Studies in Literature and Language
Three Windows to Plato’s Academy: A Study of Kathleen Raine’s “A House of Music”, “Soliloquies upon Love” and “A Blessing”
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 Raine maintains that truth never becomes out of date; it is always itself and is always there for those who wish to avail themselves of it; it can never lose its validity.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
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
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c)
Share us to: 
Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/sll/submission/wizard
Reminder
How to do online submission to another Journal?
If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:
1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author
Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.
2. Submission
Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.
We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Articles published in Studies in Literature and Language are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).
STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE Editorial Office
Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture 
