Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

English Literatures and Oriental Thought Shakespeare
Let us take the case of Shakespeare first. It would have been strange indeed if among the many motions of his mind on pantheistic ideas were to be met within Shakespeare. A passage in ”The Tempest” will illustrate our meaning:
”We are such stuff
As dreams are made of,
And our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”. Shelley
Of all English poets there is none who is so closely akin to the pantheistic type of mind as is Shelley. In ”Prome theus Unbound” Asia is the goddess of his workshop. It may have been only an instinct that attracted one essentially of a deeply pantheistic spirit to the great home of Pantheism. ”Life not the painted veil, ”he said ”which those who live call life, even though unreal shapes be pictured there”. But in none of his works so much as in his Adonais does the Pantheism of Shelley appear in such dazzling radiance, embellished with all the charm of poetical colouring. The exquisite beauty of the following lines expressing the Oneness of Existence demands citation:
”The One remains, the many change and pass,
Heaven’s light for ever shines earth’s shadows fly,
Life like a dome of many coloured glass.
Stains the white radiance of Eternity”.
In tracing the scope of Eastern thought in England one has also to mention the names of English mystics such as Law, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and the Cambridge Platonists of modern poets. Arthur Symons’ lines on ”A Dancing Dervish” and Browning’s ”Paracelsus” and ”Sordello”, will have been read by many. Harris’s poems are full of Sufi nature. In Phillip’s beautiful poem ”Parpassa”

742 Political and Cultural History of Islam

there are lines full of Sufi mysticism. Tennyson gives indications of being influenced by Oriental through in ”Akbar’s dream”, and especially in ”’the Ancient Sage” he has given expression to perhaps more fascinating form than any other poet, to some characteristic Oriental ideas. Mathew Arnold’s mystic melancholy bestows upon him a kinship with the Indian temperament. Edwin Arnold, Ralph Griffiths, Max Muller and a host of other Orientalists have drawn their inspiration from the Oriental literature. American Writers
Longfellow depicts the Universe as an immeasurable wheel turning for ever more in the rapid rushing river of time. We also find Emerson playing Pantheistic mysticism of the Oriental type. In short, we find that so far as it has been borne in upon the thinkers of the East that the things of sense deceive and betray, so far as they utter with tremendous emphasis that the things that are seen are shadows, so far not a few in the West have hearkened-to their teaching. Art and Architecture
In the world of architecture, minor arts and music, the Muslims in Spains excelled their contemporaries in Europe. Their beautifully ornamented mosques, palaces, bath houses in and around Cordova, Saville or Granada testified a unique artistic taste cultivated by the Muslims in Spain. The suburbs of the metropolitan centres with sprawling orchards, flowing streams and ornate vinecovered villas embodied the aesthetic sense of the Moors. The architectural designs of the great Mosque in Cordova with its decorated arches, carved gates and scenic walls symbolized the zenith of the Muslim arts destined to influence Barouqe Art of the

17th century Europe. Similarly, the ruins of al-Zahara or al-Hamara are still great architectural monuments of the world and represent the genius and refined culture of the Andalusian Muslims sufficient enough to provide exotic themes to the known Western writers like Washington Irwing.