Rating: 
Summary: visions and memory in myth
Review: I won't pretend I know exactly what this book is about. Graves presents his arguments with the reasoning of a poet, decidedly not the formal logic of a theologian or the empirical induction of a historian. I gave this book 5 stars because of its sheer ambition and audacity. Graves is attempting a synthesis of the entirety of mythology into a coherent grammatical code, a universal metaphysical language. That is a monumental undertaking, not only due to the breadth of knowledge of the Christian, Pagan and Classical canons it requires, but also because these traditions are commonly regarded as antithetical, their communities, such as they exist, hostile to each other. Graves proffers a common root under the ossified codices, if with an uneven case.Poets, as a group, are known for their affinity to the mystical and mythological. The poetic temperament imbues and projects inner forms with aspects of corporeality, which the rest of us grasp only dimly as a spectre of consciousness, without significance or shape. The true poet is more likely to see them as a magical talisman, an object of necessary reality. Numbers, alphabets, calendars, zodiacs-- lunar and solar domains-- a primal order bubbles from the cauldron of Graves's conceptions. His spells are incarnate in trees, minerals, birds, planets-- metaphors of an underlying truth. This analysis springs from two dense poems of spiritual mysticism, The Battle of the Trees (Welsh Druid) and Hanes Taliesen ( Early Christian). Presented as a vision, like Revelations, they pose a riddle and mix symbols. Graves's solution loosely ties his thesis together. Linguists have theorized about the existence of grammatical archetypes; mythic relics are visible in Christian sacraments; correspondence amongst various folklore is widely acknowledged. Graves is not proposing anything radically new. He has, though, developed a cryptic framework which is supernatural and aesthetic, an elixir of divination and contemplation. He sees the White Goddess, as muse, in every authentic poem since those of Homer. His construction puts history at the service of his grammatical architecture. The White Goddess is a work of introspection and selective interpretation, comparable to those of Jung or Spengler, not one of conventional scholarship. Many of its assertions are farfetched or arbitrary, some pure formulations. That is not to understate its value. This is the culmination of a life's reflections, investigations and musings. It represents the articulation of a powerful, syncretic imagination-- a concordance of speculation and intuition.
Rating: 
Summary: A non-compromised result, except for the Goddess
Review: I'm not an historician, nor a poet, just a casual reader who ever loved the works by R. Graves. Moreover, I think this book is not for scientific historicians, not even for profesionalized poets. I got surprised by the many long chains of deductions Graves makes, and I suspect some of them are quite inexact or biased. Graves starts the book by stating a couple of basic questions, and they are answered along the book. I wasn't able to check if all the explanations are right, but I'm certain the book has a value by its own, even when all these assertions were pure lies -which is not the case-. I loved this book because the high variety of views on the question of dealing with religious poetry, and the absence of orthodoxia in doing so. I think "Greek Myths", and Frazier's "The Golden Bough" could be of help, or reinforcement to deal with the many ellaborations Graves left appart in this book. Not for straight-minded people, certainly.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Poetry, BAAAD History
Review: If you treat this as poetry or new mythology, this is a great book. Inspiring, poetic -- great stuff. Unfortunately, it's presented as history and a commentary on ancient mythology -- and that it's not. I'm a medievalist; the quality of the historical "research" is exceptionally low. In fact, Graves is responsible for much of the historical misinformation that plagues Neo-Paganism. He invented the Triple Goddess motif (Maiden, Mother, and Crone), the "Celtic" tree calendar, and the notion that lunar calendars have thirteen months. So while I acknowledge the beauty of Graves' vision, I can't recommend his book highly. It's done too much damage.
Rating:
Summary: Like a dream
Review: Is this the book that launched a thousand neo-pagan cults? So I am told. It certainly got me interested in Celtic myth. When it was first published in the 1940s, this was THE book on Celtic myth. It hasn't quite stood the test of time in academic circles, and understandably so. The author, in order to arrive at his conclusions, takes leaps that defy academic credibility. What we see here is Graves the mythmaker, Graves the poet, Graves the dreamer, Graves the oracle of the white goddess but not Graves as an authority of prehistoric Europe. As I read on, I wanted to believe, but better sense told me not to. But I still say this is a great book (and I give it five stars) because of its dreamlike quality. At parts, I thought I was reading Tolkien. In its essence, this is a work of historical fantasy, about warriors from ages long past, about the decapitated priest-king, about orgiastic priestesses, about the key to ultimate wisdom. Does that sound like a good read? Yes, it is!
