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''The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet
Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...
. First published in 1948, the book is based on earlier articles published in ''
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
'' magazine; corrected, revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1948, 1952 and 1961. ''The White Goddess'' represents an approach to the study of
mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
from a decidedly creative and idiosyncratic perspective. Graves proposes the existence of a European
deity A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...
, the "White Goddess of Birth, Love and Death", much similar to the ''
Mother Goddess A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or th ...
'', inspired and represented by the phases of the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
, who lies behind the faces of the diverse goddesses of various European and
pagan Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...
mythologies. Graves argues that "true" or "pure" poetry is inextricably linked with the ancient cult-ritual of his proposed White Goddess and of her son.


History

Graves first wrote the book under the title of ''The Roebuck in the Thicket'' in a three-week period during January 1944, only a month after finishing ''The Golden Fleece''. He then left the book to focus on ''King Jesus,'' a historical novel about the life of Jesus. Returning to ''The Roebuck in the Thicket'', he renamed it ''The Three-Fold Muse'', before finishing it and retitling it as ''The White Goddess''. In January 1946 he sent it to the publishers, and in May 1948 it was published in the UK, and in June 1948 in the US, as ''The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth''. Graves believed that one could be in the true presence of the White Goddess when reading a poem, but in his view, this could only be achieved by a true poet of the wild, and not a classical poet, or even a Romantic poet, of whom he spoke critically: "The typical poet of the 19th-century was physically degenerate, or ailing, addicted to drugs and melancholia, critically unbalanced and a true poet only in his fatalistic regard for the Goddess as the mistress who commanded his destiny".


Poetry and myth

Graves described ''The White Goddess'' as "a historical grammar of the language of poetic
myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...
". The book draws from the mythology and poetry of
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
and
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
especially, as well as that of most of Western Europe and the ancient
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
. Relying on arguments from
etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
and the use of forensic techniques to uncover what he calls 'iconotropic' redaction of original myths, Graves argues for the worship of a single goddess under many names, an idea that came to be known as "
Matriarchal religion A matriarchal religion is a religion that focuses on a goddess or goddesses. The term is most often used to refer to theories of prehistoric matriarchal religions that were proposed by scholars such as Johann Jakob Bachofen, Jane Ellen Harrison, ...
" in
feminist theology Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Neopaganism, Baháʼí Faith, Judaism, Islam and New Thought, to reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those reli ...
of the 1970s. ''
The Golden Bough ''The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion'' (retitled ''The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'' in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir ...
'' (1922, but first edition published 1890), an early anthropological study by Sir
James George Frazer Sir James George Frazer (; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. Personal life He was born on 1 Janua ...
, is the starting point for much of Graves's argument, and Graves thought in part that his book made explicit what Frazer only hinted at. Graves wrote:
Sir James Frazer was able to keep his beautiful rooms at
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
,
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
until his death by carefully and methodically sailing all around his dangerous subject, as if charting the coastline of a forbidden island without actually committing himself to a declaration that it existed. What he was saying-not-saying was that
Christian legend A legendary ( la, legendarius) is a collection of saints' lives. The word derives from the Latin word , meaning 'things to be read'. The first legendaries were manuscripts written in the Middle Ages, including collections such as the South English l ...
,
dogma Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ...
and
ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...
are the refinement of a great body of primitive and even barbarous beliefs, and that almost the only original element in Christianity is the personality of Jesus.
Graves's ''The White Goddess'' deals with goddess worship as the prototypical religion, analysing it largely from literary evidence, in myth and poetry. Graves admitted he was not a medieval historian, but a poet, and thus based his work on the premise that the
language of poetic myth anciently current in the Mediterranean and
Northern Europe The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other g ...
was a magical language bound up with popular religious ceremonies in honour of the Moon-goddess, or Muse, some of them dating from the Old Stone Age, and that this remains the language of true poetry...
Graves concluded, in the second and expanded edition, that the male-dominant monotheistic god of
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
and its successors were the cause of the White Goddess's downfall, and thus the source of much of the modern world's woe. He describes Woman as occupying a higher echelon than mere poet, that of the Muse Herself. He adds "This is not to say that a woman should refrain from writing poems; only, that she should write as a woman, not as an honorary man." He seems particularly bothered by the spectre of women's writing reflecting male-dominated poetic conventions. Graves derived some of his ideas from poetic inspiration and a process of " analeptic thought", which is a term he used for throwing one's mind back in time and receiving impressions. Visual iconography was also important to Graves's conception. Graves created a methodology for reading images he called "iconotropy". To practice this methodology one is required to reduce "speech into its original images and rhythms" and then to combine these "on several simultaneous levels of thought". By applying this methodology Graves decoded a woodcut of '' The Judgement of Paris'' as depicting a singular Triple Goddess rather than the traditional
Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; grc-gre, Ἥρα, Hḗrā; grc, Ἥρη, Hḗrē, label=none in Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she ...
,
Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
and
Aphrodite Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols include ...
of the narrative the image illustrates.


