Kathleen Raine
Kathleen Raine was an influential English poet, born in 1908 in London. Her upbringing was marked by a strong connection to nature and a deep appreciation for her mother's Celtic heritage, which significantly influenced her poetic vision. Educated at Girton College, Cambridge, Raine initially pursued a degree in biology and zoology but soon began to publish her poetry, merging scientific and artistic perspectives. Throughout her tumultuous personal life, which involved complicated relationships and conversions to and from Roman Catholicism, Raine continued to produce a steady body of work, including literary studies of notable poets like William Blake and W.B. Yeats.
Raine’s poetry often explored themes of nature, mythology, and the visionary imagination. In her later years, a trip to India profoundly impacted her spirituality and led to her co-founding the journal Temenos, which celebrated the intersection of imagination and the arts. Throughout her career, Raine received various accolades, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1992 and several honorary degrees. Despite her limited recognition in the United States, she left a lasting legacy in the literary world before her passing in 2003.
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Kathleen Raine
Poet
- Born: June 14, 1908
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: July 6, 2003
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Kathleen Raine was born in London, England, in 1908, the daughter of a schoolmaster father (George) who was also a Methodist lay preacher and a teacher mother (Jessie). During World War I, she was sent to Northumberland to live with her mother’s cousin, and that district and her mother’s native Scotland remained her ideal of the link between nature and poetry throughout her life. Although she felt a strong gratitude to her father for his intellectual guidance, it was with her mother and her mother’s Celtic heritage that she felt the strongest bond.
Raine was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, where she received an M.A. in biology and zoology in 1929, believing she could merge scientific study with poetry. She had already begun to publish some poems. After her marriage to Hugh Sykes Davies failed, she eloped with and married poet and academic Charles Madge, with whom she had a son and daughter. That marriage also failed because her real love was for writer Gavin Maxwell, who, because of his homosexuality, was never able to return her passion. Throughout her life Raine wrestled with her mixed emotions—love for Maxwell and anger at his rejection. She had similarly conflicted feelings about her family, especially her mother. During World War II, Raine embraced Roman Catholicism, a faith she later rejected.
Despite the tumult of her private life, Raine published steadily, both poems and literary studies, notably of the poets William Blake and William Butler Yeats. She was drawn to their visionary quality, which she aspired to in her own work as she melded myth and a sense of nature’s power to inspire the poetic imagination. In her seventies, Raine visited India for the first time and was moved by the country’s spirituality. In response, she joined several other poets in founding the short- lived journal Temenos, which celebrated the sacred merging of imagination and the arts. In the 1990’s, the journal also fostered the Temenos Academy which, under the patronage of the Prince of Wales, continues its mission of offering lectures and seminars on science, ecology, imagination, and literature, drawing scholars from around the world.
Although Raine received little recognition in the United States, she received the American Poetry magazine’s Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize in 1952 and the Oscar Blumenthal Prize in 1961. In England, she received the Cholmondeley Award in 1970, the W.H. Smith & Son Literary Award in 1972, an honorary degrees from Leicester University (1974), Durham University (1979), and the University of Caen (1987). She received the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry in 1992 and the Swami Vivekanand Award from the International Institute of Indian Studies in 1994, and she was named an Officier de l’ordre des arts et des letters in 1994. Raine died in London in 2003.