Poetics of Transcendence: Nature, Aesthetic Knowledge, and Cultural Ontology in Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats

International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 201 Poetics of Transcendence: Nature, Aesthetic Knowledge, and Cultural Ontology in Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats Arun Kumar Ghosh Assistant Teacher, Dept. of English, Deulpur High School, (H.S.), Howrah, WB, India Email: [email protected] ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT ©2025 RS Publication Paper ID: IJRM693F0173D4E32 Published: 2025-12-15 DOI: https://dx.doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.1794 1428 Page No: 200-210 This paper undertakes a comparative examination of Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats by rethinking nature not merely as a poetic motif but as a site of aesthetic knowledge and transcendental inquiry. While existing scholarship frequently aligns Tagore with European Romanticism or treats Keats within the confines of English literary tradition, such approaches often overlook the fundamentally different ontological and epistemological assumptions that inform their poetic engagements with nature. Drawing on close readings of selected poems from Gitanjali, Stray Birds, and Keats’s major odes, this study argues that Keats conceptualizes nature as a sensuous and imaginative medium through which aesthetic transcendence is momentarily achieved, whereas Tagore envisions nature as an organically spiritual presence embedded within a metaphysics of unity. By situating Keats within the framework of Romantic imagination and Negative Capability, and Tagore within Indic philosophical traditions shaped by Upanishadic and Bhakti thought, the paper develops a cross-cultural hermeneutic model that foregrounds cultural ontology as a decisive factor in poetic meaning-making. This comparative approach reveals that the poets’ shared preoccupation with beauty and impermanence leads to divergent modes of transcendence—one grounded in aesthetic intensity and imaginative suspension, the other in spiritual continuity and relational being. In re-evaluating the poetics of nature across these two literary traditions, the study challenges Eurocentric paradigms of Romanticism and contributes to a more inclusive understanding of world poetry as a field shaped by multiple, culturally embedded epistemologies. Keywords: Comparative Poetics, Nature and Transcendence, Aesthetic Knowledge, Cultural Ontology, Romanticism and World Literature, Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats. Introduction Literature Review Nature has long occupied a central position in poetic discourse as a medium through which poets negotiate questions of beauty, temporality, and transcendence. From the Romantic valorization of the natural world as a source of imaginative renewal to non-Western traditions that regard nature as a manifestation of metaphysical unity, poetic engagements with nature have repeatedly served as a means of articulating the relationship between the human subject and the infinite. Within this expansive field, the poetry of John Keats and Rabindranath Tagore INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN MANAGEMENT Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm ISSN 2249-5908 Cite This Paper: Arun Kumar Ghosh (2025). "Poetics of Transcendence: Nature, Aesthetic Knowledge, and Cultural Ontology in Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats". INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN MANAGEMENT (IJRM), vol. 15, no. 6, 2025, pp. 200-210. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17941428 International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 202 presents a particularly fertile ground for comparative inquiry. Although separated by geography, language, and cultural tradition, both poets approach nature as more than a descriptive backdrop, investing it with profound philosophical and aesthetic significance. Yet the apparent affinities between their poetic visions often obscure deeper differences in how nature functions as a mode of knowing and a pathway to transcendence. Keats’s poetry emerges from the intellectual milieu of English Romanticism, shaped by a commitment to sensuous immediacy, imaginative freedom, and aesthetic intensity. His natural imagery frequently becomes a site where the boundaries between perception and imagination blur, allowing fleeting encounters with beauty to gesture toward transcendence without resolving its metaphysical implications. Tagore’s poetry, by contrast, is grounded in a worldview informed by Indic philosophical traditions, where nature is not external to spiritual truth but participates in an underlying unity of being. In his work, nature does not merely inspire transcendental longing; it embodies a living continuum in which the self, the world, and the divine are interrelated. This study argues that these divergent poetic orientations reflect distinct cultural ontologies that have yet to be adequately examined within a comparative framework. 