Three Windows to Plato’s Academy: A Study of Kathleen Raine’s “A House of Music”, “Soliloquies upon Love” and “A Blessing”

Shadi Mohyeddin Ghomshei

Abstract


This paper investigates the basic and essential views that Kathleen Raine, a great though not fully acknowledged contemporary British poet, shares with Plato through commentaries offered on three of her poems. The influence of Plato on Raine is so great that in reading her poems one cannot help but realize the Platonic doctrines governing them. Raine believed Plato to be the philosopher of arts and the Platonic philosophy to be the necessary basis of all imaginative arts. The researcher hopes that this paper would provide fresh insight into our understanding of the meaning of spirituality in the post-modernist world and in this process perhaps cast some light on such long forgotten values: Truth, Beauty and the Good. Raine maintains that truth never becomes out of date; it is always itself and is always there for those who wish to avail themselves of it; it can never lose its validity. Raine believes that certain Platonic themes which do not alter in value should remain and form the themes of modern poetry.

Key words: Plato; Kathleen Raine; Music; Love; Blessing; Philosophy


Keywords


Plato; Kathleen Raine; Music; Love; Blessing; Philosophy

References


Cahn, S. M. (Ed.). (1985). Classics of Western Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

Greenblatt, S, Cohen, W., Howard, J. E., & Maus, K. E. (Eds.). (1997). The Norton Shakespeare. New York: Norton.

Mohyeddin Ghomshei, Shadi. (2012). Platonic Philosophy in the Poetry of Kathleen Raine. Studies in Literature and Language. 4(1), 101-106.

Plato. (2008). Timaeus and Critias. New York: Oxford University Press.

Raine, K. (1982). The Beautiful and the Holy. The Inner Journey of the Poet. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Raine, K. (1985). Defending Ancient Springs. Oxford: Golgonooza.

Raine, K. (2000). The Collected Poems of Kathleen Raine. Oxford: Golgonooza.

Raine, K. (2008). Lighting a Candle. London: Temenos Academy.

Shakespeare, William (2002). Cedric Watts (Ed.), Hamlet.Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/n

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