What do you think?
Rate this book
Collected Poems
'These poems are printed in roughly chronological order. The 1st was written in the summer of 1914, & shows where I stood at the age of 19 before getting caught up in the 1st World War, which permanently changed my outlook on life. Since then I have made a living as a writer; but my novels, biographies, short stories, historical & critical works of various sorts-some 60 or 70 titles-have always been subordinated to an inveterate profession of poetry. I published my Collected Poems in '26, '38 & '47, & on each occasion suppressed anything in previous volumes that no longer satisfied me. I now do the same thing again, with the result that Collected Poems '26 & Collected Poems '55 do not differ greatly in bulk. & tho I have found it increasingly Less difficult to discard old poems on which weeks of thought were spent, & which seemed sound enough when completed, but no longer pass muster, critics may decide that the benefit of the doubt has still been too generously conceded. They will be right, of course. At any rate, I can promise that no silver spoons have been thrown out with the waste, & that I have been fair to my younger & middle selves. Some 16 years of the 40 represented here were spent in England, 15 in Spain-which has become my permanent home-the rest mostly in Wales, France, Egypt, Switzerland & the United States. I visited Ireland only briefly during the period; but, my family traditions being Anglo-Irish, I am often reckoned as a member of that fast disappearing race which Giraldus Cambrensis centuries ago described as Hiberniis ipsis Hiberniores-’ more Irish than the Irish themselves.’ My spiritual restlessness & love of rhythmic variety, my preoccupation with craftsmanship & accuracy of statement, the satiric edge I give even to love-poems, are considered enough to place me nationally, for better or worse; &, since somehow I have never taken the color of my geographical environment, or belonged to any regional school of poetry, why should I argue the point? How I am labelled does not make much odds, so long as I can still go my own way. This should suffice by way of a foreword.’--Rbt Graves
- GenresPoetry
358 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1958
3 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Robert Graves
634 books2,057 followersRobert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. Born in Wimbledon, he received his early education at King's College School and Copthorne Prep School, Wimbledon & Charterhouse School and won a scholarship to St John's College, Oxford. While at Charterhouse in 1912, he fell in love with G.H. Johnstone, a boy of fourteen ("Dick" in Goodbye to All That) When challenged by the headmaster he defended himself by citing Plato, Greek poets, Michelangelo & Shakespeare, "who had felt as I did".
At the outbreak of WWI, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about his experience of front line conflict. In later years he omitted war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die, and indeed was officially reported as 'died of wounds'. He gradually recovered. Apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the rest of the war in England.
One of Graves's closest friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was also an officer in the RWF. In 1917 Sassoon tried to rebel against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves, who feared Sassoon could face a court martial, intervened with the military authorities and persuaded them that he was suffering from shell shock, and to treat him accordingly. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it is sometimes called, although he was never hospitalised for it.
Biographers document the story well. It is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in Graves's collection Fairies & Fusiliers (1917), which contains a plethora of poems celebrating their friendship. Through Sassoon, he also became friends with Wilfred Owen, whose talent he recognised. Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in 1918, presenting him with, as Graves recalled, "a set of 12 Apostle spoons".
Following his marriage and the end of the war, Graves belatedly took up his place at St John's College, Oxford. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances before leaving to live with Riding in Deià, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal Epilogue, and wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928).
In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.
During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By 1975 he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart
At the outbreak of WWI, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about his experience of front line conflict. In later years he omitted war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die, and indeed was officially reported as 'died of wounds'. He gradually recovered. Apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the rest of the war in England.
One of Graves's closest friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was also an officer in the RWF. In 1917 Sassoon tried to rebel against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves, who feared Sassoon could face a court martial, intervened with the military authorities and persuaded them that he was suffering from shell shock, and to treat him accordingly. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it is sometimes called, although he was never hospitalised for it.
Biographers document the story well. It is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in Graves's collection Fairies & Fusiliers (1917), which contains a plethora of poems celebrating their friendship. Through Sassoon, he also became friends with Wilfred Owen, whose talent he recognised. Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in 1918, presenting him with, as Graves recalled, "a set of 12 Apostle spoons".
Following his marriage and the end of the war, Graves belatedly took up his place at St John's College, Oxford. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances before leaving to live with Riding in Deià, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal Epilogue, and wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928).
In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.
During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By 1975 he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 10, 2014
Dad recommended Graves to me when I was a high schooler. He'd read him, during the war, often on shipboard, on the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Mediterranean. It had livened the boredom, he said.
I started with some of the historical novels, with Homer's Daughter, I think, or maybe with his translation of the Iliad, a book he entitled The Wrath of Achilles. Then I moved on to some of his essays and short stories, finally to his poetry.
I picked up this volume at Stuart Brent bookstore on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, just north of Ontario Street where I worked as a security guard of sorts at The Chicago Womens' Athletic Club--an easy job that allowed a lot of time for study and writing, a job that I had twice, once during a college summer and once after graduating from seminary and moving back from New York City. This being poetry, however, I read it piece by piece over the summer, some of it aloud.
I started with some of the historical novels, with Homer's Daughter, I think, or maybe with his translation of the Iliad, a book he entitled The Wrath of Achilles. Then I moved on to some of his essays and short stories, finally to his poetry.
I picked up this volume at Stuart Brent bookstore on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, just north of Ontario Street where I worked as a security guard of sorts at The Chicago Womens' Athletic Club--an easy job that allowed a lot of time for study and writing, a job that I had twice, once during a college summer and once after graduating from seminary and moving back from New York City. This being poetry, however, I read it piece by piece over the summer, some of it aloud.
Displaying 1 of 1 review