1.1 Critical Context: Keats and the Aesthetics of Romantic Nature Critical scholarship on John Keats has consistently emphasized his engagement with nature as a sensuous and aesthetic experience. Early Romantic critics positioned Keats as a poet of beauty, often contrasting his work with the moral seriousness of Wordsworth or the philosophical ambition of Coleridge. Subsequent studies have deepened this view by exploring Keats’s concept of Negative Capability, which privileges openness, uncertainty, and imaginative receptivity over systematic knowledge. Within this framework, nature becomes a space where the poet relinquishes fixed meaning in favor of experiential intensity. Keats’s major odes—particularly “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and “To Autumn”—have been read as meditations on transience, mortality, and the limits of human perception. Critics have noted how nature in these poems oscillates between permanence and decay, offering moments of aesthetic transcendence that remain inherently provisional. While such readings have enriched our understanding of Keats’s poetic philosophy, they often remain confined to a Western Romantic paradigm that treats nature primarily as an imaginative construct rather than a metaphysical presence. As a result, Keats’s poetics of nature is rarely examined in relation to alternative epistemological traditions that conceptualize the natural world as an extension of spiritual reality. 1.2 Tagore and the Spiritual Ontology of Nature Rabindranath Tagore’s engagement with nature has been widely acknowledged as a defining feature of his poetic vision. Scholars frequently situate his work within the context of Indian philosophical thought, drawing attention to the influence of the Upanishads, Bhakti devotionalism, and Vaishnava humanism. In poems from Gitanjali and Stray Birds, nature appears not as an object of contemplation but as an active participant in the poet’s spiritual and emotional life. Sunlight, rivers, flowers, and seasons are infused with an ethical and metaphysical vitality that reflects Tagore’s belief in the interconnectedness of all existence. Despite this recognition, comparative studies often reduce Tagore’s treatment of nature to a generalized spirituality or align it superficially with European Romanticism. Such approaches International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 203 risk overlooking the distinct ontological assumptions that shape Tagore’s poetics. Unlike Romantic poets who frequently posit a tension between the self and the external world, Tagore envisions a relational ontology in which the self is continuously constituted through its engagement with nature. This philosophical orientation challenges dominant Western frameworks of aesthetic experience and calls for a comparative method that does not subsume Tagore’s poetry under inherited Romantic categories. 1.3 Comparative Scholarship and Its Limitations Comparative literary studies have occasionally brought Tagore into dialogue with English Romantic poets, most often Wordsworth. These studies tend to emphasize thematic parallels such as reverence for nature, emotional sincerity, and a critique of industrial modernity. While such comparisons have value, they often rely on surface-level affinities and assume a shared Romantic sensibility without interrogating the cultural and philosophical foundations that differentiate these poetic traditions. Keats, in particular, has received comparatively little attention in Tagore studies, despite the rich possibilities for examining aesthetic experience, temporality, and transcendence across their works. The relative absence of sustained Tagore–Keats comparative analysis points to a broader methodological issue within comparative literature: the tendency to privilege Western aesthetic categories as universal benchmarks. This inclination limits the scope of cross-cultural interpretation and obscures the ways in which non-Western poets articulate alternative modes of poetic knowledge. A comparative study that places Tagore and Keats in dialogue must therefore move beyond thematic comparison to address the underlying epistemological and ontological structures that inform their poetic visions of nature. 1.4 Research Gap and Conceptual Framework This study identifies a significant gap in existing scholarship: the lack of a comparative, philosophically grounded analysis of how nature functions as a source of aesthetic knowledge and transcendence in the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats. While both poets have been extensively studied within their respective traditions, there has been little effort to examine their works through a shared yet culturally sensitive analytical lens that accounts for divergent ontologies of nature. Current scholarship rarely considers how Keats’s imaginative engagement with nature contrasts with Tagore’s spiritually inflected vision, nor does it sufficiently address how these differences reflect broader cultural conceptions of being, knowledge, and beauty. To address this gap, the present study adopts a cross-cultural hermeneutic approach that integrates close textual analysis with philosophical inquiry. By examining selected poems from Gitanjali, Stray Birds, and Keats’s odes, the paper explores how each poet constructs nature as a medium through which transcendence is apprehended and articulated. The concept of cultural ontology serves as a central analytical framework, allowing for a nuanced comparison that respects the specificity of each tradition while revealing points of convergence and divergence. In doing so, the study seeks to contribute to a more inclusive understanding of poetic epistemology and to challenge Eurocentric assumptions that continue to shape Romantic and comparative literary studies. International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 204 Methodology 2.1 Research Design and Comparative Orientation This study adopts a qualitative, interpretive research design grounded in comparative literary analysis. Rather than pursuing a historical or influence-based model, the research is structured around a dialogic comparison that treats Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats as parallel contributors to a global poetic discourse on nature and transcendence. The comparative orientation is non-hierarchical and resists teleological assumptions that position Western Romanticism as the normative aesthetic framework. Instead, the study foregrounds cultural specificity while enabling cross-cultural interpretive exchange. This approach allows the analysis to examine both convergence and divergence in the poets’ conceptualization of nature without reducing one tradition to the terms of the other. The methodological emphasis is placed on how poetic meaning is generated through aesthetic form, philosophical orientation, and cultural ontology. By privileging interpretation over quantification, the research seeks to uncover how each poet constructs nature as a medium of knowledge and transcendence, rather than as a mere thematic presence. 2.2 Selection of Texts and Corpus Delimitation The primary corpus consists of selected poems by John Keats and Rabindranath Tagore that explicitly foreground nature as a site of aesthetic and transcendental engagement. In the case of Keats, the study focuses on the major odes—particularly “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and “To Autumn”—which represent the culmination of his poetic exploration of sensuous experience, temporality, and imaginative transcendence. These poems are widely regarded as central to Keats’s poetic philosophy and provide a coherent basis for examining his engagement with nature as an aesthetic phenomenon. For Tagore, the analysis draws primarily from Gitanjali and Stray Birds, two collections that encapsulate his mature poetic vision and articulate his philosophical engagement with nature, spirituality, and relational being. These texts were selected for their thematic consistency and their sustained treatment of nature as an expression of metaphysical unity. English translations authorized by Tagore himself are used in order to maintain textual reliability while acknowledging the complexities of translation as a mediating factor in comparative analysis. The delimitation of the corpus is guided not by representational exhaustiveness but by conceptual density. The selected poems offer sufficient depth to facilitate close reading and comparative interpretation while allowing for philosophical coherence across the two traditions. 2.3 Theoretical Framework and Conceptual Tools The methodological framework integrates literary hermeneutics with philosophical aesthetics in order to account for the cultural and ontological dimensions of poetic meaning. For the analysis of Keats, the study draws upon Romantic aesthetic theory, particularly the concept of Negative Capability, as well as critical discussions of imagination, sensuousness, and aesthetic temporality. These concepts provide a lens through which Keats’s poetic engagement with International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 205 nature can be understood as a form of experiential knowledge that resists closure and embraces uncertainty. Tagore’s poetry is examined through concepts derived from Indic philosophical traditions, including Advaita Vedanta and Bhakti thought, which emphasize unity, relationality, and the immanence of the spiritual within the natural world. Rather than applying these frameworks in a doctrinal manner, the study employs them as interpretive horizons that illuminate Tagore’s poetic ontology. This approach allows the analysis to remain sensitive to the philosophical textures embedded within the poetry without reducing literary expression to philosophical exposition. The concept of cultural ontology functions as a mediating theoretical tool that enables comparative analysis without erasing difference. By focusing on how each poet’s cultural and philosophical context shapes their understanding of being, nature, and transcendence, the study avoids universalizing aesthetic categories and instead emphasizes culturally situated modes of poetic knowing. 