Celtic Tree Calendar

Graves also argues that the names of the
Ogham Ogham ( Modern Irish: ; mga, ogum, ogom, later mga, ogam, label=none ) is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the "orthodox" inscriptions, 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later the Old Irish langu ...
letters in the alphabet used in parts of
Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...
Ireland and Britain contained a calendar that contained the key to an ancient
liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
involving the
human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...
of a
sacred king In many historical societies, the position of kingship carries a sacral meaning; that is, it is identical with that of a high priest The term "high priest" usually refers either to an individual who holds the office of ruler-priest, or to one ...
, and, further, that these letter names concealed lines of
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...
describing the goddess. Graves' "Tree Calendar" has no relation to any historical
Celtic calendar The Celtic calendar is a compilation of pre-Christian Celtic systems of timekeeping, including the Gaulish Coligny calendar, used by Celtic countries to define the beginning and length of the day, the week, the month, the seasons, quarter days, ...
. His interpretations rather rely on the book ''Ogygia'' by the 17th-century bard Roderick O'Flaherty.


Druantia

In ''The White Goddess'', Graves proposed a hypothetical Gallic tree goddess, Druantia, who has become somewhat popular with contemporary Neopagans. Druantia is an archetype of the eternal mother as seen in the
evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...
boughs. Her name is believed to be derived from the
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...
word for
oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...
trees, * or *. She is known as "Queen of the
Druids A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic cultures. Druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. Whi ...
". She is a goddess of fertility for both plants & humans, ruling over sexual activities & passion. She also rules protection of trees, knowledge, creativity.


Scholarship and critical reception

''The White Goddess'' has been seen as a poetic work where Graves gives his notion of man's subjection to women in love an "anthropological grandeur" and further mythologises all women in general (and several of Graves's lovers in specific) into a three-faced moon goddess model. Graves's value as a poet aside, flaws in his scholarship such as poor
philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...
, use of inadequate texts and outdated archaeology have been criticised. Some scholars, particularly archaeologists, historians and folklorists have rejected the work''The Paganism Reader''. p. 128. – which T. S. Eliot called "A prodigious, monstrous, stupefying, indescribable book" – and Graves himself was disappointed that his work was "loudly ignored" by many Celtic scholars.White, Donna R. ''A Century of Welsh Myth in Children's Literature''. p. 75. However, ''The White Goddess'' was accepted as history by many non-scholarly readers. According to
Ronald Hutton Ronald Edmund Hutton (born 19 December 1953) is an English historian who specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism. He is a professor at the University of Bristol, has written 14 b ...
, the book "remains a major source of confusion about the ancient Celts and influences many un-scholarly views of Celtic paganism".
Hilda Ellis Davidson Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson (born Hilda Roderick Ellis; 1 October 1914 – 12 January 2006) was an English folklorist. She was a scholar at the University of Cambridge and The Folklore Society, and specialized in the study of Celtic and G ...
criticised Graves as having "misled many innocent readers with his eloquent but deceptive statements about a nebulous goddess in early Celtic literature", and stated that he was "no authority" on the subject matter he presented.Davidson, Hilda Ellis (1998).
Roles of the Northern Goddess
', page 11.
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
.
While Graves made the association between Goddesses and the moon appear "natural", it was not so to the Celts or some other ancient peoples. In response to critics, Graves accused literary scholars of being psychologically incapable of interpreting myth or too concerned with maintaining their perquisites to go against the majority view. (See Frazer quote.) Some Neopagans have been bemused and upset by the scholarly criticism that ''The White Goddess'' has received in recent years, while others have appreciated its poetic insight but never accepted it as a work of historical veracity. Likewise, a few scholars find some value in Graves's ideas; Michael W. Pharand, though quoting earlier criticisms, states that "Graves's theories and conclusions, outlandish as they seemed to his contemporaries (or may appear to us), were the result of careful observation." According to Graves's biographer Richard Perceval Graves,
Laura Riding Laura Riding Jackson (born Laura Reichenthal; January 16, 1901 – September 2, 1991), best known as Laura Riding, was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer. Early life She was born in New York City to Nathan ...
played a crucial role in the development of Graves's thoughts when writing ''The White Goddess'', despite the fact the two were estranged at that point. On reviewing the book, Riding was furious, saying "Where once I reigned, now a whorish abomination has sprung to life, a Frankenstein pieced together from the shards of my life and thoughts."


