This work is not only a general inquiry into ecstatic states of consciousness and an historical outline of the ecstatic poetic tradition but also an intensive study of five representative poets--Rumi, Wordsworth, Whitman, Dickinson, and Tagore. In a refreshingly original, wide-ranging engagement with concepts in psychology, religion, philosophy, aesthetics, sociology and history, this book demonstrates that the poetics and aesthetics of ecstasy represent an ancient, ubiquitous theory of poetry that continues to influence writers in the current century.

This work is not only a general inquiry into ecstatic states of consciousness and an historical outline of the ecstatic poetic tradition but also an intensive study of five representative poets--Rumi, Wordsworth, Whitman, Dickinson, and Tagore. In a refreshingly original, wide-ranging engagement with concepts in psychology, religion, philosophy, aesthetics, sociology and history, this book demonstrates that the poetics and aesthetics of ecstasy represent an ancient, ubiquitous theory of poetry that continues to influence writers in the current century.

'Wild Poets of Ecstasy' brings together ancient and modern poetry from the world's literary treasuries. Containing poems from over 100 secular and religious writers, this anthology is a sustained celebration of human beings in their best monuments.

While The Language of Love is quite literally dedicated to conveying love and passion, the subject of this collection of powerful poems is quite surprising. It's you! This new compilation of verses from Ray Buchanan uses the ancient Sufi poetic tradition to present fresh ruminations on the nature of God and spirituality. Buchanan here offers love poems of a radically different sort: they are written from the perspective and in the voice of the Creator, dedicated to his creations all over the world rather than to a physical lover. Let the love of the divine wash over you through these inspirational lines-and bring you peace. Buchanan's poetry reveals the full depth of the Creator's love. God longs for oneness with every single person on this earth-and accepting this can lead us to true ecstasy. We all long for the Creator's love, a fact we may not even realize. Not until we are faced with the fullness of God's devotion can we understand this simple spiritual truth. Buchanan hopes his work will inspire you to open your own heart and find the ecstatic joy he feels every day as one of God's creations.

A stunning collection of poems by Mirabai, the fifteenth-century female Indian ecstatic poet. Like Coleman Barks's translations of Rumi, this collection of poems by Mirabai will appeal to anyone interested in spiritual poetry.

Fascination with quotidian experience in modern art, literature, and philosophy promotes ecstatic forms of reflection on the very structure of the everyday world. Gosetti-Ferencei examines the ways in which modern art and literature enable a study of how we experience quotidian life. She shows that modernism, while exhibiting many strands of development, can be understood by investigating how its attentions to perception and expectation, to the common quality of things, or to childhood play gives way to experiences of ecstasis&—the stepping outside of the ordinary familiarity of the world. While phenomenology grounds this study (through Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Bachelard), what makes this book more than a treatise on phenomenological aesthetics is the way in which modernity itself is examined in its relation to the quotidian. Through the works of artists and writers such as Benjamin, C&ézanne, Frost, Klee, Newman, Pollock, Ponge, Proust, Rilke, Robbe-Grillet, Rothko, Sartre, and Twombly, the world of quotidian life can be seen to harbor a latent ecstasis. The breakdown of the quotidian through and after modernism then becomes an urgent question for understanding art and literature in its capacity to further human experience, and it points to the limits of phenomenological explications of the everyday.

An unexpectedly entertaining collection of writing by poets discussing the creative inspiration and artistic form of their work.