Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) are creative writers as well as thinkers dealing in their writings with fundamental issues surrounding the human condition. Despite their religious and cultural differences, these eminent poet-philosophers evidence similar propensities in the course of their individual journeys of inquiry. Through a comparative study of Emerson's essays and Iqbal's poetry as well as his philosophical work The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, this paper explores some of these similarities. The assumption on which such a comparative approach is based is that human nature is essentially similar all over the world and partakes of similar quests and experiences. This paper attempts to show that temporal and spatial boundaries do not restrain the literary imagination; the give-and-take across cultures is a continuous, sometimes conscious, at other times unconscious, activity of the poetic imagination. Emerson, a Western mind borrowed from the East, and Iqbal, an Eastern one, drew on the best of the Western tradition. As creative writers, they defy insularity and advocate reciprocity between cultures. The paper tries to argue the relevance of such an attitude in today's world which is shrinking at a rapid pace by adopting a critical perspective which sees creative works as products of cross-culturality and syncreticity. A universal consciousness is dawning in the world slowly but surely and this needs to be strengthened.

Today, more than ever before, cultures, languages and literatures are coming closer to one another. Globalization may have a sinister dimension but then it has a bright aspect also. A universal consciousness is dawning in the world slowly but surely and this needs to be strengthened. In this process, creative literature has to play an important role as writers draw their inspiration from a common source and go through more or less similar kinds of emotional and intellectual experiences. This is so because literature has its real genesis in the unconscious mind of man, which the human race shares in common, and also because literature transforms minds and hearts in a way in which no other agency can. Hence the need of the hour is to develop a universalist attitude both for the creation and appreciation of literature.

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