The Religious Experience in R.A.K. Mason's Poetry

Abstract

When I first read R.A.K. Mason's poems several years ago, I was inclined to see the Christ figure in them as essentially - or at least most frequently - a reflection of the author himself, in the role of a victim of his New Zealand society circa 1920-1930. I do not resign from this view now to the extent of seeing it seriously mistaken. But I have come to see that Mason's portrayal of Christ is not as simple as I once thought, and my present awareness that there is more to it also prompts me to consider the more general question of the religious experience within Mason's poems