Robert Graves



Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 - 7 December 1985) was an English poet, translator, and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works.

He earned his living from writing, particularly popular historical novels such as I, Claudius, King Jesus, The Golden Fleece, and Count Belisarius. He also was a prominent translator of Classical Latin and Ancient Greek texts; his versions of The Twelve Caesars and The Golden Ass remain popular today for their clarity and entertaining style.

Graves' poems – together with his translations and innovative interpretations of the Greek myths, his memoir of his early life, Goodbye to All That, and his historical study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess – have never been out of print.

Youth
Graves was born into a middle-class family in Wimbledon in south London. He was the third of five children born to Irish poet Alfred Perceval Graves (1846-1931), a school inspector and Gaelic scholar, and the author of the popular song 'Father O'Flynn'; and his second wife, Amalie von Ranke (1857-1951). Graves's mother was from a recently-ennobled German family, the eldest daughter of Heinrich Ranke, professor of medicine at the University of Munich, and his wife, Luise. She was also a great-niece of the German historian Leopold von Ranke. At the age of seven, double-pneumonia following measles almost took Graves's life, the first of three occasions when he was given up by his doctors with afflictions of the lungs; the second being a war-wound (see below); the third when he contracted Spanish influenza in late 1918 immediately before demobilisation. At school, Graves was enrolled as Robert von Ranke Graves and in Germany his books are published under that name, but before and during the war the name caused him difficulties. In August 1916 an officer who disliked him spread the rumour that he was a spy, brother to a captured German spy who had coincidentally taken the name Carl Graves. The problem resurfaced in a minor way in the Second World War, when a suspicious rural policeman blocked his appointment to the Special Constabulary. Graves' eldest half-brother Philip Perceval Graves achieved note as a journalist. and his younger brother Charles Patrick Graves was a writer and journalist.

Education
Graves received his early education at a series of six preparatory schools, including King's College School in Wimbledon, Penrallt in Wales, and Copthorne in West Sussex, from which last in 1909 he won a scholarship to Charterhouse. There, in response to persecution - due to the German element in his name, his outspokenness, his scholarly and moral seriousness, and poverty relative to the other boys - he feigned madness, began to write poetry, and took up boxing, in due course becoming school champion at both welter- and middleweight. He also sang in the choir, meeting there an aristocratic boy three years younger, G. H. 'Peter' Johnstone, with whom he began an intense romantic friendship, the scandal of which led ultimately to an interview with the headmaster. Among the masters his chief influence was George Mallory, who introduced him to contemporary literature and took him mountaineering in vacations. In his final year at Charterhouse he won a classical exhibition to St John's College, Oxford, but would not take his place there until after the war.

First World War
At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (RWF). He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about experience of front-line conflict. In later years, he omitted his war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme, he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die and, indeed, was officially reported as having died of wounds. He gradually recovered, however; and, apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the remainder of the war in England.

One of Graves's close friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, also an officer in the RWF. In 1917, Sassoon rebelled against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves feared Sassoon could face court martial and intervened with the military authorities, persuading them that Sassoon was suffering from shell shock and that they should treat him accordingly. As a result Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart, a military hospital near Edinburgh, where he was treated by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers and met fellow patient Wilfred Owen. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it was officially called, although he was never hospitalised for it:

"I thought of going back to France, but realised the absurdity of the notion. Since 1916, the fear of gas obsessed me: any unusual smell, even a sudden strong smell of flowers in a garden, was enough to send me trembling. And I couldn't face the sound of heavy shelling now; the noise of a car back-firing would send me flat on my face, or running for cover.<refGraves (1960) pp 219-20" The friendship between Graves and Sassoon is documented in Graves's letters and biographies, and the story is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is demonstrated in Graves's collection Fairies and Fusiliers (1917), which contains many poems celebrating their friendship. Sassoon himself remarked upon a "heavy sexual element" within it, an observation supported by the sentimental nature of much of the surviving correspondence between the two men. Through Sassoon, Graves became a friend of Wilfred Owen, "who often used to send me poems from France." Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in January 1918, presenting him, as Graves recalled, with "a set of twelve Apostle spoons, the thirteenth, he joked, had been shot for cowardice". Graves's army career ended dramatically with an incident which could have led to a charge of desertion. Having been posted to Limerick in late 1918, he "woke up with a sudden chill, which I recognized as the first symptoms of Spanish influenza." "I decided to make a run for it," he wrote, "I should at least have my influenza in an English, and not an Irish, hospital." Arriving at Waterloo with a high fever but without the official papers that would secure his release from the army, he chanced to share a taxi with a demobilisation officer also returning from Ireland, who completed his papers for him with the necessary secret codes.