Rating:
Summary: Personal Poetic Mythos, not Celtic Mythology
Review: It bothered Graves significantly that the Irish and Welsh scholarly communities, of whom his father had been a member, did not treat _The White Goddess_ as a serious work of scholarlship. Their position was: how do you review a book about someone's personal mythos? That's like criticizing someone for what they believe. I find myself in the same position, now. Graves has written something that will appeal to those who regard all mythology as essentially the same mythology, all religion as essentially the same religion. Those who love his poetry will appreciate this book as the core of his personal approach to poetry. However, in his lifetime, Graves claimed more for this book than an expression of his personal approach, if not in the book itself then in interviews after its publication. Often his claims were misleading: he expected others to *disprove* his claims but saw no reason to back up his "intuitions" with evidence. Yet despite this lack of evidence, he expected scholars of Celtica to accept his claims as fact. This insistence, and his claims of scholarship (not deserved in the area of Celtica), have misled many modern neopagans, especially those who have not taken the time to appreciate the subtleties and sometimes tricksterish aspects of his language. Graves also presented, as fact, ideas--such as the maiden-mother-crone type and the "Celtic Tree calendar"--that were not part of the cultures from which he claimed to take them. If you want to learn about and from Graves as poet, then you will love this book. Personally, I dislike the way Graves wanted it both ways: complaining because scholars wouldn't take his book as scholarship, but also insisting that his "poetic truth" negated any objective evidence. If you are looking for accurate information about Celtica, try Rees & Rees, _Celtic Heritage_.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT a pagan resource
Review: It bothers me that so many self-proclaimed neo-pagans and witches rely on this book like a bible. After seeing it in biblio after biblio I finally picked up a used copy and was absolutely astounded by the utter lack of scholarship and actual history in this book. Mr. Graves was a poet and he did some wonderful work in his time, including translations of Roman history from the Latin. However, he was out of his element when he wrote this. A lot of pagans thump this book and all of the Joseph Campbell books like stereotypical Baptist Christians thump the Good News Bible and take it as Truth with a capital "T", but they're pretty misguided in doing that. What Graves has done here is write a humongous poetic prose with a pseudo history and his own very imaginative interpretations thereof. He was not an archaeologist, art historian, or anthropologist for that matter (I've heard him referred to as all of these things), he was a poet with a vivid imagination and he coined terms like "triple goddess". If you want something more based in actual fact, read Merlin Stone and/or Riane Eisler and try not to trip over their biases. If you like all that is airy and fairy and highly doubtful, by all means buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: If You Can't Dazzle Them With Brilliance
Review: It is interesting to read all the reviews here. I notice the reviews that begin -- "I know nothing about the Celts, their history, their religious beliefs...." then tend to gush on about how wonderful and thrilling and enlightening the White Goddess is. The reviews that begin -- "I know something about the Celts, their history and beliefs" then tend to continue with rational arguments explaining why The White Goddess is nonsense from beginning to end. So, for those who know nothing -- here is a quick course in Celtic history. The Celts were not Hebrews, Greeks, or Scythians. They didn't worship a Triple Goddess. They did not have a tree calendar based on the Oghams. I am proud of my Celtic heritage and find the White Goddess eternally annoying. Robert Graves was not a Celtic scholar. His theories disagree wildly with the theories of his own grandfather -- Charles Graves -- who was a respected scholar. Robert Graves takes a little bit of Welsh myth, a little bit of Irish myth, a lot of Greek myth, a lot of Bible myth, some ogham letters and mixes it all up into a warm mush perfect for the nourishment of fluffy-bunnies. This is a bad book, based on a daft premise, and reading it is a waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Despite its detractors, The White Goddess shines!
Review: Pedants and nay-sayers, those who, through their own lack of poetical talent, or any other kind of talent that might render them human, must devote their lives to so-called "scholarship" and mere didacticism will, of course, be troubled if not outraged by Graves' magnificent contribution to the Occidental mind. For Graves returns something of seminal value, something that was lost--or rather stolen--during the two-millenia-long conquest of the Western world (and the Western mind) by that most alien and Middle Eastern tradition, Christianity. "The White Goddess" sifts through the onion-like layers of Levantine nonsense that obscure the Western tradition, and discovers underneath it all a venerable and ancient religious tradition that extends back to man's (and woman's) earliest recorded spiritual expressions in Europe. The White Goddess is the Muse, the Moon, the gobbler-up of poets...the poet's lover, his soulmate, and his sole purpose for living. I have taken the path of scholarship in my life, and found it valuable--to a point. But it's a path of emasculation, plodding intellect without those other qualities that render us human: instinct, intuition, and the magical awareness of Beauty. While certain of Graves' claims may raise eyebrows (and cockles) in certain highbrow ivory towers, I've seen no attempt as bold as Graves', that is, to tackle the ancient Welsh Riddle of the Trees...they want to condemn him, without possessing the courage to offer their own interpretations of the text(s) Graves himself has tackled. I am a poet, and I can say only one more thing regarding Graves: I read him, and I was seized...his description of the poet's relationship to his Muse was exactly the relationship I had known since acknowledging the path of the poet as my own. Yes, this is intuitive...it is nonetheless TRUE!
