Re: OT: White Goddess

On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, Aidan Grey wrote:

>    Let me explain again that his works aren't valuable
> because of fact in the traditional sense of the word.
> They are poetic and mythic. Yes, most of his
So what?  A lot of stuff is poetic and mythic--and a damned better read
than most of Graves.

> sense of the word, but they are valuable as poetic
> understandings of the world around us. Graves'
But as such are so extremely idiosyncratic in this case that they tell us
far less about the world than about Graves.  If I wanted to be Graves,
this would be useful.  I don't want to be Graves.

> brilliance is not in the details of his connections
> (details such as these are rarely important in myth),
> but in the connections themselves and the ideas they
> inform.
But the original myths are so much better at doing this than is Graves.

> fictions - myths. Graves' arguments need to be
> understood in the same sense - ignore the factual
In other words, he writes fiction, but he's too much a pompous tit to
admit it.

> are valuable, and mythic. And the idea offers a new
> way to understand how the idea applies to life, how it
> informs life.
The "triple goddess" thing offers very little, if anything, new.  It's
just the old tripartite Indo-European division with the dingle-dangles
excised.

>    Think of truth and fact like circles and squares -
> a square is a circle, with sufficient numbers of sides
> (or however that saying goes - I know I got it wrong).
Wrong.  A square is a polygon.  A circle is beyond a polygon.  It has
transcended infinity.  You cannot give a polygon enough sides to *be* a
circle, it can only *approach* a circle.  The difference is not merely a
matter of degree.

> Graves' ideas aren't a mishmash - if they were, there
> wouldn't be any reason for the continued importance
They are mishmash.  They are somewhat entertaining mishmash, which is
what sustains them.

> his works have played. It wouldn't get anywhere. There
> is a pattern to his thoughts - and they can only be
> understood by thinking of his works as a new
> mythology. Once you can do that, divorcing his words
Why go to the pastichier when the sources are available?  Approach Graves
for what he is:  A self-important novelist with delusions of grandeur.
When you realize what a comical figure he is, it actually is easier to
get his points.  Once in a while, you see some self-realization on his
part of the sheer absurdity of his claims, but then the ego kicks back in.

>    I didn't say his ideas held up in a _Greek_ or
> _Celtic_  mythic sense. I only said "mythic" which
When "mythic" is used in this fashion, it is a buzzword for "don't bother
trying to think about it, just accept it unquestioningly and
uncritically."  The Emperor has no clothes!

> principles. It is it's own mythology, and the ideas of
IE:  It's fiction.

> the entire work is flawed. It's not - it's just hidden
> ebhind those flaws, which were manipulated just as a
> poet picks words, or an artist applies colors, to
> create an understanding of a mystery, something that
> is inherently ineffable.
Yeah, it's called a "novel".  Graves was too self-important to admit that.


>   Let me say it one more time:  It is it's OWN MYTH,
> unrelated to any of those sources he used in
> fashioning it.
We call those "novels" or "fictional pastiches".  There is no need to put
them onto a pedestal.

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