Robert Graves. Biography 1895-1940

Human behaviour - Björk

Robert Graves. Biography 1895-1940
(Tr. Spa-Eng. from a review by Pablo García Mejía, Mexico City)

 Perhaps reading a biography is similar to removing a marrow extract containing the biography’s soul. However, not all is marrow and nostalgia revived and recreated. There is also manure between the spurs. According to Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves's nephew, it is not just about following the footsteps of his illustrious uncle, but about rebuilding the past after the events which bruised and at times cracked the poet's heart. In fact, they are two biographies assembled by the same author: The heroic assault (1895-1926), which covers childhood and his participation in First World War as well as his family life after the war; and The Years with Laura (1926-1940) covering the time he lived with the American poet Laura Riding. Part of this material is also supported by the autobiography Robert Graves wrote at age 33: Goodbye to All That, when he still had 57 years to live. So that is three biographies in one and the three of them incomplete (though none longer uninteresting) as Robert Graves will not die until 1985, i.e. 45 years after this latest biography. 

 Robert Graves believed from a young age in his immortality and his magnificent poetry, but left a little aside his novelistic vein, where he was really great, especially in the historical novel I Claudius that has become a classic of our time. This novel is no less playful, carefree and funny, it opens the extraordinary road to the pleasure of reading history. Nevertheless, the meetings set up with literature are branched and impregnated with poetry: every great writer must draw on poetry, even if he never writes poems. Of course, this is not the case of Robert Graves, for his whole life was governed by a Goddess who is constantly being transfigured, she is the feminine being: the Goddess Moon or Muse: she is the White Goddess which can never be betrayed, she is the great representation of art in general and particularly in poetry according to Graves.   

 Robert Graves was always a creature of poetic principles, that is why the White Goddess wrapped him from an early age with her veil, and for his loyalty to the Muse he was always awarded on the poetry and literature field. In his early years, somehow, she influenced or was embodied in his mother Amalia Elizabeth Sophie von Ranke, who encouraged him any time, later in his first wife Nancy Nicholson. However, during his adolescence he had to overcome some contests, such as believing that his great affection for his friend, Robert Nicholson, was a love that brought him close to the gay world, and in a letter to his friend he says to him: "I would not like people believed that I am openly gay, if only in thought and go no further”.  

 Later, the Goddess made her third appearance, now in her essence, i.e. as a poet: a typical day, Robert is reading an American magazine, Fugitive, and finds a poem, The Quids, whose author was an American poet called Laura Riding Gosttchalk. Thus, for a poet all begins with a poem and Robert, excited by that poem, wrote to the poet, so a poetic correspondence begins full of coincidences. Then, the inevitable happens: she travels to England and they meet, they are now in love, he distances himself from his wife and children and goes with Laura, living 14 intense years together until disappointments and disagreements become more frequent. Subsequently, he met his third wife, Beryl Pritchard, with whom he finally lives the serene life he coveted so much. 

 It was not easy for Richard Perceval Graves to write a biography of his admired uncle because taking the necessary distance to meet the man with his virtues and defects is impossible most of the time due to the subjectivity the person who follows the biographical traces must face remaining trapped in his own circle and so becoming hostage to his family and feelings. However, the author has more love for the legitimate history of that extraordinary man who Robert Graves was and manages to bring on a golden platter the memories and experiences of the great poet and writer who always honored the White Goddess, Goddess Moon: she the Goddess of all poets of all time. Richard P. Graves, Robert Graves. Biography 1895-1940. Editorial Edhasa. Translation by Lucia Graves and Elena Lambea. Spain, 1992, 462 pp.