Conflation of Eroticism and Mysticism in Maulana and John Donne's Poetry: A Comparative Study

The intensive mystical preoccupations of Maulana and John Donne find their way in metaphors which are used to elucidate the nature of passionate relationship between the individual and God. In Maulana's erotic poetry, we confront with allegorical treatment of love as an earthly relationship between the lover and beloved used to illustrate the intense mystical relation of the seeker of Truth and Truth. Similarly, Donne in his divine poems explicates the relation between the individual and God from the erotic perspective. The present study aims at investigating allegorical love portrayed in the devotional poetry of Maulana and John Donne through the poets’ juxtaposition of earthly love with its divine counterpart leading to the conflation of the erotic and sacred in their poems.

Keywords:

eroticism , mysticism , allegorical treatment of love , Maulana , Donne