Owen Barfield (1898–1997), the British philosopher and critic, has been called the "First and Last Inkling," because of his influence and enduring role in the group known as the Oxford Inklings. The Inklings included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. It was Barfield who first advanced the ideas about language, myth, and belief that became identified with the thinking and art of the Inklings. He is the author of numerous books, including Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning; Romanticism Comes of Age; Unancestoral Voice; History in English Words; and Worlds Apart: A Dialogue of the 1960s. His history of the evolution of human consciousness, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, achieved a place in the list of the "100 Best Spiritual Books of the Century."

Barfield had written the verse drama Orpheus in the 1930s, partly at the suggestion of C.S. Lewis. The play was performed only once, in 1948, and remained buried in Barfield’s papers until John Ulreich, Jr., of the University of Arizona was tantalized by Barfield’s allusions to it and disinterred it. He saw it through to publication in 1983 and wrote the introduction, in which he rightly praises Orpheus as "the evolution of consciousness made flesh, the thing itself in human form, the myth made fact as imaginative experience."