Kathleen Raine: Classics and Consciousness (Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing)

For the poet and scholar Kathleen Raine, ancient texts were not obsolete, but vital handbooks for reading reality.Drawing on Graeco-Roman philosophy alongside modernist receptions of the ancient world, this book is the first study of her engagement with classical antiquity.Raine’s interpretation of the classical past not only informed her literary work, but also gave her a compelling perspective, which located consciousness as the basis of reality.This way of seeing the world, traceable from antiquity to the present day via the ‘perennial philosophy’, claimed little distinction between inner self and outer world, and stressed the interconnectedness of all beings. Jenny Messenger explores Raine’s use of Graeco-Roman philosophy as source texts for understanding consciousness, articulated throughout her poetry, scholarship and autobiographical writing.Raine believed there were multiple planes of consciousness, across which symbolic poetry and prose could operate to reach the highest level