The poet and the goddess (Robert Graves in general)

Member Name: Bryn Pearson

Product:	Robert Graves in general
Date:	31/07/03 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: excellent novels

Disadvantages: his non-fiction is very hard to read.

Robert Graves was an amazingly prolific twentieth centruy writer. English in origin, he spent much of his life in Spain. I'm a long way short of having read all of his work, but can at least give you something of a flavour. Graves was a poet, a novelist and a scholar, with varying degrees of success.

The Novels:
On the novels front, Graves is probably best known for his 'Claudius' novels - 'I Claudius' and 'Claudius the God' dealing with ancient Rome and the eponymous emperor Claudius. These are excellent pieces of work that really bring to life a section of Roman history. Fans of this historical writing would do well to look out for the somewhat more obscure 'Count Belisarius' which deals with another real figure, a Roman war leader. In addition to this are 'Homer's Daughter' and 'King Jesus' - Graves has an unmasked fascination with myth and history, most of his works have a touch of both to them. My personal favourite - 'Wife to Mr Milton' deals with the life of the young woman who was married off to Milton (as in 'Paradise Lost' Milton) their tribulations during the war and her thwarted romance with another man - a very moving and imaginative tale, better suited to people you find Milton a total bore! 'The Long Weekend' I know nothing about, as is also the case with 'Lawrence and the Arabs'. 'The Golden Fleece' I have only ever seen references to, but it is another historical one and undoubtedly deals at least in part with Jason and the Argonauts.

In addition to this, there are some collections of shrot stories by Graves. I have to say that I find Graves' fictional narratives very readible - he has a very pleasing prose style and a real ability to give you a sense of the historical period about which he is writing. His work is well researched, but it does explore fictional avenues so you can't use it as a history lesson. None the less, I
find reading his work normally inspires me to want to have a closer look at the history behind his subject matter.

Graves has published collections of Greek and Hebrew myths - again an effect of his fascination with mythology. I've not seen either of these 'in the flesh' but know they are out there somewhere.

Poetry:
There are several collections of Grave's poetry in existence, none of which seem to be posessed of imagiantive or poetic titles, if the Bibliography I have to hand is to be believed. I did read vast reams of Graves' poetic efforts during my teens, and was not blown away. Some of it is good, the standard of writing is very high, but the collection I read was quite obsessively focused on female figures and I did tend to lose interest. Being tremendously well read and shamelessly clever, Graves does have attacks of showing off, and sometimes the poetry can be obscure to the point of being impenetrable. As a poet, I wouldn't especially recomend him.

Scholarly works:
Aside from his novels, Graves is famous for 'The White Goddess', and is often more criticised for this work than praised. The book is a poetic exploration of mythological poetry and as such is very interesting. the problems arise because Graves draws too many intuitive conclusions about history from his peotical investigations. As a peice of hsitory, it really isn't very good, as a poetic mythography, it's fascinating. It is a very hard read, and requires some knowledge of the Bible, the Mabinogian and assorted Celtic myths, with a working knowledge of Classical mythology being handy, and some grasp on Greek and Latin being advisable because he doesn't bother to translate quotations written in thse languages! Graves explores the Druidic aphabets, the ogham scripts, and attempts to assemble a history from them. Its a curious exersize, littered with fascinating ideas but ultimately unreliable. The book is further 'u
nhelped' by the degree to which is draws on James Fraizer's 'The Golden Bough' which is if anything a more flawed and more frequently criticised text.

Graves was a very prolific author who produced some excellent novels and some dubious work in other forms. As a novelist, I heartily reccomend him, as a poet I have some reservations and as a scholar, he needs a lot of stammina and a fair dose of salt.

Summary: