The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

When "Goddess" first appeared in the late 1940's it was a groundbreaking work; for lack of a better definition it is a book on cultural anthropolgy written by a poet, who felt that as a a poet and a man who understood the inner motivation of the poet he would give his views on the Muse and her invocation. The book covers a lot of territory, sprawling across civilization from the Greeks to the Celts, and from the three forms of the Muse to the Fisher King to the Ogham alphabet. It wanders so far that it's hard to keep up with Mr. Graves as he gallops across centuries and over distances. For those of us used to Mr. Graves' usual tight control of his material and its presentation, it's difficult to deal with how he jumps from subject to subject with little or no notice.

I'm almost tempted to say that this is Mr. Graves' version of "Finnegan's Wake", only in a non-fictional form. It certainly is his encomium to the White Goddess, whom he identifies as the original Muse of all poets, including himself. There's enough to think about for years in this book, and neo-pagan movements may be described as having largely started based on the thoughts provoked by this book.

But Graves was a poet, not a social scientist, and in the last fifty years many of his observations have been proven to be wrong. This in itself is not so surprising, nor is it really such a bad thing; the real problem is the amount of emotional residue that those ideas left in their wake. Graves makes some observations that some would find offensive now, such as his allegation that women can't be real poets - they have no Muse to appeal to, the White Goddess only wants the worship of males. He makes a possible exception of Sappho, for what it's worth.

In short, "Goddess" still deserves to be read - it's a good, albeit exhausting read, and Graves is always worth reading - but it would be a mistake to pick up his ideas and run with them.


Discredited by every credible scholar of Celtic Studies!   October 2, 2003
Andrea A. (Florida)
62 out of 82 found this review helpful



If you're thinking about buying this book... DON'T waste your money!

Any entertainment value that could otherwise be garnered from this work of fiction is greatly overshadowed by Graves' false claims that the material presented was authentic, and that it came from ancient Celtic culture. This is NOT the case. In fact, nothing presented in this book is authentic, and as it is falsely presented as such, what could have at least been an interesting work of fiction, even fails to entertain.

Amazingly, Robert Graves' "White Goddess" has become a 'classic' upon which many modern "tree Ogham" books and articles have been written, however, in this text lies little, if any, decipherable truths. In fact, the book is so laden with errors and gross misinformation that it was dismissed as fiction by the foremost authorities on both Celtic studies, and the Ogham, at the time it was written (1946), authorities still heavily relied upon today for their foresight and accuracy. In fact, one of those most well respected authorities (and to this day, likely the most knowledgeable scholar on the subject, ever) was Robert Graves' own grandfather, Charles Graves. (More on this in a minute).

Several main components of this text are purely fictional, as is the majority of the supporting "evidence," i.e., heavily denounced, false documents that R. Graves relied heavily upon to make some very poor assumptions, and totally wild claims.

First, Graves' translations of Celtic legend and lore are linguistically shoddy at best, and many of his interpretations are highly obscure. Further, his efforts to paint Celtic legend and lore as stemming from displaced Greeks and Hebrews, and to interpret meaning into these Celtic legends from such a foreign perspective does the area of legitimate Celtic studies a serious disservice. Graves didn't do us any favors!

Further, his claims concerning the Ogham and the Celtic Tree Calendar are also blatantly false, and have lead to a great deal of misinformation on the ancient writing system of the Celts, and ancient Celtic culture, in general that persists even today.

Robert Graves relied very heavily upon the thoroughly discredited manuscript written by Roderic O'Flaherty in the early 17th century, that first claimed that Ogham markings were correlated with trees, which is linguistically inaccurate. At best, only seven of the Ogham characters can be interpreted as having any correlation with tree names.

Secondly, and more amazingly, is his "discovery" of what he labeled the "Celtic Tree Calendar." Graves makes a far leap out into space, purporting that the Ogham was made up of five vowels and 13 primary consonants, which he claims equate to 13 months in a "Celtic Tree Calendar," when it was already well known that there are not 13, but 15 primary consonants in the Ogham (in addition to the five vowels, and another five supplemental characters) . How he managed to string together an imaginary Calendar "system" based upon O'Flaherty's manuscript, and upon which he claims Celtic culture operated, is completely beyond me.

