Re: OT: White Goddess

--- Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...> wrote:
> I'm reading Robert Graves' _The White Goddess_ right
> now and I have to ask, before I go crazy, as far as
> historical/anthropological/linguistic "fact" is he
on
> crack, or am I a dull uneducated unpoetic soul
>(always possible :-p), or are there big gaping holes
> of logic?
   As dar as mathematical, philosophical, historical
truth, yes, there are big gaping holes. Graves
explains in the introduction that the work should be
taken as mythopoetic fact, that is, fact in the same
way that myths, legends, poetry, or art are truth.
Graves has taken a lot of flak because of the
historical "inconsistencies", but the ideas do hold up
in a mythical sense, regardless of the historical or
logical inaccuracies that most of academia sees.

> OTOH maybe I've been a math major too long,
> and the *poetry* of the work is quite beautiful and
> fascinating.  But what passes for logic in the book
> is just eluding me (especially the word-connections,
> reconstructions, etc.).  Anyone? Anyone meep?

    As someone who has studied Graves' works for a
couple of years, I have to say that you shouldn't feel
bad about it. Very few people "get" him, understand
his ideas in the sense he intended them. You're in the
majority.

   Aidan

> YHL, unpoetic soul :-p

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