The White Goddess

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For the Greek sea goddess, see Leucothea.
The White Goddess
The White Goddess cover (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997).
AuthorRobert Graves
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreMythology, Poetry
Publication date
1948

The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth is a book-length essay upon the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, based on earlier articles published in Wales, corrected, revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1948, 1952 and 1961. The White Goddess represents an approach to the study of mythology from a decidedly creative and idiosyncratic perspective. Graves proposes the existence of a European deity, the "White Goddess of Birth, Love and Death," much similar to the Mother Goddess, inspired and represented by the phases of the moon, who lies behind the faces of the diverse goddesses of various European and pagan 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.[1]

Poetry and myth

Graves described The White Goddess as "a historical grammar of the language of poetic myth." The book draws from the mythology and poetry of Wales and Ireland especially, as well as that of most of Western Europe and the ancient Middle East. Relying on arguments from etymology 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. Later, another two authors (among many others), Marija Gimbutas and Joseph Campbell, would argue the same on their book The Language of the Goddess.

In response to critics, Graves has accused literary scholars of being psychologically incapable of interpreting myth[2] or too concerned with maintaining their perquisites to go against the majority view. (See Frazer quote below.)

The Golden Bough (1922, but begun in 1890), an early anthropological study by Sir James George Frazer, 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, Cambridge, 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, dogma and ritual 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' The White Goddess deals with goddess worship as the prototypical religion, analyzing 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 was a magical language bound up with popular religious ceremonies in honor 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 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.[3]

Graves openly considered poetic inspiration, or "Analepsis" as he termed it, a valid historical methodology.

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[4] rather than the traditional Hera, Athena and Aphrodite of the narrative the image illustrates.

"Celtic Astrology"

Graves also argues that the names of the Ogham letters in the alphabet used in parts of Gaelic Ireland and Britain contained a calendar that contained the key to an ancient liturgy involving the human sacrifice of a sacred king, and, further, that these letter names concealed lines of Ancient Greek hexameter describing the goddess.

While Graves' "Celtic Astrology" has been popularized by some New Age authors, his "Tree Calendar" has no relation to any historical Celtic calendar.[5] His interpretations rather rely on the book Ogygia by the 17th-century bard Roderick O'Flaherty

Graves' "Tree Zodiac" includes the four cardinal point besides the twelve signs of the zodiac, resulting in a list of 16, matched to the 20 Ogham letters by attributing two letters each to winter solstice (A/I), Sagittarius (B/R), spring equinox (O/E) and Gemini (D/T):

  1. Winter Solstice: A/I: Spruce/Yew
  2. Sagittarius: B/R: Birch/Elder
  3. Capricorn: L: Service tree
  4. Aquarius: N: Ash
  5. Spring Equinox: O/E: Furze/Poplar
  6. Pisces: F: Alder
  7. Aries: S: Willow
  8. Taurus: H: Whitethorn
  9. Summer Solstice U: Heather
  10. Gemini: D/T: Oak/Holly
  11. Cancer: C: Hazel
  12. Leo: Q: Apple
  13. Autumnal Equinox: E/O : Poplar/Furze
  14. Virgo: M: Vine
  15. Libra: G: Ivy
  16. Scorpio: NG: Reed

Criticism

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.[6] However, Graves's intention was that the work should be read as an personal poetic vision rather than an authentic work of history.[7]

Graves's value as a poet aside, flaws in his scholarship such as poor philology, misdating texts (for example, the Hanes Taliesin which is a 16th-18th century text which Graves believed was a mediaeval document, containing material dating back to prehistory[8]), and use of out-dated archeology have been criticised.[9] Some scholars, particularly archeologists, historians and folklorists have not received the work favourably.[10] Graves was disappointed that his work was "loudly ignored" by many Celtic scholars;[11] however, it was accepted as history by many non-scholarly readers and, according to Ronald Hutton, The White Goddess remains a major source of confusion about the ancient Celts and influences many un-scholarly views of Celtic paganism.[12] Hilda Ellis Davidson criticized 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.[13] While Graves made the association between Goddesses and the moon appear "natural," it was not so to the Celts or some other ancient peoples.[12] Some Neopagans have been bemused and upset by the scholarly criticism that The White Goddess has received in recent years,[14] while others have appreciated its poetic insight but never accepted it as a work of historical veracity.[15]