This text has been a continuous thorn in the side of Celtic scholars and academia since its writing. Robert Graves had access to the two foremost scholars on the Ogham of all time, and chose to completely dismiss them both. Although it also appears that the author wrote this book out of spite, due to very a strained relationship with both his father and grandfather, Robert Graves' further dismissal of R.A.S. Macalister (a well known and highly respected expert on the Ogham) is appalling. (Robert wrote Macalister seeking corroboration of his ideas and when they were challenged by the scholar, he blew him off!)

As for Charles Graves, Robert Graves' grandfather was not only a very credible scholar, and THE foremost authority on the Ogham at the time, but was also the President of the Royal Irish Academy. He was the first scholar to discover a cryptic element to the Ogham markings, and was well received for his many contributions on the subject. Both the elder Graves and Macalister (who himself cited the work of Charles Grave's in his own research) had heavily denounced the false works of O'Flaherty, and further scoffed at Robert Graves' text, discrediting it as pure fallacy.

For more useful texts on the Ogham, I highly suggest R.A.S. Macallister's Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum and The Secret Languages of Ireland (both which include work by Charles Graves), and George Calder's "Auriacept Na n-Eces - The Scholar's Primer." Some of Charles Graves' exceptional work on the Ogham can be found on-line, for free. Just do a search for: "On the Ogam Inscriptions," Hermathena, Vol. 3, c.19 C. His work on the Ogham was purely outstanding.

For more on the fallacy known as "The White Goddess," be sure to read the excellent review written by the modern Celtic scholar and author, Peter Berresford Ellis, at: http://cura.free.fr/xv/13ellis2.html

Best of luck!


visions and memory in myth   December 17, 1999
karl b. (Fraser Valley, BC, Canada)
48 out of 50 found this review helpful

I won't pretend I know exactly what this book is about. Graves presents his arguments with the reasoning of a poet, decidedly not the formal logic of a theologian or the empirical induction of a historian. I gave this book 5 stars because of its sheer ambition and audacity. Graves is attempting a synthesis of the entirety of mythology into a coherent grammatical code, a universal metaphysical language. That is a monumental undertaking, not only due to the breadth of knowledge of the Christian, Pagan and Classical canons it requires, but also because these traditions are commonly regarded as antithetical, their communities, such as they exist, hostile to each other. Graves proffers a common root under the ossified codices, if with an uneven case.

Poets, as a group, are known for their affinity to the mystical and mythological. The poetic temperament imbues and projects inner forms with aspects of corporeality, which the rest of us grasp only dimly as a spectre of consciousness, without significance or shape. The true poet is more likely to see them as a magical talisman, an object of necessary reality. Numbers, alphabets, calendars, zodiacs-- lunar and solar domains-- a primal order bubbles from the cauldron of Graves's conceptions. His spells are incarnate in trees, minerals, birds, planets-- metaphors of an underlying truth.

This analysis springs from two dense poems of spiritual mysticism, The Battle of the Trees (Welsh Druid) and Hanes Taliesen ( Early Christian). Presented as a vision, like Revelations, they pose a riddle and mix symbols. Graves's solution loosely ties his thesis together. Linguists have theorized about the existence of grammatical archetypes; mythic relics are visible in Christian sacraments; correspondence amongst various folklore is widely acknowledged. Graves is not proposing anything radically new. He has, though, developed a cryptic framework which is supernatural and aesthetic, an elixir of divination and contemplation. He sees the White Goddess, as muse, in every authentic poem since those of Homer. His construction puts history at the service of his grammatical architecture. The White Goddess is a work of introspection and selective interpretation, comparable to those of Jung or Spengler, not one of conventional scholarship. Many of its assertions are farfetched or arbitrary, some pure formulations. That is not to understate its value. This is the culmination of a life's reflections, investigations and musings. It represents the articulation of a powerful, syncretic imagination-- a concordance of speculation and intuition.


