Symbols of Mystical Ecstasy and Divine Love in the Poetry of ’A’ishah al-Ba’uniyya and W.B. Yeats: A Heideggerian Re-interpretation

Ecstasy, an inexpressible and condensed experience through which the Ultimate can be revealed, finds expression in symbolic poetry that communicates the unsaying. This comparative study traces the creative merit and mystical layers in the writings of Arab Sufi ’A’ishah al-Ba’uniyya and Irish poet W.B. Yeats, using a synthesis of Heidegger’s existentialist view of ecstasy, Jung’s concept of individuation, and Sufi theory. It investigates how both poets interpret spiritual visions through powerful poetic endeavor, blending Western and Eastern thoughts with a Sufi touch. Spiritual dimensions like transport, unveiling, illumination, and divine beauty are metaphorically interconnected with physical love symbology—wine, woman, roses, gyres—elevating the erotic to the spiritual realm and integrating gender differences in the quest for union with the Absolute.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Ecstasy, though, is an inexpressible and condensed experience through which the Ultimate can be revealed, the mystic poet finds expression in resorting to symbolism to reflect the uniqueness of his/her spiritual experience and to communicate the unsaying. Approaching the divine essence and expressing the euphoria of His presence in meditation, recollection and self-forgetfulness are often described as provoking ecstatic trance-like states of intoxication, dancing, flying, or even death. Within a broad interest in comparative mystical literature, this study traces the creative merit and the mystical layers of significance behind the writings of the Arab Sufi ’A’ishah al-Ba’uniyya and the Irish poet, W.B. Yeats. It follows a synthesis model, mainly Heidegger’s existentialist view of ecstasy that envisages non-temporality presence, epiphany, transcendence and the experience of Being or Dasein, Jung’s concept of individuation, and the Sufi theory of Ibn Arabi and Ibn al-Farid. This paper investigates how both ‘Aishah and Yeats interpret their spiritual visions, though different in culture, religion and gender, in terms of a powerful and beautiful poetic endeavour? How does their mystical poetry reveal a blend of Western and Eastern thoughts though it is dominated by a single Sufi touch? It also investigates how spiritual dimensions, like transport, unveiling, illumination and beauty of the divine beloved, are exquisitely and metaphorically interconnected with physical love symbology⸺the wine, woman, roses, gyres, and shapes, in the process of elevating the erotic to the sanctity of the spiritual realm and integrating gender differences in the conscious quest for union with the Absolute.