Return to Table of Contents
A thoughtful union of Zen Buddhist philosophy and Western literature is attained in a new book by a professor of English at IU Kokomo.
Published by the State University of New York Press, Wordsworth and the Zen Mind: the Poetry of Self-Emptying, was written by John Rudy (above), who has been a scholar of the great English poet William Wordsworth for 25 years.
In his book, Rudy describes his understanding of what Wordsworth meant by "the tranquil soul," as well as "the one Presence" that the poet believed underlies all of life. "I have long felt that scholarly criticism of Wordsworth's poetry, grounded for the most part in conventional Western philosophy and theology, does not do justice to the global range and spiritual depth of his insight," Rudy said. "I was fascinated by his claim that 'we have all of us one human heart,' and by the high spirituality of his devotion to what he called 'plain living and high thinking.' I discovered in Zen thought and art a body of texts that I believe articulate more poignantly the universal spirituality of his poetry."
Rudy's work has received critical and scholarly praise. One scholar called it an "eloquent demonstration of how minds from diverse cultural backgrounds such as English romanticism and Zen Buddhism can meet on shared grounds of human perception." Another said it was "by far the clearest expression of the interrelated nature of things, enticing East-West dialogue to a finer point. By bringing to bear Japanese Zen qualities of mental and spiritual tranquility to Wordsworth's lifelong poetic engagement, Rudy has rendered us a service by removing the many obstacles that plague East-West treatment of the metaphysical and cosmological nature of experiential reality."
He received his bachelor's degree from State University College in New Paltz, N.Y., and his master's and doctoral degrees from Pennsylvania State University.