Few who knew Patrick Kavanagh by sight would be likely to regard him as a mystic or a prophet. He did little to inspire confidence in his general public, either in his native Inniskeen or in the Dublin circles he frequented. People moved away from him in pubs, buses and trains. He frightened young girls with his loud language when they passed him in the street.
Yet Kavanagh's work stands as a monument to a nobility and gentleness of soul that surprises even as it inspires. Above all, it challenges us not to be deceived by appearance – that beneath the coat of a beggar there may lurk a hidden mystic.
The church of Kavanagh's youth was permeated with the old dualism which sharply distinguished between the world of God and the 'tarnished' world of humanity. But Kavanagh wanted to live in both worlds. For him, the created world was God-filled and every bit as radiant as the heavenly city of God. His poetry became a radical affirmation of life, of earth, of the human condition and of God's presence everywhere.
Conscious that Kavanagh's own view that his poetry is best read 'without comment from the scholar', Una Agnew uses as a framework for her study the ancient mystical stages which were outlined by Evelyn Underhill: awakening, purification, illumination and transformation. The result is a convincing and inspiring illustration of the fundamental mysticism of the poetry and the person of Patrick Kavanagh.
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