LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:12 December 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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The Spiritual as the Virtual:
A Comparative Analysis of Spiritualism in Three Indian Poets

Roghayeh Farsi, Ph.D.
Neyshabur University, Iran

Abstract

The present paper is an analytical scrutiny into the spiritual. The theoretical lens is Deleuze’s concept of the virtual; the paper takes the spiritual as the virtual which is actualized through the processes of individuation and plane of consistency. On the plane of consistency, the virtual becomes actual, or individualized, based on degree of power and speed; hence asymmetrical relation.

The paper comparatively analyzes the spiritual as poeticized by three major Indian poets at the two extremes of a century. The temporal gap is of significance here as it sharpens the points of contrast. Therefore, the paper starts with an analysis of the spiritual in Tagore’s Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912) and then as its postmodern counterparts shifts to the far end of a century and concerns itself with Madan Gandhi’s Planet in Peril: Poet’s Lament (2004) and Anand’s Burning Bright (2013). This comparison reveals that the spiritual depicted in Gandhi’s and Anand’s poems is de-spiritual which is the outcome of the asymmetrical relations determined and imposed on the plane of consistency due to the conditioning circumstances of the time.

Key words: Deleuze, Tagore, Gandhi, Anand, Spiritual

Introduction

India has always been regarded as the land of mysticism and the spiritual. While the materialist West has always looked down upon the spiritual, for India it still holds its healing powers. This fascinating force has been one of the major charms, having attracted the West to “other” as a source of mysteries and wonders. Politically, such a stereotypical image of India has been deployed in its long-term history of colonization. Defining the “other” as the dark mysterious entity accentuates the alterity of other from self. The sweeping wave of Romanticism in the nineteenth century highlights the spiritual trends and in a way, politically speaking, legitimates the alterity of the East from the West.

Modernity defines spiritualism of the East as an escapade from the absurdity of modern life and its dehumanizing ethos; hence T. S. Eliot’s helpless resort to Indian culture in his Wasteland. Colonization, however, has not left the East impervious to its devastating legacies, one of them being materialism. Western Technology brings with itself the industrial creeds of exploitation and morality of (re)production. De-definition of humanity based on the demands of the (post)modern conditions renders the Eastern milieu marketized. This along with the force of Europeanization, or Westernization, puts the East in a drastic process of cultural estrangement and deculturation in an attempt to help the East “resemble” the West. This is what Homi K. Bhabha welcomes as “mimicry” for its de-totalizing effect. Such U-turn status quo redefines the spiritual in a way completely different from how the Romantics did.

The present paper investigates such changes in the spiritual as poeticized by Indian poets in an endeavor to show the virtuality of the spiritual through its different actualizations. Tagore’s spiritual poetry which won him as the first Easterner the Nobel Prize lies at one end of the century impressed by its Romantic urges, while Madan’s and Anand’s poetic enterprises lie at the far end of the century with its postmodern, globalizing demands.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Roghayeh Farsi, Ph.D.
Neyshabur University
Iran
farsiroghayeh1956@gmail.com
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