Kathleen Raine's Poetry of Longing

Middleton, Rowan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5729-0171 (2025) Kathleen Raine's Poetry of Longing. In: Kathleen Raine A Voice for the Twenty-First Century. Peter Lang, pp. 87-103. ISBN 9781803741895

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Abstract

The work of Kathleen Raine contains a tension between glimpses of the spiritual world and the experience of being cut off from it. The references to doorways and openings that occur in several poems are often used as metaphors for negotiating a passage between material and spiritual dimensions. Although there are poems that describe profound experiences of the spiritual, the 'doors' are not always open and several poems contain a sense of grief and defiance at the inability to reach the divine. As such, there are many poems that can be read as ‘poems of longing’, where there is a desire to connect with the divine in the human other and in the natural world. Of particular interest is the way in which the expression of longing develops through Raine’s poetic career.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Kathleen Raine; poetry; longing; spiritual; divine
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature > PR1 Literary history and criticism P Language and Literature > PR English literature > PR401 Modern > PR471 20th century P Language and Literature > PR English literature > PR500 Poetry
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Creative Arts
Depositing User:	Rowan Middleton
Date Deposited:	12 Feb 2025 16:06
Last Modified:	12 Feb 2025 16:15
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/14746

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