9
9
0
On July 24, 1895, Robert Graves, English writer and poet, who wrote I Claudius andThe Greek Myths , was born in London, England (d. 1985).
"In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T. E. Lawrence. The autobiographical 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 (under the advice of classics scholar Eirlys Roberts)[33] 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). The Claudius books were turned into the very popular television series I, Claudius shown in both Britain and United States in the 1970s. 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 and eventual breakup was described by Robert's nephew 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 Britain, Graves began a relationship with Beryl Hodge, 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 but subsequently republished several times under its original title). In 1946, he and Beryl (they were not to marry until 1950) re-established a home with their three children, in Deià, Majorca. The house is now a museum. The year 1946 also saw the publication of his historical novel, King Jesus. He published The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth in 1948; it is a study of the nature of poetic inspiration, interpreted in terms of the classical and Celtic mythology he knew so well.[34] He turned to science fiction with Seven Days in New Crete (1949) and in 1953 he published The Nazarene Gospel Restored with Joshua Podro. He also wrote Hercules, My Shipmate, published under that name in 1945 (but first published as The Golden Fleece in 1944).
In 1955, he published The Greek Myths, which retells a large body of Greek myths, each tale followed by extensive commentary drawn from the system of The White Goddess. His retellings are well respected; many of his unconventional interpretations and etymologies are dismissed by classicists.[35] 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 civilisation alive."[36]
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.[37][38] 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.[38] The translation was a critical disaster and Graves's reputation suffered severely due to what the public perceived as his gullibility in falling for the Shah brothers' deception.[38][39]
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.[40]
On 11 November 1985, Graves was among sixteen Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner.[41] 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."[42] Of the 16 poets, Graves was the only one still living at the time of the commemoration ceremony.
UK government documents released in 2012 indicate that Graves turned down a CBE in 1957.[43] In 2012 the Nobel Records were opened after 50 years, and it was revealed that Graves was among a shortlist of authors considered for the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, along with John Steinbeck (winner), Lawrence Durrell, Jean Anouilh and Karen Blixen.[44] Graves was rejected because even though he had written several historical novels he was still primarily seen as a poet, and committee member Henry Olsson was reluctant to award any Anglo-Saxon poet the prize before the death of Ezra Pound, believing that other writers did not match his talent.[44]
In 2017 Seven Stories Press began its Robert Graves Project. Fourteen of Graves's out of print books will be republished over the next three years.[45] The Reader Over Your Shoulder was the first adult title in Graves's oeuvre, published January 9th, 2018. Ann at Highwood Hall, a children's book, was published in July 2017."
"In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T. E. Lawrence. The autobiographical 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 (under the advice of classics scholar Eirlys Roberts)[33] 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). The Claudius books were turned into the very popular television series I, Claudius shown in both Britain and United States in the 1970s. 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 and eventual breakup was described by Robert's nephew 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 Britain, Graves began a relationship with Beryl Hodge, 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 but subsequently republished several times under its original title). In 1946, he and Beryl (they were not to marry until 1950) re-established a home with their three children, in Deià, Majorca. The house is now a museum. The year 1946 also saw the publication of his historical novel, King Jesus. He published The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth in 1948; it is a study of the nature of poetic inspiration, interpreted in terms of the classical and Celtic mythology he knew so well.[34] He turned to science fiction with Seven Days in New Crete (1949) and in 1953 he published The Nazarene Gospel Restored with Joshua Podro. He also wrote Hercules, My Shipmate, published under that name in 1945 (but first published as The Golden Fleece in 1944).
In 1955, he published The Greek Myths, which retells a large body of Greek myths, each tale followed by extensive commentary drawn from the system of The White Goddess. His retellings are well respected; many of his unconventional interpretations and etymologies are dismissed by classicists.[35] 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 civilisation alive."[36]
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.[37][38] 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.[38] The translation was a critical disaster and Graves's reputation suffered severely due to what the public perceived as his gullibility in falling for the Shah brothers' deception.[38][39]
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.[40]
On 11 November 1985, Graves was among sixteen Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner.[41] 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."[42] Of the 16 poets, Graves was the only one still living at the time of the commemoration ceremony.