Despite its detractors, The White Goddess shines!   December 7, 1999
Padma Thornlyre (Evergreen, CO United States)
36 out of 47 found this review helpful

Pedants and nay-sayers, those who, through their own lack of poetical talent, or any other kind of talent that might render them human, must devote their lives to so-called "scholarship" and mere didacticism will, of course, be troubled if not outraged by Graves' magnificent contribution to the Occidental mind. For Graves returns something of seminal value, something that was lost--or rather stolen--during the two-millenia-long conquest of the Western world (and the Western mind) by that most alien and Middle Eastern tradition, Christianity. "The White Goddess" sifts through the onion-like layers of Levantine nonsense that obscure the Western tradition, and discovers underneath it all a venerable and ancient religious tradition that extends back to man's (and woman's) earliest recorded spiritual expressions in Europe. The White Goddess is the Muse, the Moon, the gobbler-up of poets...the poet's lover, his soulmate, and his sole purpose for living. I have taken the path of scholarship in my life, and found it valuable--to a point. But it's a path of emasculation, plodding intellect without those other qualities that render us human: instinct, intuition, and the magical awareness of Beauty. While certain of Graves' claims may raise eyebrows (and cockles) in certain highbrow ivory towers, I've seen no attempt as bold as Graves', that is, to tackle the ancient Welsh Riddle of the Trees...they want to condemn him, without possessing the courage to offer their own interpretations of the text(s) Graves himself has tackled. I am a poet, and I can say only one more thing regarding Graves: I read him, and I was seized...his description of the poet's relationship to his Muse was exactly the relationship I had known since acknowledging the path of the poet as my own. Yes, this is intuitive...it is nonetheless TRUE!


Badb's Cauldron, and Other Digressions   March 6, 2003
Melusine (www.FantasyLiterature.net) (Columbia, MO United States)
36 out of 42 found this review helpful

Robert Graves believed that all "true" poetry was inspired by, and dedicated to, the White Goddess (or to a woman embodying her attributes)--a "Belle Dame sans Merci"--who brought ecstasy, madness, and death to her chosen lovers. In this vein, he wrote this book, which has become the basis of much neo-pagan philosophy. The Maiden/Mother/Crone triplicity can be traced to _The White Goddess_, as can the Oak and Holly Kings, and the meanings usually ascribed to the letters of the Gaelic Ogham alphabet. TWG cannot be underestimated as a source for pagan theology; it has been the inspiration for a lot of wonderful material. The most puzzling thing, though, is how anyone managed to make enough sense of TWG to glean meaning from it. This book confused the living daylights out of me, and I was glad, paradoxically, that I had read many of the later books that draw upon TWG before I actually read TWG. Otherwise, I might have been hopelessly lost in these pages. Now, there are those who will call me unintellectual for this admission. But for pete's sake, I can follow Carl Kerenyi's mythological meanderings, and he doesn't use smaller words than Graves. What he does do, though, is use segues when moving from one subject to another, and distinguish clearly between known fact, conjecture, and sheer flight of fancy. And includes, for crying out loud, a bibliography!

Graves's basic premise is that the "Tuatha De Danaan" of the British Isles were really displaced Greeks, who encoded within their mystical alphabet secret lore from Greek and Hebrew mythology. The code in its entirety supposedly adds up to a poem about the Goddess. But as interesting as I find Graves's ideas, his text is sometimes impossible to fathom. He has a bad case of literary ADD. He'll start examining something in Welsh myth, for example, and if he can't find the evidence he wants in Welsh material, he'll fire up his warp drive and zoom off to Greece or Phoenicia or Israel, often leaving the reader behind in a cloud of dust and wondering what on earth just happened. Or, if he can't find a source for his ideas _anywhere_, he'll look at an existing source and say it must be corrupted by the patriarchy and _should_ say something else entirely. And he tends to state wild guesses with the same certainty accorded to historical facts. Since he doesn't have a bibliography, I can't look and see which of his statements came from his source material and which from his imagination. I don't think I have a hope of truly grokking this book until, at some point in the nebulous and improbable future, I become as well-read as the author himself.

I am glad I read this book, especially since it showed me where many modern pagan authors got their ideas. (For example, now I know why neo-pagan writers talk of Badb's cauldron, though it never seems to be mentioned in primary sources...it's because Graves translates "Badb" as "boiling" and conjectures that the name refers to the cauldron of Cerridwen and/or Bran. I also know now how Cerridwen's cauldron first became conflated with Bran's.) But it still fried my brain. I don't see myself throwing this book out or anything--what is more likely is that it'll become the "annotated edition", and that I'll stuff notes between the pages every time I read something that makes more sense out of Graves's ramblings. Worth reading, but don't feel dumb if you have trouble following it.