Wordsworth and the Zen Mind: The Poetry of Self-Emptying

This book demonstrates that Zen thought and art provide both a generative and a formative context for understanding the spirituality of the English poet William Wordsworth (1770 1850). Combining methods of modern literary scholarship with the philosophical initiatives of the Kyoto School, the text crosses disciplines as well as cultures, offering a nonmonotheistic, nonpantheistic philosophical ground upon which to study what Wordsworth calls the tranquil soul and the one Presence that underlies the great whole of life. Anticipating a variety of audiences, the discourse progresses from general, introductory level discussions of Zen philosophy and literature to the more technical philosophical idiom of the Kyoto School, employing intertextual readings of a variety of Wordsworthian and Zen documents to broaden and deepen the East-West dialogue as it has been unfolding since the pioneering work of D. T. Suzuki and Kitaro Nishida.

An important aspect of this study is its twofold purpose: to situate Wordsworth more centrally in the evolving global community of intercultural and interreligious communication and to demonstrate the unique flexibility and universality of Zen as a medium of spiritual growth and aesthetic understanding.