. PROPHETIC DIMENSION OF THE MYSTIC POET 25 Rumi 26 Whitman ..... 37 3. MYSTICAL CONCEPTION OF LANGUAGE AND POETRY 47 4. SOME TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF MYSTICAL POETRY 70 5. NATURE IMAGERY 88 The Sea in Rumi's Poems 90 The Sea in Whitman's Leaves of Grass . 96 The Grass Image in Rumi and Whitman 105 6. MOTION IMAGERY 112 Bird Imagery 112 Circle Imagery 125 Circle and Dance Imagery in Rumi 126 Circle Imagery in Leaves of Grass 130 The Circle and the Center in the Self 136 7. IMAGES OF THE DIVINE 141 God in Nature 143 God in Man 149 8. CONCLUSION 154 LIST OF REFERENCES 168 iv ABSTRACT This is a comparative study of mystic ideas and images in the poems of Jalal al-Din Rumi and Walt Whitman, together with occasional mentions of similar elements in the works of such associated figures as Emerson, Thoreau, Attar, and Hafiz. The main purpose of the study is to demonstrate that there are a great number of striking parallel ideas, images, and techniques in the poems of Rumi and Whitman, and that these common elements account more for the universal nature of mystical experience than the possible influence of Rumi on Whitman. Although the author of this study proves that Whitman had read some of Rumi's poems in Alger's Poetry of the East before the fourth edition of Leaves of Grass in 1865, early enough that they could have influenced him in this and subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass, the author establishes the basis of his comparative study on the nature of a common mystic temper and consciousness between the two poets than the question of influence. He demonstrates that this affinity by mystic temper and the universal nature of mystic experience determine most of the parallel elements existing in the works of Rumi and Whitman. This book contains seven chapters dealing with the mystic poet and his craft, his ideas and images. The first four chapters attempt to present a discussion of Rumi and Whitman as the best examples of the mystic poet, his prophetic visions, his role as a seer, a uniter, a lover—a messianic figure like some of the ancient prophets of the human tribes. The second two chapters examine in detail Rumi's and v vi Whitman's conceptions of language and poetry, the reiterative aspects of their techniques, and some common motifs, together with that dynamic aspect of the transcendent self or the soul which accounts for these and further affinities between the two poets. The author demonstrates that reiterative patterns, together with catalogue rhetoric and sym­ phonic structures, are frequently used by Rumi and Whitman because they see and experience the universe in terms of multiplicity-in-unity. Often it is the dynamic eye, that all-seeing aspect of the cosmic self, which registers a panoramic vision of life. Furthermore, the author argues that some of the mystical poems of Rumi and Whitman, being the spontaneous expressions of their higher spiritual experiences and ecstasies, are premeditated to such an extent they often determine techniques in their poems. For this reason, mysticism is always examined in their poems not as a separate philosophical system, but as a part of their poetic expressions. The last three chapters deal with three types of fundamental and recurrent symbolic images in the poems of Rumi and Whitman: nature imagery, motion imagery, and images of the Divine conceived in nature and man. Chief examples of the first two types are the sea and grass, flight and circle. These symbolic images are often used in their poems to dramatize a mystic evolution of the soul or the self from vegetative ar-i animal forms to higher human and spiritual planes. The author also deals with how Rumi and Whitman portray nature, the various aspects of the dynamic self, journey motifs, and the unitive images of the Divine. Such concepts as sense perception, intuition, knowledge, inner vision, vii love, unity, cosmic consciousness, and certain states and stages of mystic quest are also dealt with in every chapter of this dissertation. Above all, the author demonstrates that it is the erotic dimension of the soul or the self which creates such a striking kinship between the poems of Rumi and Whitman.