The White Goddess

The White Goddess, scholarly work by Robert Graves, published in 1948 and revised in 1952 and 1961. Graves’s controversial and unorthodox theories of mythology, part invention and part based on his research into pre-Classical religions, shocked many because of their basic feminist premise. According to Graves, the White Goddess combines the powers of love, destructiveness, and poetic inspiration. She ruled during a matriarchal period in the distant past before she was deposed by the patriarchal gods, who represent cold reason and logic. It was at this point, Graves claimed, that “Apollonian” or academic poetry began to dominate. Graves further argued that the White Goddess was again in evidence during the Romantic era. The best poets—the only ones really capable of writing poetry, according to Graves—continue to worship her and are honoured with her gifts of poetic insight.