Romanticism & Esoteric Tradition: Studies in Imagination.

Spiritual quest is at the very heart of poetry, but in our materialistic climate of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this fact has been largely forgotten, even by those who claim to be experts in interpreting literature. How does the common worldview of the main esoteric traditions of East and West correspond to the aims of Romantic poets such as Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth? In "Romanticism and Esoteric Tradition," Paul Davies maintains that only in the light of these traditions and secret teachings can Romantic poetry and thinking be understood as intended.
This is one of the first books to connect poetry to the core teachings of the esoteric tradition and to reveal the esoteric meaning of works by several Romantic writers - those whose works have bewildered a culture that has chosen to marginalize the spiritual and instead limit itself to material, historical, and social issues.
The Romantics were the first substantial group of poets to imagine - as personal encounter - the relationship between self and environment. In this sense, the Romantics recalled a long-held secret of the esoteric "human sciences"; they did not invent a new one. This book brings the deepest interests of the Romantics directly into contact with issues closest to today's students of the spiritual traditions and holistic perspectives.