Day, Douglas, Swifter Than Reason: The Poetry and Criticism of Robert Graves, University of North Carolina Press, 1963.

If this account makes any sense it refers to a westward migration from the Aegean to Spain in the late thirteenth century BC when, as we have seen, a wave of Indo-Europeans from the north, among them the Dorian Greeks, was slowly displacing the Mycenaean ’Peoples of the Sea’ from Greece, the Aegean Islands, and Asia Minor. Most of his ideas on the "tree alphabet" are his own and sourceless. Unfortunately a lot of the celtic magic industry owes too much to this as a gospel of sorts. Better and more scholarly book are out there if you can be bothered looking. But they are without the glamour of Graves which I suppose is part of the attraction to the sidhe huggers.

The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Amended & enl. ed.[i.e. 4th ed.] (London: Faber & Faber) [US ed.= New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966] Graves concluded, in the second and expanded edition, that the male-dominant monotheistic god of Judaism and its successors were the cause of the White Goddess's downfall, and thus the source of much of the modern world's woe. He describes Woman as occupying a higher echelon than mere poet, that of the Muse Herself. He adds "This is not to say that a woman should refrain from writing poems; only, that she should write as a woman, not as an honorary man." He seems particularly bothered by the spectre of women's writing reflecting male-dominated poetic conventions. [4] As a foundation text for modern paganism it often appears in bibliographies and notes to bolster neo-pagan ideas...yet it has little substance itself. Many of them unquestioningly use TWG as a source and assume an authenticity and robustness to Graves’ arguments that just isn't there...like building in a bog without making sure the pilings are solid. In 1955, he published The Greek Myths, which retells a large body of Greek myths, each tale followed by extensive commentary drawn from the system of The White Goddess. His retellings are well respected; many of his unconventional interpretations and etymologies are dismissed by classicists. [40] Graves in turn dismissed the reactions of classical scholars, arguing that they are too specialised and "prose-minded" to interpret "ancient poetic meaning," and that "the few independent thinkers... [are] the poets, who try to keep civilisation alive." [41]

The book was a major influence on the thinking of the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, [22] with the latter identifying to some extent with the goddess figure herself. [23] Arguably, however, what Jacqueline Rose called "the cliché behind the myth – woman as inspiration, woman as drudge" – ultimately had a negative impact on Plath's life and work. [24] See also [ edit ] Graves admitted he was not a medieval historian, but a poet, and thus based his work on the premise that the The Crowning Privilege: The Clark Lectures, 1954–1955. London: Cassell, 1955; New York: Doubleday, 1956.Times Literary Supplement, October 7, 1965; December 7, 1967; June 26, 1969; November 21, 1980; September 27, 1985; November 3, 1995, p. 6. In October 1919, he took up his place at the University of Oxford, soon changing course to English Language and Literature, though managing to retain his Classics exhibition. In consideration of his health, he was permitted to live a little outside Oxford, on Boars Hill, where the residents included Robert Bridges, John Masefield (his landlord), Edmund Blunden, Gilbert Murray and Robert Nichols. [31] Later, the family moved to Worlds End Cottage on Collice Street, Islip, Oxfordshire. [32] Beryl Graves: Widow and editor of Robert Graves". The Independent (obituary). 29 October 2003. [ dead link]

Immediately after the war, Graves with his wife, Nancy Nicholson had a growing family, but he was financially insecure and weakened physically and mentally: And author of introduction and critical notes) The English Ballad: A Short Critical Survey, Benn, 1927, revised edition, Heinemann, 1957, published as English and Scottish Ballads, Macmillan, 1957. Legendary myth-cycles or invasion accounts, like the Lebor Gabála Érenn, compiled in the middle ages, can be decoded and read as straight history of a Bronze Age past.

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Wood, Juliette (1999). "Chapter 1, The Concept of the Goddess". In Sandra Billington, Miranda Green (ed.). The Concept of the Goddess. Routledge. p.12. ISBN 9780415197892 . Retrieved 23 December 2008. The Complete Poems in One Volume, ed. Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward. Manchester: Penguin Books, 2004. Graves also argues that the names of the Ogham letters in the alphabet used in parts of Gaelic Ireland and Britain contained a calendar that contained the key to an ancient liturgy involving the human sacrifice of a sacred king, and, further, that these letter names concealed lines of Ancient Greek hexameter describing the goddess. Conversations with Robert Graves, edited by Frank L. Kersnowski, University Press of Mississippi, 1989. In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.

UK government documents released in 2023 reveal that in 1967 Graves was considered for, but then passed over for, the post of Poet Laureate. [52] Some Neopagans have been bemused and upset by the scholarly criticism that The White Goddess has received in recent years, [18] while others have appreciated its poetic insight but never accepted it as a work of historical veracity. [19] Likewise, a few scholars find some value in Graves's ideas; Michael W. Pharand, though quoting earlier criticisms, states that "Graves's theories and conclusions, outlandish as they seemed to his contemporaries (or may appear to us), were the result of careful observation." [20]

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It is impossible not to admire the depth of Graves’ poetic self-regard. Akin to a conspiracy theorist of mythology, history, and language, he is convinced of his ability to see and to reveal hidden truths, prophet-like. Alas, to the person trained in historiography, when Graves uses words like “proof,”“reliable,”“evidence,”“must,” and “obvious,” the temptation to quote The Princess Bride is an overwhelming one. The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (London: Faber & Faber) [Corr. 2nd ed. also issued by Faber in 1948] [US ed.= New York, Creative Age Press, 1948]