2.4 Hermeneutic and Close Reading Approach Close textual analysis constitutes the core methodological practice of this study. Each poem is examined for its use of imagery, metaphor, symbolic structure, and tonal modulation, with particular attention to how natural elements are mobilized to articulate experiences of transcendence. The hermeneutic approach adopted here is dialogic rather than deterministic, allowing meaning to emerge through sustained engagement with the text rather than through the imposition of predefined theoretical conclusions. Interpretation proceeds through a movement between the part and the whole, whereby individual images and motifs are read in relation to the broader poetic and philosophical vision of each author. This hermeneutic process is informed by an awareness of cultural difference and historical context, but it resists reductive contextualization. Instead, the focus remains on how poetic language itself enacts modes of knowing and being. Comparative interpretation is conducted through thematic and conceptual juxtaposition rather than direct equivalence. Moments of convergence, such as the shared preoccupation with beauty and impermanence, are analyzed alongside moments of divergence, particularly in the poets’ attitudes toward temporality, selfhood, and transcendence. This method ensures that comparison enhances rather than diminishes the specificity of each poetic tradition. 2.5 Limitations and Reflexive Considerations The study acknowledges certain methodological limitations inherent in cross-cultural literary research. The reliance on English translations of Tagore’s poetry, while necessary for comparative purposes, introduces questions of linguistic mediation and cultural nuance. These limitations are addressed through careful attention to Tagore’s own translational choices and by foregrounding interpretive caution where semantic ambiguity arises. Additionally, the study does not seek to establish direct lines of influence between Tagore and Keats, nor does it claim exhaustive coverage of either poet’s oeuvre. Instead, it prioritizes conceptual depth over breadth, recognizing that comparative insight emerges most International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 206 productively through focused and theoretically informed analysis. By maintaining reflexive awareness of these constraints, the methodology aims to produce a balanced and intellectually responsible comparative study. Results/Findings 3.1 Nature as a Medium of Aesthetic Knowledge The comparative analysis reveals that both Keats and Tagore construct nature as a primary medium through which aesthetic knowledge is generated, though the epistemological orientation of this knowledge differs significantly. In Keats’s poetry, nature functions as a sensuous field that intensifies perception and provokes imaginative insight. The nightingale’s song, the ripening season of autumn, and the sculpted figures on the Grecian urn are not merely descriptive images but experiential triggers that suspend rational cognition. Through these encounters, the poet arrives at moments of heightened awareness in which beauty is apprehended as truth, albeit fleetingly. Aesthetic knowledge in Keats is therefore provisional and contingent, emerging from the tension between sensory immediacy and imaginative projection. Tagore’s poetic engagement with nature, by contrast, produces a form of knowledge that is relational and integrative. Natural phenomena in Gitanjali and Stray Birds—light, wind, flowers, rivers—are imbued with an ethical and spiritual resonance that exceeds sensory pleasure. Rather than suspending cognition, Tagore’s nature invites recognition of an alreadyexisting unity between the self and the world. Knowledge, in this context, is not momentary illumination but sustained awareness of interconnected being. The findings suggest that while Keats treats nature as a catalyst for aesthetic insight, Tagore approaches it as a continuous mode of spiritual cognition. 3.2 Temporal Experience and the Question of Impermanence A significant point of divergence between the two poets emerges in their treatment of temporality and impermanence. Keats’s poetry consistently frames nature within a temporal tension that foregrounds transience and loss. The sensuous richness of the natural world is shadowed by an acute awareness of mortality, rendering moments of beauty both intense and precarious. In poems such as “Ode to a Nightingale,” the desire to escape time is articulated through imaginative flight, yet this transcendence remains temporary and illusory. Time ultimately reasserts itself, reinforcing the fragility of aesthetic experience. In Tagore’s poetry, impermanence is not framed as a source of existential anxiety but as an integral aspect of cosmic rhythm. Natural cycles—dawn and dusk, blooming and withering— are embraced as expressions of continuity rather than decay. Transience does not negate meaning; instead, it affirms the dynamic flow of life in which loss and renewal coexist. The findings indicate that Tagore’s conception of time aligns with a non-linear ontology, where change is absorbed into a broader sense of permanence rooted in spiritual unity. This contrast underscores how cultural ontology shapes poetic responses to the shared human condition of mortality. International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 207 3.3 Modes of Transcendence: Imaginative Suspension and Spiritual Continuity The analysis identifies two distinct modes of transcendence operating within the poets’ engagement with nature. Keats’s transcendence is achieved through imaginative suspension, wherein the self momentarily dissolves into the sensuous and aesthetic experience of the natural world. This process is marked by a deliberate embrace of ambiguity, as articulated through Negative Capability. Transcendence, in Keats’s poetry, is