Bhagavad-Gita and The English Romantic Movement: A Study in Influence

Bhagavad-Gita and the English Romantic Movement: A Study in Influence seeks to fill the need of bringing into limelight the contribution of India to the growth and enrichment of the English Romantic Movement. It establishes that the great 'Romantic Movement' was augmented by what is known as 'la renaissance Orientale' which took place at the end of the eighteenth century as a result of the research conducted by English orientalists such as Charles Wilkins, Sir William Jones, Francis Wilford, N.H. Kindersley, etc. It was represented at its best by the prose translation of the Gita by Charles Wilkins which was published in London in 1785 at the recommendation of Warren Hastings. The present book proves with the help of documented evidence that all the great romantics - Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Shelley and Keats, had read Wilkins Gita and imbibed its spirit, which found creative expression in their great poems. It is a revolutionary study which provides a new dimension to the evolution of English Romantic poetry by stressing its Indian aspects which have remained hitherto unnoticed but ought to have received due critical attention.

About the Author :

Dr. Krishna Gopal Srivastava is Professor of English at the University of Allahabad. He has had a brilliant academic record throughout and has published several books and articles in India, England and America. His two articles on Aristotle's Doctrine of Tragic Catharsis, which appeared in The British Journal of Aesthetics (Summer 1972 and Spring 1975 respectively), brought him international fame. His rendering of 'Ode to a Nightingale' stands displayed in the reading room of the Oriental section of the Cambridge University Library.