Robert Graves [antikvár]

chapter i THE POET AT WAR Robert Graves is a professional writer of great accom-plishment in a great number of fields. As an autobio-grapher and the inventor of a new kind of historical novel he has found his widest public ; as a scholar with bold and idiosyncratic theories on myth and religion he has stimu-lated much controversy. Yet it is as a poet that he ranks highest, and that he is likely to be read by future générations, who may find his other productions no more than entertaining. Graves himself takes this view of his work. In the foreword to his Poems 1938-45 he baldly pro-claimed: "I write poems for poets, and satires or grotesques for wits. For people in général I write prose, and am content that they should be unaware that I do anything else. To write poems for other than poets is wasteful." By writing for people in général, Graves has earned the professional livelihood which has enabled him to continue as a poet. He does not for a moment suggest that even the best of his prose should be placed on the level of the mere 320 pages of his Collected Poems igijg by which he wishes to be judged by such of his contemporaries as can be considered poets. Graves's viewpoint in this matter is exaggerated. In the first place his poetry can be and is appreciated by many who are not practising poets. In the second, some of his prose, in particular his "historical grammar of poetic myth," The White Goddess, is so closely connected with his poetry that it cannot be considered on its own. It is my intention, however, as a critic though no poet, to take