thus characterized by intensity rather than duration. It offers an escape from the constraints of rational thought but stops short of metaphysical resolution. Tagore’s transcendence, in contrast, is grounded in spiritual continuity rather than imaginative rupture. Nature does not transport the self beyond the world; it deepens the self’s participation within it. The poetic voice in Gitanjali frequently articulates a sense of belonging that dissolves the boundary between the human and the natural. Transcendence here is not an extraordinary event but an immanent condition realized through attunement to the rhythms of existence. The findings demonstrate that Tagore’s poetics of nature articulate a mode of transcendence that is ethically and relationally sustained, rather than aesthetically episodic. 3.4 The Self in Relation to Nature Another key finding concerns the construction of poetic subjectivity in relation to nature. Keats’s poetic self is often characterized by fluidity and self-effacement, seeking dissolution in the aesthetic object. This self-negation enables moments of imaginative expansion but also reveals an underlying instability. The self oscillates between immersion in nature and selfconscious reflection, highlighting the Romantic tension between individuality and absorption. Tagore’s poetic self, by contrast, is relationally constituted through its engagement with nature. Rather than seeking dissolution, the self affirms its place within a larger web of existence. Nature becomes a dialogic partner rather than an object of contemplation, shaping a subjectivity that is expansive yet grounded. This relational selfhood reflects a cultural ontology in which individuality is not opposed to unity but emerges through it. The findings suggest that Tagore’s poetics offer an alternative model of subjectivity that challenges Western Romantic notions of selfhood as inherently divided. 3.5 Cultural Ontology and Poetic Meaning-Making Taken together, these findings highlight cultural ontology as a decisive factor in shaping poetic meaning. Keats’s nature poetry operates within an ontology that privileges aesthetic experience as a means of accessing truth, while remaining conscious of its limitations. Tagore’s poetry, conversely, reflects an ontology in which nature is inseparable from spiritual reality, rendering transcendence an immanent possibility rather than a fleeting achievement. The comparative analysis demonstrates that shared themes of beauty, impermanence, and transcendence do not imply shared philosophical assumptions. Instead, they reveal how similar poetic concerns are refracted through culturally distinct modes of knowing and being. By foregrounding cultural ontology, the findings challenge universalist models of Romanticism and affirm the necessity of culturally situated interpretation in comparative literary studies. International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 208 Discussion The findings of this study invite a reconsideration of critical assumptions that have long shaped the interpretation of nature in Romantic and post-Romantic poetry. Existing scholarship on John Keats has predominantly framed his engagement with nature within the parameters of aesthetic pleasure, sensuous immediacy, and imaginative transcendence. Critical discussions of Negative Capability have emphasized Keats’s resistance to philosophical closure, portraying his poetry as an embrace of ambiguity and experiential intensity. The present analysis affirms these readings while extending them by demonstrating that Keats’s aesthetic engagement with nature constitutes a specific epistemological stance—one in which knowledge is provisional, affective, and inseparable from sensory perception. This insight aligns with Romantic aesthetic theory while complicating it by situating Keats’s poetics within a broader comparative framework that exposes the cultural contingency of such epistemologies. Tagore scholarship, on the other hand, has frequently highlighted the spiritual and philosophical dimensions of his poetry, particularly in relation to the Upanishads and Bhakti traditions. Critics have noted Tagore’s emphasis on unity, harmony, and relational being, often characterizing his vision of nature as inherently spiritual. While these interpretations remain valuable, they have sometimes risked essentializing Tagore’s poetics as uniformly mystical or reducing his work to a generalized Eastern spirituality. The findings of this study nuance this critical tendency by demonstrating that Tagore’s engagement with nature is not merely spiritual in a devotional sense but ontological in its implications. Nature in Tagore’s poetry functions as a mode of knowing that integrates aesthetic experience with ethical and metaphysical awareness, thereby resisting the dichotomy between beauty and truth that often structures Western aesthetic discourse. Comparative literary studies have historically approached Tagore through a Romantic lens, frequently drawing parallels with Wordsworth or Shelley to emphasize shared thematic concerns. While such comparisons have contributed to Tagore’s global literary reception, they have also tended to subsume his poetic vision under Western aesthetic categories. The present discussion builds on critiques of