Sufism and American Literary Masters

Description

Explores the influence of Sufism on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers. This book reveals the rich, but generally unknown, influence of Sufism on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature. The translation of Persian poets such as Hafiz and Sa di into English and the ongoing popularity of Omar Khayyam offered intriguing new spiritual perspectives to some of the major American literary figures. As editor Mehdi Aminrazavi notes, these Sufi influences have often been subsumed into a notion of Eastern, chiefly Indian, thought and not acknowledged as having Islamic roots. This work pays considerable attention to two giants of American literature, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, who found much inspiration from the Sufi ideas they encountered. Other canonical figures are also discussed, including Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, along with literary contemporaries who are lesser known today, such as Paschal Beverly Randolf, Thomas Lake Harris, and Lawrence Oliphant.";Foreword / Jacob Needleman -- Introduction / Mehdi Aminrazavi -- The English Romantic Background: 1. English Romantics and Persian Sufi Poets: A Wellspring of Inspiration for American Transcendentalists / Leonard Lewisohn -- The Master: Emerson and Sufism: 2. The Chronological Development of Emerson's Interest in Persian Mysticism / Mansur Ekhtiyar -- 3. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Muslim Orient / Marwan M. Obediat -- 4. Emerson and Aspects of Sa'di's Reception in Nineteenth-Century America / Parvin Loloi -- 5. Emerson on Hafiz and Sa'di: The Narrative of Love and Wine / Farhang Jahanpour -- The Disciple: Walt Whitman: 6. Whitman and Hafiz: Expressions of Universal Love and Tolerance / Mahnaz Ahmad -- 7. Walt Whitman and Sufism: Towards a Persian Lesson / Massud Farzan -- The Initiates: Other American Authors: 8. Literary 'Masters' in the Literature of Thomas Lake Harris, Lawrence Oliphant, and Paschal Beverly Randolph / Arthur Versluis -- 9. American Transcendentalists' Interpretations of Sufism: Thoreau, Whitman, Longfellow, Lowell, Melville, and Lafcadio Hearn / John D. Yohannan -- 10. The Persians of Concord / Phillip N. Edmondson -- 11. Omarian Poets of America / Mehdi Aminrazavi -- 12. 'Bond Slave to FitzGerald's Omar': Mark Twain and the Ruba'iyat / Alan Gribben -- 13. Mark Twain's Ruba'iyat: AGE -- A Rubáiyát