IGCSE/ALevel Poems

1. Passion
Kathleen Raine

2. Kathleen Raine
14 June 1908 – 6 July 2003
• Born in Ilford, Essex
• Was a poet and critic
• Influenced by Blake, W.B. Yeats and Thomas
Taylor
• Known for her interest in various forms of
spirituality, notably Platonism & Neoplatonism
• Mother was from Scotland, father was from
County Durham

3. Poetic Inspiration
• Raine spent part of World War I, 'a few short
years', with her Aunty Peggy Black
in Northumberland.
• She commented, "I loved everything about it."
• For her it was an idyllic world and is the declared
foundation of all her poetry.
• Raine always remembered Northumberland as
Eden: "In Northumberland I knew myself in my
own place; and I never 'adjusted' myself to any
other or forgot what I had so briefly but clearly
seen and understood and experienced."
Affinity for Nature

4. Poetic Inspiration
• Raine noted that poetry was deeply ingrained in the daily lives of
her maternal ancestors: "On my mother's side I inherited
Scotland's songs and ballads…sung or recited by my mother, aunts
and grandmothers, who had learnt it from their mothers and
grandmothers… Poetry was the very essence of life.“
• She heard and read the bible daily at home and at school, coming
to know much of it by heart.
• Her father had studied the poetry of Wordsworth for his M.Litt
thesis and had a passion for Shakespeare and Raine saw many
Shakespearean plays as a child.
• She wrote that for her poetry was "not something invented but
given…Brought up as I was in a household where poets were so
regarded it naturally became my ambition to be a poet".
• Her mother encouraged Raine's poetry from childhood.

5. Platonism
• The theory that everything on earth, whether an object (such
as a car) or an idea (such as justice), is actually an imperfect
copy of an ideal and permanent “form” that exists somewhere,
beyond our universe. This is known as the Theory of Forms.
• The place where all these ideal forms exist is guided by a
heavenly force that Plato believed should influence our
behavior. (This notion shaped Christianity.) The ideal that was
the most important to Plato was moral goodness, which he
called “the good.” He believed that we should spend our lives
trying to attain absolute goodness, even if we always fall short,
because it is the path to happiness.
• Plato believed that the ideal version of love is a meeting of the
minds and doesn’t entail a physical aspect―hence the term
“platonic relationship.”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWWaN9M0DXM

6. The plot thickens...
• Raine married Hugh Sykes Davies in 1930.
• She left Davies for Charles Madge and they had two
children together, but their marriage also broke up.
• She also held an unrequited passion for Gavin Maxwell.
• The relationship with Maxwell ended in 1956 when
Raine lost his pet otter, Mijbil, indirectly causing the
animal's death.
• Raine held herself responsible, not only for losing Mijbil
but for a curse she had uttered shortly beforehand,
frustrated by Maxwell's homosexuality:
"Let Gavin suffer in this place as I am suffering now."
• Raine blamed herself thereafter for all Maxwell's
misfortunes, beginning with Mijbil's death and ending
with the cancer which took his life in 1969.

7. Gavin Maxwell
• A Scottish naturalist and author, best known for his work
with otters. He wrote the book Ring of Bright Water (1960)
about how he brought an otter back from Iraq and raised it in
Scotland.
• He took the otter to the London Zoological Society, where it
was decided that this was a previously unknown sub-
species of Smooth-coated Otter. It was named "Maxwell's
Otter“ after him.
• The otter became woven into the fabric of Maxwell's
life. Kathleen Raine's relationship with Maxwell deteriorated
after 1956 when she indirectly caused the death of Mijbil.
• The title Ring of Bright Water was taken from a poem
by Kathleen Raine, who said in her autobiography that
Maxwell had been the love of her life.

9. What’s this poem about?
• The poet feels sorrow and anguish at being forsaken by
a loved one.
• She longed for some communication but none was
forthcoming.
• While so tormented, she suddenly ‘hears’ the sky
speaking to her about her real identity.
• She was one with the universal spirit; the eternal
mountains, the clouds and the oceans were part of her
and the love she bore for them was more important
than the unrequited love that was troubling her.
 Kathleen Raine was in love with Gavin Maxwell who
did not reciprocate her feelings.
Unrequited Love & Connection with Nature

10. Passion
Full of desire I lay, the sky wounding me,
Each cloud a ship without me sailing, each tree
Possessing what my soul lacked, tranquillity.

11. Waiting for the longed-for voice to speak
Through the mute telephone, my body grew weak
With the well-known and mortal death,
heartbreak.

12. The language I knew best, my human speech
Forsook my fingers, and out of reach
Were Homer's ghosts, the savage conches of the
beach.

13. Homer’s ghosts (ambiguous statement)
• Ghosts appeared in Homer's Odyssey and Iliad,
in which they were described as vanishing "as a
vapor, gibbering and whining into the earth".
Homer’s ghosts had little interaction with the
world of the living.
Perhaps her thoughts and words disappeared
fleetingly into thin air as quickly as Homer’s
ghosts – they were not tangible or solid

14. Conch shell
May signify a coming change or turning point in
the poem
• Often used as wind instruments
• Important ritual object in Hinduism. Indian
warriors also blew them to announce going into
battle, or to ward off evil spirits.
• The conch shell also features in William Golding’s
The Lord of the Flies, where it is blown to call
meetings, and symbolizes democracy and order.

15. Then the sky spoke to me in language clear,
Familiar as the heart, than love more near.
The sky said to my soul, `You have what you desire.

16. `Know now that you are born along with these
Clouds, winds, and stars, and ever-moving seas
And forest dwellers. This your nature is.
Lift up your heart again without fear,
Sleep in the tomb, or breathe the living air,
This world you with the flower and with the tiger
share.'

17. Then I saw every visible substance turn
Into immortal, every cell new born
Burned with the holy fire of passion.
This world I saw as on her judgment day
When the war ends, and the sky rolls away,
And all is light, love and eternity.

18. Overall impression
• ‘Passion’ is in keeping with Kathleen Raine’s
philosophical leanings.
• She was a mystic poet who believed that everything on
earth was connected and that the universal breath was
in all of us.
• She tried to remain connected with nature and
abhorred modernity in all forms. She was more
impressed by Eastern philosophy rather than the
Western way of thinking.
• In this poem too she talks of the peace she finds when
she realizes that she is one with nature. Nature should
not be viewed as a separate entity and nature will
never forsake those who love her.

19. Essay question
• Examine the ways in which the poet depicts
her search for meaning after despair in the
poem Passion.
OR:
• Explore how Kathleen Raine’s poem
powerfully begins with reality and ends with
the sublime.