Rating: 
Summary: Badb's Cauldron, and Other Digressions
Review: Robert Graves believed that all "true" poetry was inspired by, and dedicated to, the White Goddess (or to a woman embodying her attributes)--a "Belle Dame sans Merci"--who brought ecstasy, madness, and death to her chosen lovers. In this vein, he wrote this book, which has become the basis of much neo-pagan philosophy. The Maiden/Mother/Crone triplicity can be traced to _The White Goddess_, as can the Oak and Holly Kings, and the meanings usually ascribed to the letters of the Gaelic Ogham alphabet. TWG cannot be underestimated as a source for pagan theology; it has been the inspiration for a lot of wonderful material. The most puzzling thing, though, is how anyone managed to make enough sense of TWG to glean meaning from it. This book confused the living daylights out of me, and I was glad, paradoxically, that I had read many of the later books that draw upon TWG before I actually read TWG. Otherwise, I might have been hopelessly lost in these pages. Now, there are those who will call me unintellectual for this admission. But for pete's sake, I can follow Carl Kerenyi's mythological meanderings, and he doesn't use smaller words than Graves. What he does do, though, is use segues when moving from one subject to another, and distinguish clearly between known fact, conjecture, and sheer flight of fancy. And includes, for crying out loud, a bibliography! Graves's basic premise is that the "Tuatha De Danaan" of the British Isles were really displaced Greeks, who encoded within their mystical alphabet secret lore from Greek and Hebrew mythology. The code in its entirety supposedly adds up to a poem about the Goddess. But as interesting as I find Graves's ideas, his text is sometimes impossible to fathom. He has a bad case of literary ADD. He'll start examining something in Welsh myth, for example, and if he can't find the evidence he wants in Welsh material, he'll fire up his warp drive and zoom off to Greece or Phoenicia or Israel, often leaving the reader behind in a cloud of dust and wondering what on earth just happened. Or, if he can't find a source for his ideas _anywhere_, he'll look at an existing source and say it must be corrupted by the patriarchy and _should_ say something else entirely. And he tends to state wild guesses with the same certainty accorded to historical facts. Since he doesn't have a bibliography, I can't look and see which of his statements came from his source material and which from his imagination. I don't think I have a hope of truly grokking this book until, at some point in the nebulous and improbable future, I become as well-read as the author himself. I am glad I read this book, especially since it showed me where many modern pagan authors got their ideas. (For example, now I know why neo-pagan writers talk of Badb's cauldron, though it never seems to be mentioned in primary sources...it's because Graves translates "Badb" as "boiling" and conjectures that the name refers to the cauldron of Cerridwen and/or Bran. I also know now how Cerridwen's cauldron first became conflated with Bran's.) But it still fried my brain. I don't see myself throwing this book out or anything--what is more likely is that it'll become the "annotated edition", and that I'll stuff notes between the pages every time I read something that makes more sense out of Graves's ramblings. Worth reading, but don't feel dumb if you have trouble following it.
Rating:
Summary: Do not pay attention to those who did not read it clearly.
Review: Robert Graves has written many books of poetry, fiction, and scolarly works, and it is false to claim that people in the academic world do not take him seriously, for his work is taken very much to heart in academic circles. Robert Graves not only is well researched, he is poetic and involved, unlike most scholarly works. It is untrue that the work is sexist, Graves does not claim that women cannot be poets and should be mere muses as one of the reviewers mentions, but says women who become poets should stay clear of dedicated their poetry to men, and to the love of men, because therefore this would go against the true meaning of poetic myth, the dedication to the goddess. He is clear what is poetry and what is not, and he is historically accurate in describing the history of poetic schools. Most of what people complain about is actually based in their own myths that cannot be proved by academics. Graves was a great lover of Wales, and he stays true to his calling as a bard. This book gives true meaning to the goddess religion, and also explain its decline in pychological terms in the modern era, but also Her decline in Western Civilization from the Homeric legends, although even he gives homage to Her. As a scholar, woman, and lover of the Goddess, I can truely say this is one of the most prolific works I have ever read.
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