The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar Of Poetic Myth (1966) - Plot & Excerpts
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 mosquito smorgasbord, so I had some down time to sit out on the patio and read. I have to say that the first time through this book left me confused and lost; the second time through I’m on firmer ground in understanding what Graves is trying to do with his “historical grammar of poetic myth” and I’m glad I have spent the last few months reading it again.Truly, you can read only the Forward and Chapter XXVI, “The Return of the Goddess,” and get the gist of Graves’ argument. What comes between is the convoluted path of erudition and intuition (and a certain amount of wish fulfillment on Graves’ part) where he explains the original purpose of poetry (myth) and its perversion.As Graves explains, poetic myth (the first poems) “are all grave records of ancient religious customs or events, and reliable enough as history once their language is understood and allowance has been made for errors in transcription, misunderstandings of obsolete ritual, and deliberate changes introduced for moral or political reasons.” (p. 13) Poetry originates as the invocation of the Triple Goddess (Aphrodite-Hera-Hekate are just one of her many iterations, she’s also the Muse who Homer calls upon in the Iliad) and the expression of the exaltation, horror and awe one feels in her presence. For millennia it was the religion of the Eastern Mediterranean and put out feelers throughout West Asia until it was perverted and eventually subsumed by invading patriarchal Sun worshippers (aka, Indo-Europeans and Semitic tribes) whose gods (Zeus, Apollo, Yahweh, etc.) usurped her attributes and – in the extreme case of Judaism and its descendants – denied the feminine principle entirely. This ur-religion persisted in a severely attenuated form in mystery cults (e.g., Eleusinian or Orphian), the bardic colleges of Ireland and Wales, and in witches’ covens before nearly vanishing utterly except in the intuitive inspirations of modern poets who don’t understand what it is they’re invoking.Graves’ purpose in writing The White Goddess is nothing less than to restore the Goddess to her rightful position as the source of all acts of creation – physical, spiritual and intellectual – and depose the unholy trinity of Pluto, god of wealth; Apollo, god of science; and Mercury, god of thieves, who have ruled the world for the last three thousand+ years. (A sentiment shared by a growing number of people today, if not expressed quite so mystically.)The book is a rather scathing indictment of Western civilization. Here’s the author’s description of the collapse of Western religion: “As a result, all but a very few have discarded their religious idealism, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, and come to the private conclusion that money, though the root of all evil, is the sole practical means of expressing value or of determining social precedence; that science is the only accurate means of describing phenomena; and that a morality of common honesty is not relevant either to love, war, business or politics.” (p. 476) And he anticipates Stephen Prothero’s arguments in God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter: “[N]o good can come from publicizing either the contradictions between the main revealed religions and their mutually hostile sects, or the factual mis-statements contained in their doctrines, or the shameful actions which they have all…been used to cloak. What is really being urged is an improvement in national and international ethics, not everyone’s sudden return to the beliefs of his childhood – which, if undertaken with true religious enthusiasm, would obviously lead to a renewal of religious wars; only since belief weakened all around have the priests of rival religions consented to adopt a good-neighbourly policy.” (p. 477)Graves’ solution to our woes is…idiosyncratic. It’s certainly utopian and it’s disturbingly nondemocratic:If…it is wished to avoid disharmony, dullness and oppression in all social…contexts, each problem must be regarded as unique, to be settled by right choice based on instinctive good principle, not by reference to a code or summary of precedents; and, granted that the only way out of our political troubles is a return to religion, this must somehow be freed of its theological accretions. Positive right choosing based on moral principles must supersede negative respect for the Law which, though backed by force, has grown so hopelessly inflated and complex that not even a trained lawyer can hope to be conversant with more than a single branch of it. Willingness to do right can be inculcated in most people if they are caught early enough, but so few have the capacity to make a proper moral choice between circumstances or actions which at first sight are equally valid, that the main religious problem of the Western world, is…how to exchange demagogracy, disguised as democracy, for a non-hereditary aristocracy whose leaders will be inspired to choose rightly on every occasion, instead of blindly following authoritarian procedure. (p. 479)And I think many people – while acknowledging many of the problems he points out – would balk at this answer. (view spoiler)[I got the impression that the author would not regret a return to the ancient ways of the Goddess, with year-kings and human sacrifices to ensure prosperity. (hide spoiler)]
