Robert Graves

[Silverfire Darkmoon]

Given the recent discussions here on Gardner's sources, I think it's time we had a go at Robert Graves. His 'The White Goddess' is often cited in older Wiccan texts and apparently Gardner had a few of his books. We've had discussions and debates about Frazer and Murray, now it's time for Graves' turn in the pot.
To be honest, I think getting anything useful out of TWG is Quite Difficult, as it's horribly dense and has many wild allegations that Graves postulates, then uses as fact in his next suggestion. The exact *point* of the book is debatable; I myself don't understand exactly what Graves was trying to tell us about. From a theological standpoint, the book is apparently a source for the Triple Goddess concept. However, the Goddess described by Graves is a monstrous bitch-Goddess whose priests are hideously tortured and then eaten in cannibalistic frenzies. He's the source of all that 'tree-calendar' crap that's floating around out there and there's some wierd mishmashing of Greek, Celtic, and Middle Eastern mythology which seems to be based on alphabets, of all things. It's very strange.
His novels make more sense, but those I've read revolve around the dying / ressurected king, and that is usually viewed as a Frazerian concept (and is therefore on fairly shaky ground from a modern anthropological / enthnographical POV).
Any takers?

[Ben Gruagach]

I've read that Graves openly admits that "The White Goddess" is a poetic book and not a scholarly one. Apparently he wrote it over a very short period of time (a week I think?) and while he was on vacation and away from all of his research materials. Everything in it was essentially off the top of his head in a long stream of consciousness without any attempt to edit or fact check anything.

[ancestral_lee]

a large part of his work WG work also centres around welsh myhtology. he himself admits he has no understanding of modern welsh let alone middle or old welsh.

its interesting to get some new takes on welsh myhtology etc but is generally best left as a curiosity.

the influence is of course everywhere - even leading to the idea (from what i have seen in a certain place) that Bendegeidfran is a gay-friendly god.

[Silverfire Darkmoon]

I believe he wrote the first draft in about three weeks while on vacation. According to Hutton, he finished working on it after he wrote 'King Jesus' where he tidied it up and expanded it. The draft was written in January 1944 and was published as TWG is January 1946.
He is recorded as having said "It's a crazy book and I didn't mean to write it" and also "Some day people will sort 'The White Goddess' wheat from the chaff'.
TWG is written as a poetic work, but he very much comes across with a scholarly tone, and that may well be why it was taken so seriously back in the day, in spite of its huge lack of concistency with Wiccan tenets.

[Silverfire Darkmoon]

having gone through my sources, I think I may actually be able to say that Graves wasn't a huge component of Gardner's Wicca. Mostly this is because of my earlier statement - the goddess religion Graves describes has nothing in common with Wicca, and Graves does not seem to have been as large an influence as Leland or Murray. Graves evidently had far more influence over later Wiccan authors (and modern Druidic teachings) than Gardner himself. Any information on exact Garvesian borrowings on Gardner's part will be greatly appreciated.

[Carla O'Harris]

Well, I think that Graves was trying to integrate the dark, Kali-like aspects of the Goddess with her more loving sides ... it's obvious that this paradox intrigued him, and in his case, it's more obvious that his poetic scholarship and his personal life deeply intertwined, as we would expect with a poet. It's important to remember that Graves was extremely well-read and therefore not to be dismissed offhand ; it's a fairly erudite work for an off-the-top-of-one's-head inspiration. That doesn't mean we need to take it as true.

Here some of Hutton's analysis may be useful, firstly in his analysis of Graves' relationship with Laura Riding, and secondarily in Hutton's overview of the heavy emphasis upon sacrifice in nineteenth century views of paganism, which in turn influenced Frazer --- although not entirely without justification, but the degree of human sacrifice in ancient paganisms is something still debated. To what degree did they happen, to what degree when they did happen were they merely sanctified capital punishment or recognized, ritual suicide, to what degree were they willing, and to what degree were they ritual murder? These questions are unclear, even in cases where we seem to have an archeological record, like in Carthage --- are we dealing with abortions, infanticides, children who were victims of disease, or real child sacrifices? These matters may explain the emphasis upon sacrifice in Graves (and secondarily Murray who also included the notion -- although in her case, since she was reading Inquisition records as a kind of palimpsest, given the large role of babykilling reported by the Inquisition smears, it's easy to see why she may have given that credit, although it is more attributable to the trope of the fairy Changeling).

Graves was trying to find the essence of poetry, and The White Goddess basically expands upon a traditional theme : that poetry comes from inspiration, and specifically from the Muse. Graves suggests that this Muse is always the Goddess, and that the best poems are poems to her, or poems about her various myth-cycles.

Keep in mind that while The White Goddess is obviously called into scholastic crisis, that his Greek Myths are more well-respected, and worth reading. There are three levels to Greek Myths : his summary of the myth, his citation of Classical sources, and then his own theories. These are well-separated in Greek Myths so one may decide on his theories (and therefore in many ways a more useful text than The White Goddess). Sometimes his theories seem like interesting, reasonable syntheses of the material he's just accurately presented from Classical lore ; othertimes they seem like quite wild flights of fancy. Again, because they are separated in Greek Myths, it's more useful, and easier to make one's own decisions in that regard.

But White Goddess is a complex work and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand entirely in one swoop. Graves' examination of ogam shouldn't be thrown out entirely ; the idea that both poets and occultists have used various ciphers throughout history is an idea worthy of greater examination (and one that becomes relevant, for example, in the history of the Golden Dawn). We know that the troubadours used "the language of birds", a kind of multiple innuendo pun-language often only decipherable by those who "got" the "inside joke", and it's quite likely that poets have often done this, especially if they were serving an agenda not visible on the surface.