The White Goddess Quotes

“Poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun. No poet can hope to understand the nature of poetry unless he has had a vision of the Naked King crucified to the lopped oak, and watched the dancers, red-eyed from the acrid smoke of the sacrificial fires, stamping out the measure of the dance, their bodies bent uncouthly forward, with a monotonous chant of "Kill! kill! kill!" and "Blood! blood! blood!”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“But we are gifted, even in November
Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense
Of her nakedly worn magnificence
We forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“True poetry (inspired by the Muse and her prime symbol, the moon) even today is a survival, or intuitive re-creation, of the ancient Goddess-worship.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“But that so many scholars are barbarians does not much matter so long as a few of them are ready to help with their specialized knowledge the few independent thinkers, that is to say the poets, who try to to keep civilization alive.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“My thesis is 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 honour of the Moon-goddess, or Muse,”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“Fact is not truth, but a poet who willfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“But, after all, what is a scholar? One who may not break bounds under pain of expulsion from the academy of which he is a member.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“Since the age of fifteen poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“Since the age of fifteen poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or performed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“English poetic education should, really, not begin with The Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with Song of Amergin.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

“However, to think with perfect clarity in a poetic sense one must first rid oneself of a great deal of intellectual encumbrance, including all dogmatic doctrinal prepossessions: membership of any political party or religious sect or literary school deforms the poetic sense-- as it were, introduces something irrelevant and destructive into the magic circle, drawn with a rowan, hazel or willow rod, within which the poet insulates himself for the poetic act.”
― Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth