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Robert Graves (1895-1985)
There’s almost a sub genre of poems in English about Ulysses. They would make a fascinating anthology. and I’m steadily adding them to The Poetry Voice index. But in these poems Ulysses is usually heroic or admirable. Most often he’s someone to sympathise with. This poem is unsual in the way it treats its hero.
Graves fancied himself as a classicist. He also had an independent and often idiosyncratic view of the world.
Robert Graves (1895-1985)
The ‘Greek Version’, which is the ‘historical version’ is that in 490 BCE, the citizens of Athens and some allies defeated a numerically superior Persian army at Marathon. In doing so they stopped the first Persian attempt to conquer Greece. Marathon became a symbol of small nations fighting for freedom against overwhelming odds.
Graves was having fun imagining the Persian Version of events.
It may not be funny in a world where armies can advance towards the rear, where an American president can talk about ‘a down draw’ in Iraq, or where our political leaders think their version or events is superior to any other, regardless of any inconvenient facts that might prove they are wrong.
Robert Graves (1895-1985)
I’ve been wondering which of Graves’ vast output I should read after ‘Flying Crooked’ and the problem was solved when this one was requested.
‘In Broken Images’ juxtaposes two ways of thinking and celebrates the value of starting any thought process from a position of honest confusion or ignorance, and working towards a better understanding of the issue without falling into the trap of thinking the process is from doubt to certainity. Rather it’s from honest doubt to informed honest doubt.
There are too many hes and not enough Is in the world at present. And the education system has a tendency to reward the hes.
The Irony of this poem is that Graves went on to become the most didactic of English critics. However, Graves the younger man wrote marvelous books of criticism. He later disowned them. But his essay on what is bad poetry, which begins ‘Poetic Unreason’ , is a mini masterpiece of the art of taking doubt seriously and following it to its logical conclusions. And then, having arrived a conclusion, having to start again.
This is taken from Carcanet’s ‘The complete poems in one volume’ edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward. There’s a fine shorter selected edited by Michael Longley.
Poetic Unreason is only avilable on the second hand book market.
Robert Graves (1895-1985)
There’s so much that I could write about Robert Graves, and because I am sure there will be many more of his poems on this podcast I probably will write far too much about him, but this poem I love and I’d have it written on my tombstone if i had one.