UK government documents released in 2012 indicate that Graves turned down a CBE in 1957.[43] In 2012 the Nobel Records were opened after 50 years, and it was revealed that Graves was among a shortlist of authors considered for the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, along with John Steinbeck (winner), Lawrence Durrell, Jean Anouilh and Karen Blixen.[44] Graves was rejected because even though he had written several historical novels he was still primarily seen as a poet, and committee member Henry Olsson was reluctant to award any Anglo-Saxon poet the prize before the death of Ezra Pound, believing that other writers did not match his talent.[44]
In 2017 Seven Stories Press began its Robert Graves Project. Fourteen of Graves's out of print books will be republished over the next three years.[45] The Reader Over Your Shoulder was the first adult title in Graves's oeuvre, published January 9th, 2018. Ann at Highwood Hall, a children's book, was published in July 2017."
Robert Graves - Wikipedia
Posted from en.m.wikipedia.org
World History
Military History
Poetry
Writer
Literature
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 5
6
6
0
Robert Graves interview | Poet | Writer | Today | 1969
A fascinating interview with celebrated Poet and Writer, Robert Graves. First shown: 22/10/1969 If you would like to license a clip from this video please e ...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that July 24 is the anniversary of the birth of WWI British Expeditionary Force soldier, English writer and poet Robert Graves who wrote I Claudius and The Greek Myths.
BTW my paternal grandfather was also a British Expeditionary Force soldier along with his brother,
Image:
1. 1916 Robert Graves in uniform
2. A soldier offers a helping hand to another as he carries a wounded comrade across a trench
3. John Ford at Gallipoli Turkey in 1915.
Background from
"poet Robert Graves
First World War
On July 24, 1895, Robert Graves was born in Wimbledon, near London. His father, Alfred Perceval Graves, was a Gaelic scholar and minor Irish poet. His mother, Amalie von Ranke Graves, was a relation of Leopold von Ranke, one of the founding fathers of modern historical studies. One of ten children, Robert was greatly influenced by his mother’s puritanical beliefs and his father’s love of Celtic poetry and myth. As a young man, he was more interested in boxing and mountain climbing than studying, although poetry later sustained him through a turbulent adolescence. In 1913 Graves won a scholarship to continue his studies at St. John’s College, Oxford, but in August 1914 he enlisted as a junior officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He fought in the Battle of Loos and was injured in the Somme offensive in 1916. While convalescing, he published his first collection of poetry, Over the Brazier. By 1917, though still an active serviceman, Graves had published three volumes. In 1918, he spent a year in the trenches, where he was again severely wounded.
In January 1918, at the age of twenty-two, he married eighteen-year-old Nancy Nicholson, with whom he was to have four children. Traumatized by the war, he went to Oxford with his wife and took a position at St. John’s College. Graves’s early volumes of poetry, like those of his contemporaries, deal with natural beauty and bucolic pleasures, and with the consequences of the First World War. Over the Brazier and Fairies and Fusiliers earned for Graves the reputation as an accomplished war poet. After meeting the American poet and theorist Laura Riding in 1926, Graves’s poetry underwent a significant transformation. Douglas Day has written that the “influence of Laura Riding is quite possibly the most important single element in [Graves’s] poetic career: she persuaded him to curb his digressiveness and his rambling philosophizing and to concentrate instead on terse, ironic poems written on personal themes.”
In 1927, Graves and his first wife separated permanently, and in 1929 he published Goodbye to All That, an autobiography that announced his psychological accommodation with the residual horror of his war experiences. Shortly afterward, he departed to Majorca with Laura Riding. In addition to completing many books of verse while in Majorca, Graves also wrote several volumes of criticism, some in collaboration with Riding. The couple cofounded Seizin Press in 1928 and Epilogue, a semiannual magazine, in 1935. During that period, he evolved his theory of poetry as spiritually cathartic to both the poet and the reader. Although Graves claimed that he wrote novels only to earn money, it was through these that he attained status as a major writer in 1934, with the publication of the historical novel I, Claudius, and its sequel, Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina. (During the 1970’s, the BBC adapted the novels into an internationally popular television series.)
