Indian Poetry - Western Thinkers and Poets Interested in Indian Poetry

Western Thinkers and Poets Interested in Indian Poetry

In the 19th century, American Transcendentalist writers and many German Romantic writers became interested in Indian poetry, literature and thought. In the 20th century, few Western poets became interested in Indian thought and literature, and the interest of many of those was minor: T. S. Eliot studied Sanskrit at Harvard, but later lost interest. Buddhism brought Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder to India, but they became more interested in Tibetan and Japanese forms of the religion. Mexican poet and writer Octavio Paz developed a strong, lasting interest in Indian poetry after living in the country as part of the Mexican diplomatic mission (and as ambassador in the 1960s). Paz married an Indian woman, translated Sanskrit kavyas, and wrote extensively about India.

Read more about this topic:  Indian Poetry

Famous quotes containing the words western, thinkers, poets, interested, indian and/or poetry:

    It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    In every philosophical school, three thinkers succeed one another in the following way: the first produces out of himself the sap and seed, the second draws it out into threads and spins a synthetic web, and the third waits in this web for the sacrificial victims that are caught in it—and tries to live off philosophy.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    Lately our poets loiter’d in green lanes,
    Content to catch the ballads of the plains;
    Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

    The passions seldom give good advice but to the interested and mercenary. Resentment generally suggests bad measures. Second thoughts and good nature will rarely, very rarely, approve the first hints of anger.
    Horace Walpole (1717–1797)

    High from the summit of a craggy cliff,
    Hung o’er the deep, such as amazing frowns
    On utmost Kilda’s shore, whose lonely race
    Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds,
    The royal eagle draws his vigorous young
    James Thomson (1700–1748)

    Much poetry seems to be aware of its situation in time and of its relation to the metronome, the clock, and the calendar. ... The season or month is there to be felt; the day is there to be seized. Poems beginning “When” are much more numerous than those beginning “Where” of “If.” As the meter is running, the recurrent message tapped out by the passing of measured time is mortality.
    William Harmon (b. 1938)