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“Drafts upon heaven”: Robert Southey, tapas, and the “monstrous fables” of Hinduism and Romanism
European Romantic Review, Volume: 22, Issue: 2, Pages: 257 - 276
Swansea University Author: Michael Franklin
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DOI (Published version): 10.1080/10509585.2011.544932
Abstract
This article considers how far Southey understood the relationship inherent in the Vedic concept of tapas between the incandescent energy produced by ascetic practices and the dangerous power of knowledge. With a scholar’s austere devotion, he subjects the practice of severe and mortifying austeriti...
| Published in: | European Romantic Review |
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| Published: |
European Romantic Review
2011
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa11433 |
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| Abstract: |
This article considers how far Southey understood the relationship inherent in the Vedic concept of tapas between the incandescent energy produced by ascetic practices and the dangerous power of knowledge. With a scholar’s austere devotion, he subjects the practice of severe and mortifying austerities to a detailed consideration which mingles horror and fascination. The idea that such penance and sacrifice accrue a “sterling” value, bankable in Heaven, and independent of the devotee’s motives, evokes especial revulsion. At the time of the composition of The Curse of Kehama (1810) this is viewed as a peculiarly Hindu tenet. Subsequently, Southey’s desire to demonize Catholicism leads him to regard it as a received opinion of the Catholic church, and to juxtapose Hindu and Romish austerities in catalogues of repulsive penitential practices. His vigor in denouncing Hindu and Catholic austerities was ambivalently matched by his delight in writing poetry about them, and the article examines the complex interaction of his politics, poetics, proclivities, and prejudices. Southey’s representations of Hinduism are analyzed against the background of sources and analogues in the research of William Jones and other Bengal Orientalists; the criticism of both metropolitan and colonial reviewers; and the delineations of other Romantic period writers. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Issue: |
2 |
| Start Page: |
257 |
| End Page: |
276 |