Think only modern women love the Goddess? Think again: In 1948, the talented writer/historian Robert Graves alleged that until we regain Goddess worship, we are doomed to misery: “There can be no escape from the present more than usually miserable state of the world . . . until the repressed desire of the Western races, which is for some form of Goddess worship, . . . finds satisfaction at last.” Robert Graves in The White Goddess, as quoted in Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First Sex.(In addition to The White Goddess, Graves was the author of Goodbye to All That (1929), a landmark memoir of World War I. The highly successful BBC mini-series I, Claudius (1976) was based on Graves's work. Go HERE to learn more about him.)
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thnx to Answers.com for the foto of Robert Graves
"Man is a demi-god: he always has either one foot or the other in the grave; woman is divine because she can keep both her feet always in the same place, whether in the sky, in the underworld or on this earth. Man envies her and tells himself lies about his own completeness, and thereby makes himself miserable;"
ReplyDeleteI think we should remember Robert Graves too. he was so criticised by academia for The white Goddess and still is but he had the courage to face down his peers.
I didn't realize Graves was raked over the coals by academia! What's the story, ursa?
ReplyDeleteHe covers some of these criticisms in appendix A of the White Goddess but there were many attacks in the media, they went on for years even into my awareness time.It was the usual thing he had spoken out for women and even dared to say they may represent the divine. there is a review on amazon done by a Celtic scholar that calls him sexist, all men are to some extent but if ever one tried to rise above it as an author I think he did . He also criticised him for poor Celtic scholarship but he never claimed to be a Celtic expert. It's the expanse and breath of knowledge over so much time across so many cultures that astounds me. The thing is you don't really read the White Goddess, though I have twice, you live with it. I still pick it up now and then and read a chapter And find something new that I wish I had time to understand and study.
ReplyDeleteI've begun The White Goddess, but haven't finished it. In grad school I had to race through so many books without time to digest them that now I read at a luxurious snail's pace. But The White Goddess! -- every sentence stops me for at least a ten-minute thought fest....
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