THE VISION OF RICH DEATH IN JOHN KEATS’S “ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE”: AN AUROBINDONEAN PERSPECTIVE

Authors

  • Nikhil Kumar Professor & Head, Dr, Univ. Dept. of English, V. K. S. University, Arrah (Bihar), India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejls.v4i2.474

Keywords:

Nightingale, Rich Death, Plane of Immortality, Psychic Being, Jivatman, Spiritual Consciousness, Supramental Consciousness, Mantra

Abstract

John Keats’s vision of rich death while listening to the melodious voice of Nightingale, the manifestation of the Immortal on the earth, takes one beyond the plane of corporeality of the terrestrial existence. One comes to the plane of death-birth continuum, and, consequently, discovers a supra-earthly, nay, spiritual truth, the plane which earlier comes into the vision of the ancient Rishis of India. The richness of death which comes into the vision of Keats is revealed when we explore death in the light of the yogic discovery of Sri Aurobindo, a literary luminary of the 19th-20th century of India of, what he calls, ‘Psychic Being’, a flame of the Divine Self in the being of man. Sri Aurobindo discovers that the psychic being is instrumental in the evolution of consciousness to its spiritual and supramental planes in the death-birth phenomenon as it gathers the spiritual experiences of man’s life and, accordingly, lays foundation of his higher spiritual life to come in his next birth. Being immortal, it carries the foundation in the next birth of man. He also discovers that the foundation is laid at the time of the physical death of man. Such death, therefore, comes to be rich.

 

Author Biography

  • Nikhil Kumar, Professor & Head, Dr, Univ. Dept. of English, V. K. S. University, Arrah (Bihar), India

    Dr. Nikhil Kumar is a Professor & Head, Department of English, Veer Kunwar Singh University, Arrah in the state of Bihar in India. He has been teaching for over thirty-six years as a university teacher in the state of Bihar in India. He has done extensive work on Sri Aurobindo, a great literary luminary of a very high plane of yogic consciousness. Dr. Kumar has published more than two dozen research papers on Sri Aurobindo’s poetic works in different international journals and the journals published from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, now, Puducherry in India. He has made an in-depth study of Sri Aurobindo’s poetic and dramatic works, especially, his monumental epic Savitri which is a poetry of the future since it has been written from the transcendent plane of Supramental Consciousness, the consciousness to which mankind is yet to evolve. The supramental consciousness is an evolutionary breakthrough. The present paper is a piece of evidence of his rich academic inheritance from his father Professor (Late) Devendra Kumar who imbibed Sri Aurobindo’s yogic vision in him.

References

John Keats: Ode to A Nightingale;

Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, now, Puducherry, India, 1990;

Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, Part IV, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, now, Puducherry, India, 1979;

Sri Aurobindo: The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, now, Puducherry, India, 1991;

T. S. Eliot: Selected Essays, Faber and Faber, 1999;

Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, Part I, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, now, Puducherry, India, 1979;

Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, Helios Books Co. Private Ltd., Chennai, India, 2012;

Sri Aurobindo: The Upanishads, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, now, Puducherry, India, 1998;

Sri Aurobindo: The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, now, Puducherry, 1984.

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Published

2023-10-09

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2023)

Section

Articles

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