Waves of Infinity in the Goblet of Imagination

Abstract

In this article, the poetic worlds of Fyodor Tyutchev and William Blake are analysed in terms of their comprehension of infinity. Both of them combine their notion of infinity with an understanding that the divine is manifested in the tangible world. The article demonstrates that Tyutchev talks about two infinities – the daily one, which establishes the divine unity of existence, and the nightly one, which leads everything into chaos. They can be easily recognised as the actual and potential infinities in the philosophy of Aristotle. Blake recognises infinity as the procedural deployment of the Universe and, at the same time, as the divine foundation of everything: this allows all things to be part of unified universal space. For him, the infinite and eternal essence of each thing (taking into account that everything is infinite and eternal at every point in space and time) fills things with their inner light and allows them to witness God. The opportunity to perceive nature like this is given by the loving heart and a vivid imagination, but is closed to both human and universal reason. The infinity perceived by reason is just a dark void, which closes worlds and separates them from each other.