I, Claudius is more of a fictional work of history than a historical work of fiction. What I mean by that is that Robert Graves isn't content with telling a story that takes place in a different era using historical events as devices that move along the narrative. Instead, the historical events a...
Graves wrote this book in 1955 after reading, and becoming convinced by, Samuel Butler's persuasive viewpoint that a woman was the author of the Odyssey, a woman who lived in 750 B.C. Sicily. According to Butler, Sicily was the actual setting for the Odyssey, which was written nearly 150 years a...
A myth is like a sponge for it soaks up centuries worth of material into it. The kernel of the story would be transformed into only a faint resemblance of its original as the years pass it by. If we were to imagine a character like Heracles to come alive today, he might listen to his own story in...
Opera affatto didascalica o pedante, è corredata da note preziose che uniscono la mitologia greca a quella micenea ed aria.Pur essendo improntata a una ormai superata concezione antropologica e storico-religiosa di un primevo matriarcato, la classifico tra gli imperdibili perchè narra in toto la ...
Robert Graves's models for Count Belisarius include some of the great historical works of classical antiquity: Livy, Thucydides, Herodotus, and certainly Xenophon in the Persian war sections. The novel is set in the sixth century of our era. Belisarius is perhaps the last loyal general the Roman ...
If you want a deeper understanding of the first 61 stories in Genesis then this book is a great place to start. With the help of eminent scholar Raphael Patai Mr. Graves analyzes Hebrew mythology. The first stories about the flood, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve etc are examined against the bac...
I first read The White Goddess during a road trip with my ex at the turn of the century. I can remember several days when we were staying at a bed-and-breakfast in pre-Katrina New Orleans. It was neither overly warm nor overly humid, and my erstwhile spouse was recovering from serving as a mosqui...
Like the three monkeys, the New Cretans see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil. When Edward Venn-Thomas wakes up to find himself in their midst he realizes that much has happened since the mid-20th century from which he has been whisked. His hosts live in peace and prosperity in a society wh...
La historia de la independencia estadounidense desde la perspectiva de un casaca roja. Olvídese del heróico "Patriota" de Mel Gibson y enfrentemos un mundo de soldados de carne y hueso, intereses mezquinos y un mundo con tonos de gris, menos narcicista, que este libro no se hizo para ganar en la ...
bate. I think I once said to Harry Cockayne: "The turf seems a good deal cut up here; how is it?' Serjeant shee. What did you see on the turf that induced you to make that observation ? bate. I saw it cut up, which I supposed to be the horses' feet, for they couldn't cut it up without they gallop...
Indeed, the chief argument by which I justified to myself my failure to do what I had intended, namely, to resign the monarchy as soon as, the excitement aroused by Caligula’s assassination had died down, was that the mess was such a complete mess: I knew of nobody in Rome, besides myself, who wo...
When Helius appears, she becomes Hemera, and accompanies him on his travels until, as Hespera, she announces their safe arrival on the western shores of Ocean.1b. Aphrodite was once vexed to find Ares in Eos’s bed, and cursed her with a constant longing for young mortals, whom thereupon she secre...
I have never in my life been asked to fill out an American income-tax return; as a British non-resident I have all my American earnings painlessly taxed at source, and there the matter ends. In Great Britain, of which by an ingenious legal quirk I am ‘deemed to be a resident, though permanently d...
In the market place, Abram met his father Terah, who had fled there with Nimrod. Terah at once warned the King that his wonderworking son had pursued them to the city; and Nimrod, though greatly afraid, sent for him. Abram entered the palace, testified in a loud voice to the Living God before the...
The main problem of paganism is contained in Riuben, the alternative name for R, if this stands for Rymbonao: – ‘Must all things swing round again for ever? Or how can one escape from the Wheel?’ This was the problem of the blinded Sun-hero Samson when he was harnessed to the corn-mill of Gaza; a...