Post-war period
Immediately post-war, Graves had a wife and growing family, but was financially insecure, and weakened physically and mentally:"Very thin, very nervous, and with about four years' loss of sleep to make up, I was waiting until I got well enough to go to Oxford on the Government educational grant. I knew that it would be years before I could face anything but a quiet country life. My disabilities were many: I could not use a telephone, I felt sick every time I travelled by train, and to see more than two new people in a single day prevented me from sleeping. I felt ashamed of myself as a drag on Nancy, but had sworn on the very day of my demobilization never to be under anyone's orders for the rest of my life. Somehow I must live by writing."In October 1919 he took up his place at 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. His most notable Oxford companion was T.E. Lawrence, then a Fellow of All Souls, with whom he discussed contemporary poetry and shared in the planning of elaborate pranks. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business soon failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children, and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split up with his wife under highly emotional circumstances (at one point Riding attempted suicide) before leaving to live with Riding in DeiÃ, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal, Epilogue; they also wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928); both had great influence on modern literary criticism, particularly new criticism.

Literary career
In 1927 also, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T. E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised by him and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Siegfried Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complex and compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in the sequel Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.

Graves and Riding left Majorca in 1936 at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, and in 1939, they moved to the United States, taking lodging in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Their volatile relationship was described in non-fiction by Richard Perceval Graves in Robert Graves: 1927-1940: the Years with Laura, and T.S. Matthews's Jacks or Better (1977). It was also the basis for Miranda Seymour's novel The Summer of '39 (1998).

After returning to England, Graves began a relationship with Beryl Hodge, then the wife of Alan Hodge, his collaborator on The Long Week-End (1941) and The Reader Over Your Shoulder (1943; republished in 1947 as The Use and Abuse of the English Language). In 1946 he and his new wife Beryl re-established a home in DeiÃ, Majorca. The house is now a museum. 1946 also saw the publication of the historical novel, King Jesus. He published The White Goddess in 1948. He turned to science fiction with Seven Days in New Crete (1949), and in 1953 he published The Nazarene Gospel Restored with Joshua Podro.

In 1955, he published The Greek Myths, containing translations and interpretations. His translations are well respected and continue to dominate the English-language market for mythography. Many of his unconventional interpretations and etymologies are dismissed by classicists, but have provoked more research into the topics he raised. Graves in turn dismissed the reactions of classical scholars, arguing that they are too specialized and "prose-minded" to interpret "ancient poetic meaning", and that "the few independent thinkers...[are]...the poets, who try to keep civilization alive."

He published a volume of short stories, ''Catacrok! Mostly Stories, Mostly Funny'', in 1956. In 1961 he became Professor of Poetry at Oxford, a post he held until 1966.

In 1967, Robert Graves published, together with Omar Ali-Shah, a new translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The translation quickly became controversial; Graves was attacked for trying to break the spell of famed passages in Edward FitzGerald's Victorian translation, and L. P. Elwell-Sutton, an orientalist at Edinburgh University, maintained that the manuscript used by Ali-Shah and Graves - which Ali-Shah and his brother Idries Shah claimed had been in their family for 800 years - was a forgery. The translation was a critical disaster, and Graves' reputation suffered severely due to what the public perceived as his gullibility in falling for the Shah brothers' deception.

From the 1960s until his death, Robert Graves frequently exchanged letters with Spike Milligan. Many of their letters to each other are collected in the book, Dear Robert, Dear Spike.

Death
During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By this time he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart failure on 7 December 1985 aged 90. He was buried the next morning in the small churchyard on a hill at DeiÃ, on the site of a shrine which had once been sacred to The White Goddess of Pelion. His second wife Beryl Graves was buried with him on her own death on 27 October 2003.

Children
Robert Graves had eight children: Jennie (who married journalist Alexander Clifford), David, Catherine (who married nuclear scientist Clifford Dalton), and Sam with Nancy Nicholson. With his second wife, Beryl Graves (1915-2003), he had William, Lucia (also a translator), Juan and Tomas (a writer and musician).