At the onset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Graves and Riding fled Majorca, eventually settling in America. In 1939, Laura Riding left Graves for the writer Schuyler Jackson; one year later Graves began a relationship with Beryl Hodge that was to last until his death. It was in the 1940s, after his break with Riding, that Graves formulated his personal mythology of the White Goddess. Inspired by late nineteenth-century studies of matriarchal societies and goddess cults, this mythology was to pervade all of his later work.
After World War II, Graves returned to Majorca, where he lived with Hodge and continued to write. By the 1950s, Graves had won an enormous international reputation as a poet, novelist, literary scholar, and translator. In 1962, W. H. Auden went as far as to assert that Graves was England’s “greatest living poet.” In 1968, he received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. During his lifetime he published more than 140 books, including fifty-five collections of poetry (he reworked his Collected Poems repeatedly during his career), fifteen novels, ten translations, and forty works of nonfiction, autobiography, and literary essays. From 1961 to 1966, Graves returned to England to serve as a professor of poetry at Oxford. In the 1970s his productivity fell off; and the last decade of his life was lost in silence and senility. Robert Graves died in Majorca in 1985, at the age of ninety.
Selected Bibliography; Poetry
Over the Brazier (1916)
Goliath and David (1916)
Fairies and Fusiliers (1918)
Treasure Box (1920)
Country Sentiment (1920)
The Pier-Glass (1921)
Whipperginny (1923)
To Whom Else? Deyá (1931)
The Poems of Robert Graves (1958)
Man Does, Woman Is (1964)
Love Respelt (1966)
Poems About Love (1969)
Love Respelt Again (1969)
Poems: Abridged for Dolls and Princes (1971)
Poems 1970-1972 (1973)
New Collected Poems (1977)
The Complete Poems, ed. Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward (2000)"
Robert Graves interview | Poet | Writer | Today | 1969
"A fascinating interview with celebrated Poet and Writer, Robert Graves."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q45-AE5ZK1k
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Wayne Brandon LTC Bill Koski Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown Maj Marty Hogan MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx PO1 William "Chip" Nagel SPC Margaret Higgins MSgt Jason McClish AN Christopher Crayne SPC Tom DeSmet SGT Charles H. Hawes SSG David Andrews
BTW my paternal grandfather was also a British Expeditionary Force soldier along with his brother,
Image:
1. 1916 Robert Graves in uniform
2. A soldier offers a helping hand to another as he carries a wounded comrade across a trench
3. John Ford at Gallipoli Turkey in 1915.
Background from
"poet Robert Graves
First World War
On July 24, 1895, Robert Graves was born in Wimbledon, near London. His father, Alfred Perceval Graves, was a Gaelic scholar and minor Irish poet. His mother, Amalie von Ranke Graves, was a relation of Leopold von Ranke, one of the founding fathers of modern historical studies. One of ten children, Robert was greatly influenced by his mother’s puritanical beliefs and his father’s love of Celtic poetry and myth. As a young man, he was more interested in boxing and mountain climbing than studying, although poetry later sustained him through a turbulent adolescence. In 1913 Graves won a scholarship to continue his studies at St. John’s College, Oxford, but in August 1914 he enlisted as a junior officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He fought in the Battle of Loos and was injured in the Somme offensive in 1916. While convalescing, he published his first collection of poetry, Over the Brazier. By 1917, though still an active serviceman, Graves had published three volumes. In 1918, he spent a year in the trenches, where he was again severely wounded.
