ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the legacy of Romantic idealism as expressed in the philosophy and poetics of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and as it is further developed in the twentieth century by Georges Bataille and Luce Irigaray. Coleridge’s idealism draws on contemporary translations of Hindu mysticism, with the goal of transcending the division between subject and object, which he sees as a conceptual impediment to the direct experience of reality. Coleridgean meditation reveals that objects are not inert but vibrantly alive and inextricable from subjectivity. Although Bataille and Irigaray do not consider Coleridge directly, their writings on meditation resonate with his, and they clearly borrow from and contest Eastern and Romantic traditions. Bataille practices meditation to create intensive “points” that stream his body into objects, but insists that these dissolutions are ineffable and only partially captured by poetry. Irigaray also attends to the ways in which meditation and poetry connect humans to their surrounds, but stresses what is only implicit in Coleridge and Bataille: idealism must respect the integrity of differences—especially sexual difference—as much as work towards their dissolution. This genealogy offers a perspective on the development of Romantic idealism that has implications for comparative studies, aesthetics, ecocriticism, and feminism.