Recognition
Graves was awarded the 1934 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for both I, Claudius and Claudius the God.

On 11 November 1985, Graves was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. The inscription on the stone was written by friend and fellow Great War poet Wilfred Owen. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity." Of the 16 poets, Graves was the only one still living at the time of the commemoration ceremony.

Poetry

 * Over the Brazier. London: Poetry Bookshop, 1916.
 * Goliath and David. Chiswick Press, 1916.
 * Fairies and Fusiliers. London: Heinemann, 1917; New York: Knopf, 1918.
 * The Treasure Box. Chiswick Press, 1919.
 * Country Sentiment. New York: Knopf, 1920.
 * The Pier-Glass. New York: Knopf, 1921.
 * The Feather Bed. London: L. and V. Woolf, 1923.
 * Whipperginny. New York: Knopf, 1923.
 * Mock Beggar Hall. Hogarth Press, 1924.
 * Welchman's Hose. The Fleuron, 1925.
 * Robert Graves. London: Benn, 1925.
 * (Under pseudonym John Doyle) The Marmosite's Miscellany. Hogarth Press, 1925.
 * Poems, 1914-1926. London: Heinemann, 1927; New York: [[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday, Doran], 1929.
 * Poems, 1914-1927. London: Heinemann, 1927.
 * Poems, 1929. Seizin Press, 1929.
 * Ten Poems More. Paris: Hours Press, 1930.
 * Poems, 1926-1930. London: Heinemann, 1931.
 * To Whom Else? Seizin Press, 1931.
 * Poems, 1930-1933. Barker, 1933.
 * Collected Poems. New York: Random House, 1938.
 * No More Ghosts: Selected Poems. Faber, 1940.
 * Work in Hand(With Alan Hodge and Norman Cameron). Hogarth Press, 1942.
 * Poems, 1938-1945. Creative Age Press, 1946.
 * Collected Poems, 1914-1947. Cassell, 1948.
 * Poems and Satires. Cassell, 1951.
 * Poems, 1953. Cassell, 1953.
 * Collected Poems, 1955. New York: Doubleday, 1955.
 * Robert Graves: Poems Selected by Himself. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1957.
 * The Poems of Robert Graves Chosen by Himself. New York: Doubleday, 1958.
 * Collected Poems, 1959. Cassell, 1959; New York: Doubleday, 1961; 3rd edition, Cassell, 1962.
 * More Poems, 1961. Cassell, 1961.
 * Selected Poetry and Prose (edited, introduced, and annotated by James Reeves). Hutchinson, 1961.
 * Poems, Collected by Himself. New York: Doubleday, 1961.
 * The More Deserving Cases: Eighteen old poems for reconsideration. Marlborough College Press, 1962.
 * New Poems 1962. Cassell, 1962; New York: Doubleday, 1963.
 * Man Does, Woman Is. New York: Doubleday, 1964.
 * Love Respelt. Cassell, 1965; New York: Doubleday, 1966.
 * Collected Poems, 1965. Cassell, 1965.
 * Collected Poems, 1966. New York: Doubleday, 1966.
 * Seventeen Poems Missing From Love Respelt. Stellar Press, 1966.
 * Colophon to "Love Respelt". Bertram Rota, 1967.
 * Poems (with D.H. Lawrence; edited by Leonard Clark). Longman, 1967.
 * Poems, 1965-1968. Cassell, 1968.
 * Beyond Giving. Bertram Rota, 1969.
 * Love Respelt Again. New York: Doubleday, 1969.
 * Poems About Love. Cassell, 1969.
 * Poems, 1968-1970. Cassell, 1970; New York: Doubleday, 1971.
 * Advice From a Mother. Poem-of-the-Month Club, 1970.
 * Green-Sailed Vessel. Bertram Rota, 1971.
 * Poems, 1970-1972. Cassell, 1972.
 * Timeless Meeting. Bertram Rota, 1973.
 * At the Gate. Bertram Rota, 1974.
 * Collected Poems 1975. Cassell, 1975
 * published as New Collected Poems. New York: Doubleday, 1977.
 * Poems about War, Moyer Bell, 1992.
 * Across the Gulf. New Seizin Press, 1994.
 * Robert Graves: The Centenary Selected Poems (edited by Patrick Quinn). Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1995.
 * Complete Poems, Volume I (edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward). Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1995
 * published as The Complete Poems in One Volume, 2000.

