For many readers, the name Robert Graves appears associated with his novel Me, Claudioa publishing success and classic, whose fame was enhanced by a legendary BBC television series in the seventies. This historical chronicle of a particular Roman emperor and this lucid story about the ins and outs of power have overshadowed the rest of the vast, deep and versatile work of Graves, born in Wimbledon (London) in 1895 into a wealthy bourgeois family .
Today, the recent publication of his autobiography Goodbye to all that (Alianza), written in 1929 when he was 34, showcases a writer’s talent with a hundred published books, translated into 30 languages and covering poetry, narrative, short stories and historical essays. Considered the biography of the generation that fought in World War I (1914-1918), Goodbye to all that marked the life and work of Graves and recounted the horror of the conflict.
“Of my school generation,” writes Graves, “at least one in three died because they all got an officer’s commission as soon as they could, most of them in the infantry or the Royal Air Corps. The average life expectancy of a junior infantry officer on the Western Front was, in some phases of the war, only around three months. By then he had already been injured or killed.
As an upperclass university student, Graves enlisted at the age of 19, as an officer, in the British Army. His terrible war experience in the trenches left traces throughout his life, such as disgust at the smell of gas or fear at violent noises, that is to say, he suffered from a profound post-traumatic neurosis. But his autobiography is not limited to these four horrible years, but also covers an unhappy childhood and adolescence, marked by religious conflicts or homosexual impulses. Tomb expert, professor and researcher at the University of the Balearic Islands, Gerard Moyà says that Goodbye to all that, a very significant title of what it tells, represents “the act of death of a civilization of progress, a Western civilization which died in the trenches of this First World War”.
“This war was a hard blow for a young poet like Graves,” says Moyà, “and it became the biography of his generation. It is a long and exhaustive book because he takes a broad look at his classmates, at boarding school or in the Army, while showing great honesty when he speaks, for example, of his attraction for some friends. It is therefore a work written with an open mind which includes his separation from Nancy Nicholson, his first wife, and his later relationship with Laura Riding. All this explains why the book is among the best autobiographies of the 20th century.
Admirer of the work of Robert Graves and determined to publish most of his books, Pilar Álvarez, director of Alianza, defines Goodbye to all that as “one of the best accounts of the First World War and a portrait of its generation written in an agile and highly narrative style. Furthermore, it reveals his gradual declassification of the bourgeoisie to which he belonged and his approach to the proto-feminism of his wife, Nancy Nicholson, and progressive ideas.
Graves presents himself as a man with diverse interests ranging from the practice of boxing, in which he excelled, to his love of mountaineering, but who gradually opted for poetry in particular and literature in general. During this formative period, George Mallory, her teacher and mountaineering pioneer, played an important role – he became her best man at her wedding – and disappeared during an ascent of Everest surrounded by mystery in 1924. This is how he recalled the tragic expedition and paid tribute to his friend in his autobiography: “At the end of the war, George loved the mountains more than ever. His death on Mount Everest came five years later. No one knows whether he and Irvine actually managed to climb the last hundred meters of the climb or whether they turned back, or what happened; but all of us who climbed with George are convinced that he reached the summit and rejoiced as was his wont without leaving sufficient reserve for the descent.
In 1926, Graves, already a specialist in English literature, obtained a teaching position at Cairo University where he settled with his wife Nancy, their children and Laura Riding, also a writer and friend of the couple. However, this threesome ended explosively, when Robert and Nancy separated upon their return to London while Laura attempted suicide. Despite everything, the writer and Laura recomposed their relationship and in 1929 they decided to settle in Majorca.
Mallorca, its place in the world
In Eduard Moyà’s opinion, Graves found the atmosphere of London oppressive and needed to escape. Passionate about poetry, follow in the footsteps of Keats or Byron and set off in search of the Mediterranean. “Robert Graves,” says Moyá, “went to a static paradise of the time, the Mediterranean islands, and chose Majorca on the recommendation of Gertrude Stein. He feels fascinated by this type of life in a society where technology has not yet arrived and which brings together the ingredients of his poetic imagination. He is above all a poet and in the mountains of Majorca, in Deià, he finds inspiration and peace. There he will write and work with Laura Riding, he will finish the novel Me, Claudio in 1934 and remained on the island until the outbreak of civil war forced them to leave Majorca in 1936.”
Despite his desire to return to Majorca as quickly as possible, the start of World War II in 1939 delayed his return until seven years later. During this time, Graves separated from Laura and married Beryl Hodge, whom he married in 1950 and with whom he had four children, including William, current executor of his father’s will; and Lucia, writer. For four decades in Deià, until his death in 1985, the author of Me, Claudio He would become a recognized and award-winning writer who won the favor of a multitude of readers with his most popular works, while publishing essays on classical culture aimed at a more sophisticated audience.
His publisher emphasizes that Graves occupies a predominant place in literature, among other things, “for the reinterpretation of classic myths”. “So a book like The white goddess represents a cosmogony of myths from a woman’s point of view. Likewise, his work on Greek and Hebrew myths reveals his extraordinary training in classical culture,” adds Pilar Álvarez.
Professor Moyá and editor Álvarez agree that Graves loved poetry above all else. This is not to say, in the opinion of experts on his literature, that he was not also a brilliant novelist and essayist. In any case, its resounding success with I, Claudio, along with a biography of Lawrence of Arabia and other novels, this allowed him a comfortable and comfortable life in Majorca. The director of Alianza highlights one quality of Graves: “He was a scholar who transformed everything he studied into a literary work. We could say that what he touched he transformed into literature. We cannot forget that he was a professor at Oxford.
Famous and wealthy, in harmony with nature in his small kingdom of Deià, in a privileged location between the Sierra de Tramuntana and the sea, Graves was involved in Majorcan society and was not an isolated outsider. He loved Majorca, where he could get away from the world and escape the horror of a brutal war that marked his youth.
Despite his open and modernizing spirit, the emergence of mass tourism from the 1970s somewhat upset Graves because he had lost paradise. In his old age he dealt with writers like Camilo José Cela, who had settled in Palma in 1954 and became a frequent companion. In any case, Eduard Moyà, who recently translated into Catalan a collection of poems by Graves (The crestall rost. Poems by muntanya, Moll) argues that Graves realized that the tourist invasion of Majorca was ruining the paradise in which he had lived. “Graves was always an element of modernization on the island,” explains Moyà, “until he realized that tourism opened Pandora’s box.” Today his mark is left in his foundation and in a museum in Deià and, of course, in his vast body of work. He wanted this single inscription to appear on the headstone of his grave in the cemetery of this Majorcan town: “Robert Graves. Poet 24-7-1895 / 12-7-85”.