Eurocentric comparative models by demonstrating that thematic similarity does not entail ontological equivalence. Although Keats and Tagore both articulate a deep engagement with nature, the cultural frameworks through which they conceptualize transcendence differ fundamentally. Keats’s moments of imaginative escape remain bound to the limits of human temporality, whereas Tagore’s vision of transcendence emerges from an immanent continuity between the self and the world. This distinction challenges comparative approaches that prioritize influence or analogy over philosophical difference. Recent developments in world literature and comparative poetics have called for methodologies that recognize multiple literary modernities and epistemologies. Scholars advocating for culturally situated hermeneutics have argued that poetic meaning cannot be fully understood without attention to the ontological assumptions embedded within language and form. The findings of this study contribute to this emerging discourse by demonstrating how cultural ontology shapes not only thematic content but also the structure of poetic experience itself. By foregrounding aesthetic knowledge as a culturally inflected phenomenon, the study aligns with broader efforts to decenter Western aesthetic universals and to acknowledge the plurality of poetic traditions. International Journal of Research in Management ISSN 2249-5908 Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijrm/ijrm_index.htm Volume 15 No. 6, 2025 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17941428 Original Article ©2025 RS Publication, rs[email protected] 209 The contrast between Keats’s imaginative suspension and Tagore’s spiritual continuity also resonates with philosophical debates on the nature of transcendence. Romantic criticism has often interpreted transcendence in terms of subjective intensity or imaginative elevation, whereas Tagore’s poetry invites a rethinking of transcendence as relational and ethically grounded. This distinction has implications for how poetry is understood as a mode of knowledge. The findings suggest that Keats’s poetry exemplifies a model of aesthetic knowing that thrives on uncertainty and fragmentation, while Tagore’s work articulates a holistic epistemology in which knowledge emerges through participation rather than detachment. Such a comparison expands the conceptual vocabulary of literary studies by bringing into dialogue divergent philosophical traditions without collapsing their differences. Finally, the study’s emphasis on cultural ontology contributes to ongoing debates about the scope and purpose of comparative literature. By resisting reductive equivalence and instead emphasizing interpretive plurality, the discussion affirms comparison as an ethical and intellectual practice rather than a classificatory exercise. The dialogue between Tagore and Keats, as articulated in this study, demonstrates that comparative analysis can illuminate not only shared poetic concerns but also the limits of dominant critical paradigms. In doing so, the discussion reinforces the value of cross-cultural scholarship in reimagining literary history as a network of interconnected yet distinct traditions, each offering unique insights into the relationship between nature, knowledge, and transcendence. Future Scope of Study The present study opens several avenues for further research in comparative and world literary studies. Future scholarship may extend this comparative framework to include other Romantic and post-Romantic poets from both Western and non-Western traditions in order to examine whether similar ontological distinctions shape poetic engagements with nature. A multilingual analysis incorporating Tagore’s original Bengali texts alongside English translations could yield deeper insights into the linguistic mediation of cultural ontology and aesthetic knowledge. Further research may also integrate interdisciplinary perspectives from philosophy, ecology, and environmental humanities to explore how Tagore’s relational view of nature and Keats’s aesthetic sensibility contribute to contemporary debates on ecological ethics. Finally, expanding the comparative lens to reception studies could illuminate how differing cultural contexts shape the global interpretation and valuation of poetic transcendence. Conclusion This study has undertaken a comparative examination of Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats in order to reconsider the poetic function of nature as a medium of aesthetic knowledge and transcendence. By situating both poets within their respective cultural and philosophical traditions, the analysis has demonstrated that apparent thematic affinities conceal fundamentally different ontological and epistemological orientations. Keats’s engagement with nature emerges as an aesthetic practice grounded in sensuous perception and imaginative openness, offering moments of transcendence that are intense yet transient. His poetry articulates a Romantic vision in which beauty provides access to truth without resolving the tensions of temporality and mortality. Tagore’s poetic vision, by contrast, constructs nature as an immanent and relational presence through which spiritual continuity is realized. Rather than suspending the self in moments of