Fiction

 * My Head! My Head! Being the History of Elisha and the Shunamite Woman; With the History of Moses as Elisha Related It, and Her Questions Put to Him. Secker, 1925.
 * The Shout. Mathews and Marrot, 1929.
 * No Decency Left (With Laura Riding, under joint pseudonym "Barbara Rich"). London: J. Cape, 1932.
 * The Real David Copperfield. Barker, 1933.
 * I, Claudius. Smith & Haas, 1934
 * revised edition, New York: Random House, 1977.
 * Claudius, the God and His Wife Messalina. Barker, 1934; Smith & Haas, 1935.
 * "Antigua, Penny, Puce". Seizin Press and Constable, 1936
 * published as The Antigua Stamp. New York: Random House, 1937.
 * Count Belisarius New York: Random House, 1938.
 * Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth. London: Methuen, 1940
 * published as Sergeant Lamb's America, Random House, 1940.
 * Proceed, Sergeant Lamb. New York: Random House, 1941.
 * The Story of Marie Powell, Wife to Mr. Milton. Cassell, 1943
 * published as Wife to Mr. Milton: The Story of Marie Powell. Creative Age Press, 1944.
 * The Golden Fleece. Cassell, 1944
 * published as Hercules, My Shipmate. Creative Age Press, 1945.
 * King Jesus. Creative Age Press, 1946; 6th edition, Cassell, 1962.
 * The Islands of Unwisdom. Doubleday, 1949
 * published in England as The Isles of Unwisdom. Cassell, 1950.
 * Watch the North Wind Rise. Creative Age Press, 1949
 * published in England as Seven Days in New Crete. Cassell, 1949.
 * Homer's Daughter. Doubleday, 1955.
 * Catacrok! Mostly Stories, Mostly Funny. Cassell, 1956.
 * They Hanged My Saintly Billy: The Life and Death of Dr. William Palmer. Doubleday, 1957.
 * Collected Short Stories. Doubleday, 1964
 * published as The Shout and other stories. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1978.
 * Complete Short Stories (edited by Lucia Graves). New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.

Non-fiction

 * On English Poetry; Being an irregular approach to the psychology of this art, from evidence mainly subjective. New York: Knopf, 1922.
 * The Meaning of Dreams. Palmer, 1924.
 * Poetic Unreason, and other studies. Palmer, 1925.
 * Contemporary Techniques of Poetry: A Political Analogy. Hogarth Press, 1925.
 * Another Future of Poetry. Hogarth Press, 1926.
 * Impenetrability; or, The Proper Habit of English. London: L. and V. Woolf, 1926.
 * A Survey of Modernist Poetry (with Laura Riding). London: Heinemann, 1927; New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1928.
 * Lawrence and the Arabs. London: J. Cape, 1927
 * published as Lawrence and the Arabian Adventure. Doubleday, Doran, 1928.
 * Lars Porsena; or, The Future of Swearing and Improper Language. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1927
 * revised edition published as The Future of Swearing and Improper Language. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1936.
 * Mrs. Fisher; or, The future of humour. K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1928.
 * A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (With Riding). London: J. Cape, 1928.
 * Goodbye to All That: An Autobiography. London: J. Cape, 1929; J. Cape & H. Smith, 1930
 * revised edition, Doubleday, 1957.
 * T.E. Lawrence to His Biographer. Doubleday, 1938
 * published with Liddell Hart's work as T.E. Lawrence to His Biographers. Doubleday, 1963; 2nd edition, Cassell, 1963.
 * The Long Week-End: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918-1939 (with Alan Hodge). London: Faber & Faber, 1940; New York: Macmillan, 1941.
 * (With Hodge) The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose(with Alan Hodge). New York: Macmillan, 1943
 * revised edition published as The Use and Abuse of the English Language. Paragon, 1990.
 * The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. Creative Age Press, 1948
 * amended and enlarged edition. New York: Vintage Books, 1958.
 * The Common Asphodel: Collected essays on poetry, 1922-1949. London: H. Hamilton, 1949.
 * The Nazarene Gospel Restored (with Joshua Podro). Cassell, 1953; Doubleday, 1954.
 * Nazarene Gospel (with Joshua Podro). Cassell, 1955.
 * Adam's Rib, and Other Anomalous Elements in the Hebrew Creation Myth: A New View. Trianon Press, 1955; Yoseloff, 1958.
 * The Greek Myths (two volumes). Penguin Books, 1955
 * condensed edition, Viking, 1992
 * as The Greek Myths: Complete Edition. Viking, 1993.
 * The Crowning Privilege: Collected essays on poetry (The Clark Lectures, 1954-1955). Cassell, 1955; Doubleday, 1956.
 * Jesus in Rome: A Historical Conjecture (with Joshua Podro). Cassell, 1957.
 * 5 Pens in Hand. Doubleday, 1958.
 * Steps: Stories, Talks, Essays, Poems, Studies in History. Cassell, 1958.
 * Food for Centaurs: Stories, Talks, Critical Studies, Poems Doubleday, 1960.
 * Greek Gods and Heroes. Doubleday, 1960
 * published in England as Myths of Ancient Greece. Cassell, 1961).
 * Oxford Addresses on Poetry. Doubleday, 1962.
 * Nine Hundred Iron Chariots. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1963.
 * Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis (With Raphael Patal). Doubleday, 1964.
 * Mammon (lecture). London School of Economics, 1964.
 * Mammon and the Black Goddess (one section previously published as Mammon). Doubleday, 1965.
 * Majorca Observed. Doubleday, 1965.
 * Spiritual Quixote. Oxford University Press, 1967.
 * Poetic Craft and Principle (collection of Oxford lectures). Cassell, 1967.
 * The Crane Bag. Cassell, 1969.
 * Difficult Questions, Easy Answers. Cassell, 1972; Doubleday, 1973.
 * Robert Graves: Collected Writings on Poetry (edited by Paul O'Prey). Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1995.

