A Poetry of Mysticism: Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, and Rainer Maria Rilke
Sharing Poetic Expressions: January 1, 2011 Bruce Ross
This chapter examines how Ibn Gabirol, Rumi, and Rilke use poeticized acts of remembering and communion to explore internal mystical experience. Ibn Gabirol's poetry approaches the spiritual toward a state of blessedness; Rumi's poetry returns to the spiritual through love, expressed with confidence and infused by neo-Platonism, Judaism, Kabbalah, Islam, and Sufism. Rilke's poetry, reflecting modern challenges, enacts a transmutation of the world into spirit through feeling, a necessity in a complicated time. The chapter argues that these three poets, across different eras and traditions, each depict the extraordinary nature of internal mystical experience.