The White Goddess

The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth sets out Robert Graves’s theory that a recurring goddess figure stands behind much European poetry and myth. He associates her with birth, love and death, and treats poetic inspiration as part of an older religious pattern rather than simply a literary technique.

Graves brings together Welsh and Celtic material with classical mythology, discussing figures such as Cerridwen, Taliesin and the heroes of the Mabinogion. Trees, letters, lunar phases, seasonal change, sacred kingship and ritual all become evidence in his argument. The result is an idiosyncratic work of folklore and literary speculation, influential in modern discussions of goddess traditions, pagan symbolism and the mythic foundations of poetry.