Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies ISSN: 2321-8819 (Online) Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2014 2348-7186 (Print) Impact Factor: 0.923 Available online at www.ajms.co.in 146 Two poets, the same desire: A Lacanian Reading of John Keats and Fereydoon Moshiri’s Poetry Niloofar Arjomandi 1 and Anita Lashkarian 2 1 Department of English Literature,faculty of humanities,Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan,Kerman,Iran. 2 Department of English ,Maybod branch,Islamic Azad University,Yazd,Iran. Abstract: This paper presents a lacanian reading of the poetry of John Keats and Fereydoon Moshiri, two major romantic poets in world Literature. So far as the romantics are concerned with the individual emotions and feelings, their literary works can be psychologically analyzed to have a better understanding of their personal lives and psychological status. Jacque Lacan (1901-1981) who is one of the most significant contributors to the field of psychology, defined three stages in the psychological development of human psyche including 'imaginary order', 'symbolic order' and 'real order'; however the focus of this paper is on t he „imaginary‟ and „symbolic‟ orders. During the imaginary order which is the primary stage of development, the child is joyfully united with the mother and is unable to understand the external world .This illusion is disrupted when the child enters the symbolic order which is associated with the father, language and social rules. The child's separation from the mother leads him/her to experience an everlasting sense of lack which turns into a strong desire for the mother. The comparative study of the life and some of the poems of the Keats and Moshiri reveals similarities in their personal lives and psychological status. The paper strives to reveal how language helps these poets to express their unconscious desire for the mother. Both poets express their sense of lack and desire through their use of words mainly the same symbols in their poetry. Therefore it can be concluded that writing poems is a remedy for both Keats and Moshiri .The poets try to negate or at least mitigate their sense of lack by turning it into words. Keywords: Romanticism, Keats, Moshiri, Psychology, lacan, desire for the mother Introduction Romanticism is one of the most controversial movements that developed in Western Europe and America in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. It designates a drastic change in literary, artistic and intellectual notions of the era. The movement which gained its strength during the Industrial Revolution was mainly a revolt against the political and economic issues of the day. Romantics reacted against Convention. They were mainly concerned with democratic ideas that rejected the rules of Monarchy. The revolutionary ideas and principles of romanticism are best embodied in art and Literature of the period. In other words romanticism is not just a historical period but a "recurring attitude toward literature and life, in which the emotional and intellectual freedom of the individual is elevated over the traditional norms and strictures of society"(Quinn, 2006, p.370). The German critic and philosopher Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) was the first person who brought the term 'romantisch' to literature. According to him romanticism was all about emotions depicted in an imaginary form (Cuddon, 1992, p.768). Romantic poets revolted against the rationalism of the early and mid-18 th century that was the major tenet of neoclassic movement. Unlike the neoclassic notion of human as a limited being, Romantics celebrated the power of the individual. They believed that poets are free to express personal emotions and there must be no limitations imposed on them when writing a poem. Therefore for romantics poetry was the inward experience and the means through which the subjectivity of the poet was expressed (Phillips and Ladd, 2006, p. 6). It is believed that Romanticism first started in Germany mainly by Immanuel Kant, Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller but the best romantic poetry is written in England. English Romanticism is almost known by the literary works of six great poets including William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and John Keats (Quinn, 2006 p.371). In fact Romantic period in England began with the publication of the first edition of the lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1789. Later on in 1800 Wordsworth wrote a preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads which was considered as a poetic statement of his revolutionary aims. What made Wordsworth a good romantic leader for his followers was his claim that" poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings". He laid the foundations of romantic mode of poetry by introducing some romantic rules for writing a poem. Romantic poetry became a means for a free and subjective expression of personal feelings and pathos. Although romanticism is known as a movement in