Literary influences

*The book was a major influence on the thinking of the poets
Ted Hughes Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...
and
Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The ...
, with the latter identifying to some extent with the goddess figure herself. Arguably, however, what
Jacqueline Rose Jacqueline Rose, FBA (born 1949 in London) is a British academic who is Professor of Humanities at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. Life and work Jacqueline Rose is known for her work on the relationship between psychoanalysis, fem ...
called "the cliché behind the myth – woman as inspiration, woman as drudge" – ultimately had a negative impact on Plath's life and work.J. Rose, ''The Haunting of Sylvia Plath'' (1991) pp. 153–4 and p. 163


See also

*'' The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image'' *''
The Hebrew Goddess ''The Hebrew Goddess'' is a 1967 book by Jewish historian and anthropologist Raphael Patai, in which the author argues that historically, the Jewish religion had elements of polytheism, especially the worship of goddesses and a cult of the mothe ...
'' *
Matriarchal religion A matriarchal religion is a religion that focuses on a goddess or goddesses. The term is most often used to refer to theories of prehistoric matriarchal religions that were proposed by scholars such as Johann Jakob Bachofen, Jane Ellen Harrison, ...
* Triple Goddess (Neopaganism) *
Triple goddesses A triple deity is a deity with three apparent forms that function as a singular whole. Such deities may sometimes be referred to as threefold, tripled, triplicate, tripartite, triune, triadic, or as a trinity. The number three has a long histor ...
*''
When God Was a Woman ''When God Was a Woman'' is the U.S. title of a 1976 book by sculptor and art historian Merlin Stone. It was published earlier in the United Kingdom as ''The Paradise Papers: The Suppression of Women's Rites''. It has been translated into Frenc ...
''


References


Bibliography


Editions

*1948 – ''The White Goddess : a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' (London: Faber & Faber) orr. 2nd ed. also issued by Faber in 1948 S ed.= New York, Creative Age Press, 1948*1952 – ''The White Goddess : a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'', Amended & enl. ed. .e. 3rd ed.(London: Faber & Faber) S ed.= New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1958*1961 – ''The White Goddess : a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'', Amended & enl. ed. .e. 4th ed.(London: Faber & Faber) S ed.= New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966*1997 – ''The White Goddess : a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth''; edited by
Grevel Lindop Grevel Charles Garrett Lindop (born 6 October 1948) is an English poet, academic and literary critic. Life Lindop was born in Liverpool to solicitor John Neale Lindop, LL.M. and Winifred (née Garrett), and educated at Liverpool College, then W ...
(Manchester: Carcanet)


Critical studies

*Bennett, Joseph, eview of Robert Graves' ''The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' ''Hudson Review'', vol.2 (1949), 133–138 *Davis, Robert A., 'The Origin, Evolution, and Function of the Myth of the White Goddess in the Writings of Robert Graves' (unpublished PhD, University of Stirling, 1987) British Library copy: BLDSC DX212513*Donoghue, Denis, 'The Myths of Robert Graves', ''New York Review of Books'', 43, no.6 (4 April 1996), 27–31 *''Graves and the Goddess : Essays on Robert Graves's The White Goddess'', ed. by Ian Firla and Grevel Lindop (Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 2003) *Graves, Richard Perceval, ''Robert Graves and The White Goddess, 1940–85'' (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995) *Kirkham, M.C., 'Incertitude and ''The White Goddess, ''Essays in Criticism'', 16 (1966), 57–72 *Lindop, Grevel, 'A Crazy Book: Robert Graves and ''The White Goddess, ''PN Review'', 24, no. 1 17(1997 Sept–Oct), 27–29 *Musgrove, Sydney, ''The Ancestry of 'The White Goddess'', (Bulletin No. 62, English Series, no. 11) (Auckland: Univ. of Auckland Press, 1962) *Smeds, John. ''Statement and story : Robert Graves's myth-making'' (Åbo : Åbo Akademis Förlag, 1997) *Vickery, John B., ''Robert Graves and The White Goddess'' (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1972) *Vogel, Amber, 'Not Elizabeth to his Raleigh: Laura Riding, Robert Graves, and origins of ''The White Goddess, in ''Literary Couplings: Writing Couples, Collaborators, and the Construction of Authorship'', ed. by Marjorie Stone and Judith Thompson (
University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...
, 2006), pp. 229–239,


External links


The Robert Graves TrustHome of Robert Graves in Deià, Mallorca
maintained by Robert Graves Foundation. {{DEFAULTSORT:White Goddess, The 1948 non-fiction books Books by Robert Graves Comparative mythology Mythology books Wiccan books Matriarchy