Letters and interviews

 * Selected Letters of Robert Graves (edited by Paul O'Prey). Hutchinson
 * Volume I: In Broken Images: 1914-1946, 1982
 * Volume II: Between Moon and Moon: 1946-1972, 1984.
 * Conversations with Robert Graves (edited by Frank L. Kersnowski). University Press of Mississippi, 1989.
 * Dear Robert, Dear Spike: The Graves-Milligan correspondence (edited by Pauline Scudamore). Sutton, 1991.

Children's books

 * The Penny Fiddle: Poems for children. Cassell, 1960; New York: Doubleday, 1961.
 * The Big Green Book (illustrated by Maurice Sendak). Crowell, 1962.
 * The Siege and Fall of Troy. Cassell, 1962; Doubleday, 1963.
 * Ann at Highwood Hall: Poems for children. Cassell, 1964.
 * Two Wise Children. Harlin Quist, 1966.
 * The Poor Boy Who Followed His Star. Cassell, 1968; Doubleday, 1969.
 * The Ancient Castle. P. Owen, 1980.

Edited

 * The English Ballad: A Short Critical Survey (editor and author of introduction and critical notes). London: Benn, 1927
 * revised edition, Heinemann, 1957
 * published as English and Scottish Ballads. Macmillan, 1957.
 * John Skelton (Laureate), 1460(?)-1529. London: Benn, 1927.
 * (Compiler) The Less Familiar Nursery Rhymes. London: Benn, 1927.
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, An Old Saying (editor and author of foreword). J.S. Mayfield, 1947.
 * The Comedies of Terence (editor and author of foreword). Doubleday, 1962
 * published as Comedies, Aldine, 1962.

Translated

 * Georg Schwarz, Almost Forgotten Germany (with Laura Riding). New York: Random House, 1937.
 * Lucius Apuleius, The Transformations of Lucius, Otherwise Known as "The Golden Ass". New York: Farrar, Straus, 1951.
 * Manuel de Jesus Galvan, The Cross and the Sword. Indiana University Press, 1954.
 * Pedro Antonio de Alarcon, The Infant With the Globe. London:Faber, 1955.
 * Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia: Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars. Penguin Books, 1956.
 * George Sand, Winter in Majorca (illustrated by Maurice Sand). Cassell, 1956.
 * Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars. Cassell, 1957.
 * Hesiodu Stamperia del Santuccio, Fable of the Hawk and the Nightingale, 1959.
 * (With Omar Ali-Shah) The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayaam (based on the 12th-century manuscript). Cassell, 1967
 * published as The Original Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayaam. Doubleday, 1968.
 * Solomon's "Song of Songs,". Cassell, 1968; Doubleday, 1969.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.