Michael W. Pharand, though quoting earlier criticisms, rebutted, "Graves's theories and conclusions, outlandish as they seemed to his contemporaries (or may appear to us), were the result of careful observation."[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hutton, Ronald (1999). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford University Press. pp. 188–189.
  2. ^ Inter alia - The White Goddess, Farrar Strauss Giroud, p. 224. ISBN 0-374-50493-8
  3. ^ Graves, The White Goddess, p. 446-447
  4. ^ Von Hendy, Andrew. The Modern Construction of Myth. p.196.
  5. ^ Ellis, Peter Berresford (1997). "The Fabrication of 'Celtic' Astrology". The Astrological Journal. 39 (issn.4). {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
  6. ^ Hunter, Jefferson (1983). "The Servant of Three Mistresses" (review of: Seymour-Smith, Martin, Robert Graves: His Life and Work), in The Hudson Review, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1983-1984), pp. 733-736.
  7. ^ Hutton, Ronald (2001). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford University Press. pp. 41–42. ISBN 0192854496, 9780192854490. Retrieved 2008-12-23. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  8. ^ Wood, Juliette (1999). "Chapter 1, The Concept of the Goddess". In Sandra Billington, Miranda Green (ed.). The Concept of the Goddess. Routledge. p. 12. ISBN 0415197899, 9780415197892. Retrieved 2008-12-23. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  9. ^ Hutton, Ronald (1993). The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy. John Wiley & Sons. p. 320. ISBN 0631189467, 9780631189466. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  10. ^ The Paganism Reader. p. 128.
  11. ^ White, Donna R. A Century of Welsh Myth in Children's Literature. p. 75.
  12. ^ a b Hutton, Ronald (1993). The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy. John Wiley & Sons. p. 145. ISBN 0631189467, 9780631189466. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  13. ^ Davidson, Hilda Ellis (1998). Roles of the Northern Goddess, page 11. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13611-3
  14. ^ The Pomegranate 7.1, Equinox press, (Review of) "Jacob Rabinowitz, The Rotting Goddess: The Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity’s Demonization of Fertility Religion."
  15. ^ Lewis, James R. Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft. p. 172.
  16. ^ Pharand, Michael W. "Greek Myths, White Goddess: Robert Graves Cleans up a 'Dreadful Mess'", in Ian Ferla and Grevel Lindop (ed), Graves and the Goddess: Essays on Robert Graves's The White Goddess. Associated University Presses, 2003. p.188.

Bibliography

Editions

  • 1948 - The White Goddess : a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (London: Faber & Faber) [Corr. 2nd ed. also issued by Faber in 1948] [US ed.= New York, Creative Age Press, 1948]
  • 1952 - The White Goddess : a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Amended & enl. ed.[i.e. 3rd ed.] (London: Faber & Faber) [US ed.= New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1958]
  • 1961 - The White Goddess : a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Amended & enl. ed.[i.e. 4th ed.] (London: Faber & Faber) [US ed.= New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966]
  • 1997 - The White Goddess : a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth; edited by Grevel Lindop (Manchester: Carcanet) ISBN 1-85754-248-7

Critical studies

  • Bennett, Joseph, [review 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) ISBN 1-57591-055-1
  • Graves, Richard Perceval, Robert Graves and The White Goddess, 1940-85 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995) ISBN 0-297-81534-2
  • 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 [117] (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, 2006), pp. 229–239, ISBN 978-0-299-21760-0

External links

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