In January 1918, at the age of twenty-two, he married eighteen-year-old Nancy Nicholson, with whom he was to have four children. Traumatized by the war, he went to Oxford with his wife and took a position at St. John’s College. Graves’s early volumes of poetry, like those of his contemporaries, deal with natural beauty and bucolic pleasures, and with the consequences of the First World War. Over the Brazier and Fairies and Fusiliers earned for Graves the reputation as an accomplished war poet. After meeting the American poet and theorist Laura Riding in 1926, Graves’s poetry underwent a significant transformation. Douglas Day has written that the “influence of Laura Riding is quite possibly the most important single element in [Graves’s] poetic career: she persuaded him to curb his digressiveness and his rambling philosophizing and to concentrate instead on terse, ironic poems written on personal themes.”
In 1927, Graves and his first wife separated permanently, and in 1929 he published Goodbye to All That, an autobiography that announced his psychological accommodation with the residual horror of his war experiences. Shortly afterward, he departed to Majorca with Laura Riding. In addition to completing many books of verse while in Majorca, Graves also wrote several volumes of criticism, some in collaboration with Riding. The couple cofounded Seizin Press in 1928 and Epilogue, a semiannual magazine, in 1935. During that period, he evolved his theory of poetry as spiritually cathartic to both the poet and the reader. Although Graves claimed that he wrote novels only to earn money, it was through these that he attained status as a major writer in 1934, with the publication of the historical novel I, Claudius, and its sequel, Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina. (During the 1970’s, the BBC adapted the novels into an internationally popular television series.)
At the onset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Graves and Riding fled Majorca, eventually settling in America. In 1939, Laura Riding left Graves for the writer Schuyler Jackson; one year later Graves began a relationship with Beryl Hodge that was to last until his death. It was in the 1940s, after his break with Riding, that Graves formulated his personal mythology of the White Goddess. Inspired by late nineteenth-century studies of matriarchal societies and goddess cults, this mythology was to pervade all of his later work.
After World War II, Graves returned to Majorca, where he lived with Hodge and continued to write. By the 1950s, Graves had won an enormous international reputation as a poet, novelist, literary scholar, and translator. In 1962, W. H. Auden went as far as to assert that Graves was England’s “greatest living poet.” In 1968, he received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. During his lifetime he published more than 140 books, including fifty-five collections of poetry (he reworked his Collected Poems repeatedly during his career), fifteen novels, ten translations, and forty works of nonfiction, autobiography, and literary essays. From 1961 to 1966, Graves returned to England to serve as a professor of poetry at Oxford. In the 1970s his productivity fell off; and the last decade of his life was lost in silence and senility. Robert Graves died in Majorca in 1985, at the age of ninety.
Selected Bibliography; Poetry
Over the Brazier (1916)
Goliath and David (1916)
Fairies and Fusiliers (1918)
Treasure Box (1920)
Country Sentiment (1920)
The Pier-Glass (1921)
Whipperginny (1923)
To Whom Else? Deyá (1931)
The Poems of Robert Graves (1958)
Man Does, Woman Is (1964)
Love Respelt (1966)
Poems About Love (1969)
Love Respelt Again (1969)
Poems: Abridged for Dolls and Princes (1971)
Poems 1970-1972 (1973)
New Collected Poems (1977)
The Complete Poems, ed. Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward (2000)"
Robert Graves interview | Poet | Writer | Today | 1969
"A fascinating interview with celebrated Poet and Writer, Robert Graves."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q45-AE5ZK1k
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Wayne Brandon LTC Bill Koski Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown Maj Marty Hogan MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx PO1 William "Chip" Nagel SPC Margaret Higgins MSgt Jason McClish AN Christopher Crayne SPC Tom DeSmet SGT Charles H. Hawes SSG David Andrews
(6)
(0)
SGT (Join to see)
Great additional information, LTC Stephen F.! I was going to mention his service and wounds in World I. Had he died, there would have been a lot of literature that would not have been written. It makes one think of all that could have been had those millions of young men had not been killed
(1)
(0)
2
2
0
2
2
0
SGT (Join to see)
Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Yes, it was in PBS. I especially liked his books on mythology. I thought they were better than Edith Hamilton. He was very detailed in his accounts
(0)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google