Book description
This labyrinthine and extraordinary book, first published more than
fifty years ago, was the outcome of Graves's vast reading and curious
research into strange territories of folklore, mythology, religion and
magic. Erudite and impassioned, it is a scholar-poet's quest for the
meaning of European myths, a polemic about the relations between man
and woman, and also an intensely personal document in which Graves
explored the sources of his own inspiration and, as he believed, all
true poetry. This new edition has been prepared by Grevel Lindop, who
has written an illuminating introduction. The text of the book
incorporates all Graves's final revisions, as well as his replies
totwo of the original reviewers, and a long essay in which he
describes the months of inspiration in which The White Goddess was written.
Robert Graves (1895-1985) was a poet, novelist and critic. His first
volume of poems, Over the Brazier (1916), reflected his experiences in
the trenches, and was followed by many works of poetry, non-fiction and
fiction. He is best known for his novel, I, Claudius (1934), which won
the Hawthornden and James Tait Black memorial prizes and for his
influential The White Goddess (1948).
