Kathleen Raine died 15 years ago today

The mystical poet and scholar Kathleen Jessie Raine died on July 6th 2003 at the age of 95.

Her poetry - and that of her master William Blake - resonates with me much less than the poetry of Rudyard Kipling and many others does, but I find some of her other writings of great interest and relevance.

She has been featured and quoted in some articles on here, and there are some incidental references in others.

To mark the occasion, I want to say a little more about Kathleen Raine and her life.

Three books of interest

After reading Kathleen Raine’s three-volume autobiography, I went through it again and made notes of everything that seemed particularly insightful and resonated very strongly with my own thoughts and experiences. Much of the material I copied is very inspiring; much of is the exact opposite. Some of it provides independent confirmation of my own conclusions.  

I ended up with many pages of material; it is very tempting to reproduce a lot of it on here, but although I put some of her thoughts into this article and a few others, the quotations are best read in their original context. The three books I got the material from are Farewell Happy Fields, The Land Unknown and The Lion’s Mouth.

Kathleen Raine’s view of her life

While reading her autobiography, I noticed immediately that Kathleen Raine attempts to analyse and make sense of her ideas and experiences. She tries to make an honest evaluation of her life.

She tries hard to understand the causes of the suffering she has experienced; she takes responsibility where appropriate; she demonstrates great courage, understanding and insight.

All this is admirable and much of what she says seems spot on, but I noticed that something was missing.

Kathleen Raine, the Destroyer and the Destroyed

The poet Kathleen Raine was born on this day, June 14^th, in 1908. To mark the occasion, here is another article inspired by her autobiographical books.

One thing I noticed immediately is that, unlike many other victims of the creative spirit, Kathleen Raine made attempts to understand the occult forces and unseen influences at work in her life.

She learned from experience and took some responsibility for what happened to her:

“Because I suffered I supposed that he had hurt me… an instinctive reaction, stupid and unjust for most often we hurt ourselves whether by imagining non-existent wrongs or in persistence in some mistake we cannot or will not see…”

She thought about the effect that she had on the people around her and realised that, while she had suffered immensely, she had also caused much suffering to others.  She knew that she had treated her parents cruelly –  in return for what they had done to her – and she also realised that obsessively concentrating on someone can have a damaging effect:

“Perhaps he felt the longing dragging at him…the sense of another’s unwanted thoughts flowing towards one constantly…”

She came to understand that what happens to people in the outer world is often a reflection of what is happening in their inner world:

“… the world continually reflects back to us our inner states…”

“Everything that befalls us has its cause within ourselves… another of those seeming miracles by which a change of inner disposition is followed by a corresponding change in the outward course of events…”

“Our being responds only to that to which it is attuned…”

Much of what she says is independent confirmation of the validity of conclusions that I had already come to and the truth of insights that had come to me.

Some thoughts from the poet Kathleen Raine

Some of the books I have written about are guaranteed to drive the dark clouds away every time I read them, Rudyard Kipling’s Stalky stories and the Molesworth books for example. They are old friends who never fail to amuse and make me feel better.

Other books have the opposite effect. I sometimes wish that I had never read Kathleen Raine’s three-volume autobiography. Some of the things that she writes come very close to home; they are extremely depressing and almost too painful to read.

I have described elsewhere the fatal curse that she believes she put on her friend Gavin Maxwell. The books Farewell Happy Fields, The Land Unknown and The Lion’s Mouth contain much more material of interest, not all of it distressing to read.

Here are a few random extracts from the notes I made when reading the three books, which are now back in the public library. I have changed the sequence in which her words appear, and just included some quotations that might inspire people and provide confirmation for their ideas.

Some words of wisdom from Kathleen Raine, and a few comments from me:

“Imagination loves nobility and splendour, tragedy, beauty and kingship; loves all great things …of equality it knows nothing…”

“… poetry alone answers to the unsatisfied longing for beauty and wonder…”

“Poets keep alive the pearls and not the acorns, food of natural mankind…”

Is she suggesting that the majority of people are swine!

 “…I rejected socialism and the greatest good of the greatest number for those values which few can reach…high and beautiful things are the true ends of life …”

Yes. It is good that some people are elitists and keep the flame alive.

“The barbarians so outnumber the people of culture that they themselves set the standards.”

Very true.