"A prodigious, monstrous, stupefying, indescribable book ..."***** A Five Star Poetry Book: Recommended for All Readers[Note: this book exists in numerous editions; this review is based on The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Amended and Enlarged Edition (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966 and later), which is the edition I'd recommend to interested readers.]This is a popular, influential, and controversial book. Let's put things in perspective by quoting the first and best review of it, the statement by T. S. Eliot, who was responsible for its publication, that this is a 'prodigious, monstrous, stupefying, indescribable book.' Eliot was not, to say the least, given to exaggeration, so his opinion is all the more suggestive that there must be something special here.A second data point: this book is just what it says it is: 'A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth.' It may be the only one ever written. But be that as it may, criticisms of the book's scholarship are quite beside the point, because it isn't and doesn't claim to be a work of scholarship. It's a work of visionary poetic intuition which uses Celtic mythology as a paradigm to explore the roots of poetic inspiration. To criticize its scholarship is like criticizing the Old Testament for employing invalid anthropological methods.Admittedly, the book is not easy reading, and much of it may never be clear to many readers. Graves himself warns that 'this remains a very difficult book, as well as a very queer one, to be avoided by anyone with a distracted, tired, or rigidly scientific mind.' But he goes on to give a useful reference point to which his whole complex, and often convoluted, argument ultimately remains related: that 'the language of poetic myth anciently current in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe was a magical language bound up with popular religious ceremonies in honour of the Mood-goddess, or Muse, and that this remains the language of true poetry.' The argument for, or one might better call it the exploration of, this thesis takes the reader on something of a wild ride. But however much or little one is convinced of the thesis, there is barely a paragraph of it which is not intensely interesting and intensely suggestive, leading one to new insights of one's own in considering poetry, mythology, and religion.This is not, perhaps, a book everyone will want to sit down and read straight through; many people may benefit more from keeping it around to dip into every once in a while, thinking about the paragraphs which seem most intriguing and saving the obscure or less convincing seeming ones for later. (I myself have done both: I had to buy a new copy after the old one I bought years ago started falling apart.)Hence the five stars, meaning that this is a must have book for anyone interested in Robert Graves, poetry, mythology, Celtic culture, or religion. I don't think even those who aren't convinced by it could say it is ever a dull read.
What do You think about The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar Of Poetic Myth (1966)?
This book is absolutely fascinating and an all-time favorite of mine. It ties together ancient history, poetry and myth, drawing from traditions around the world.What this book isn't: traditional history or scholarship. As wikipedia puts it, "Graves openly considered poetic inspiration, or "Analepsis" as he termed it, a valid historical methodology." It is easy to see why New Age, Wikka and other modern syncretic traditions have seized on this book as a touchstone. On the other hand, I think this book makes a wonderful example of how fascinating and worthy a book can be, despite being completely unreliable. You raise some fascinating questions when inebriated, don't you? This book is drunk on poetry.For example, his concept of Iconotropy is a fascinating and convincing insight into art history, and the relationship between myths and visual art. If you like this book, you should check out Grave's introduction to his translation of the Greek Myths. They illustrate the same duality of erudition and blather: the translations are both beautiful and scholarly, but the introductions and footnotes to the myths include all kinds of wild speculations.
—Charles
I'm a fan of Graves, but this book grates on me. I can see how reading it can help re-callibrate your B/S detector, encourage critical reading. What else do you get from re-reading this?
—E Hamilton
I may be out of my depth with this one. I'm fascinated with mythology and the promise of an ancient mystery that reveals the nature of true poetry and a grammar of poetric myth, but I was massively frustrated here. I wish Graves had spent more time explaining his theory and its significance rather than presenting evidence for it. Usually when I fault a book, I place the onus squarely on the author. In this case, my own ignorance may be mostly to blame. Maybe I'll read this again--after I get a PhD in early Celtic literature. Favorite line: "No poet can hope to understand the nature of poetry unless he has had a vision of the naked King crucified to the lopped oak, and watched the dancers, red-eyed from the acrid smoke of the sacrificial fires, stamping out the measure of the dance, their bodies bent uncouthly forward, with a monotonous chant of: 'Kill! kill! kill!' and 'Blood! blood! blood!'"
—Abner Rosenweig
