Robert Graves

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Bust of Robert Graves in front of his house in Mallorca

Robert Graves , in the German- speaking area Robert von Ranke-Graves (born July 24, 1895 in Wimbledon , London , † December 7, 1985 in Deià on Mallorca ), was a British writer and poet .

Life

Robert Graves' house in Deià

Robert Graves German translations of his works appeared under the name Robert von Ranke-Graves. His mother Amalie von Ranke was a great niece of the German historian Leopold von Ranke . The father Alfred Perceval Graves was a school principal and writer, his half-brother Philip Graves became known as the Times correspondent in Constantinople, where after the First World War he exposed the " Protocols of the Elders of Zion " as an anti-Semitic forgery.

Graves published several books on his experiences in World War I , including two volumes of poetry (Over the Brazier and Fairies and Fusiliers) and an autobiography (Goodbye to All That) . After the war, Graves studied English literature at Oxford . In 1926 he was appointed to a chair for English literature in Cairo. After only one year he returned to England and lived in Deià on Mallorca from 1929 until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War , where he built Finca Ca N'Alluny in 1932.

Two successful historical novels were written there: I, Claudius and Claudius the God . For I, Claudius , he received the Hawthornden Prize in 1935 . These two serial novels were filmed in 1937 and 1976 (1976 as a television series with Derek Jacobi ). Back in England and, since 1946, back in Mallorca, he wrote more novels, but also specialist books with predominantly historical and mythological topics (The Greek Myths , The White Goddess) . His bibliography comprises a total of about 140 books. In 1954 he became a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute . From 1961 to 1966 he taught poetics as a professor at Oxford . In addition to his work as a novelist, Graves also published specialist books, particularly the book The Gods of Greece .

During the Second World War , Graves lived in Devon , where he was a neighbor of Agatha Christie . The two became friends. Christie dedicated her detective novel Shortly Before Midnight to Graves .

Graves and film actress Ava Gardner were united in deep mutual admiration . In her memoir Ava My Story , she describes the pleasure of staying with Graves and his wife in Deià as "incomparable to anything else in their lives". Graves dedicated various poems to her.

Especially through his book The White Goddess, Graves had an immense influence on matriarchally inspired artists such as Leonora Carrington , Remedios Varo and Wolfgang Paalen , in whose Mexican exile Graves' book was highly regarded. He also inspired neo-pagan religions and especially Wicca . Robert Graves had known Gerald Gardner since 1961 at the latest . The fact that Graves had knowledge of Wicca by 1954 at the latest suggests his short story An appointment for Candlemas , published that year . Graves later wrote of this story that it was completely true and that he had only changed names and details.

In 1971 Graves played alongside other artists and celebrities living in Spain at the time such as Erwin Bechtold , Christopher Plummer , Princesa de Borbón y Parma , Camilo José Cela , Leslie Grimes , Leonard Slater and Charles Orloff in the film Impromptu Balear by the director Francisco Rovira Beleta and the Producer and screenwriter Enrique Josa with.

Afterlife

Graves is a main character in the novel trilogy No Man's Land , The Eye in the Door and The Street of the Ghosts by Pat Barker . This deals with Graves time in the hospital for traumatized officers during the First World War and lets him meet Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen there .

On July 2, 2006, the Robert Graves Museum was opened in Deià. In the Finca Ca N'Alluny, built by Graves in 1932, original manuscripts and personal items give an insight into life and work.

Works

  • Over the Brazier. (1916)
  • Fairies and Fusiliers. (1917)
  • Lawrence and the Arabs. (1927)
  • Goodbye to All That. (1929)
  • I, Claudius. (1934)
  • Claudius the God. (1934)
    • German: I, Claudius, Kaiser and God. ISBN 3-471-78578-7 . The German translation in one volume was made with significant collaboration and with the consent of the author, but it cuts the length of the two novels by about half.
  • Antigua, Penny, Puce . 1937
    • German: rust brown, serrated. 1938.
  • The Golden Fleece . London: Cassell, 1944; as Hercules, My Shipmate . New York: Creative Age Press, 1945.
  • Count Belisarius . (Cassells 1938), Penguin Paperback 1954 ff.
  • The White Goddess. (1948)
  • Seven Days in New Crete . 1952
    • German: 7 days of milk and honey. 1982
  • The Greek Myths. (1955)
    • German: Greek mythology. German translation by Hugo Steinfeld. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1964. (New edition 2003 in one volume ISBN 3-499-55404-6 .)
  • with Raphael Patai : Hebrew Myth. The book of Genesis 1964
    • Hebrew mythology. About the creation story and other myths from the Old Testament. 1986
  • King Jesus. A novel.
  • Adam's rib, And other anomalous elements in the Hebrew creation myth; a new view.

German editions:

  • Stories from the other Mallorca. (from the anthologies Collected short stories and Majorca observed ). Edited and translated by Hartmut Siefeldt and David Southard, ISBN 978-3-89662-269-3
  • The cool network. The Cool Web: Poems. Suhrkamp, ​​1989 (bilingual). ISBN 978-3-518-22032-0

Film adaptations

See also

literature

  • Harry Ricketts: Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War. Chatto & Windus, London 2010, ISBN 0-7011-7271-1 , pp.? (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Towards Zero ( just before midnight ) on the official Agatha Christie website
  2. ^ Richard Perceval Graves: Robert Graves and the White Goddess 1940–1985. 1998, ISBN 0-7538-0116-7 .
  3. ^ Robert Graves: Collected Short Stories , 1965, pp.?.
personal data
SURNAME Graves, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ranke-Graves, Robert von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer and poet
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Wimbledon , London , England
DATE OF DEATH 7th December 1985
Place of death Deià in Mallorca