The White Goddess

“Return of the Goddess Artemis” by Robert Graves (1947)

This poem was published a few years before “The White Goddess” in the Poetry Foundation’s literary journal, Poetry. It also explores the theme of the Goddess mythology. Artemis appears as a “crane” (Line 12) in this piece, which can be compared and contrasted with the White Goddess appearing as a mountain. Both are examples of manifest deity, and both have a cruel and terrifying presence. However, the difference in scale makes the tone of “Return of the Goddess Artemis” lighter and more comical.

“The God Called Poetry” by Robert Graves (1920)

“The God Called Poetry” appeared in Graves’s 1920 book Country Sentiment. This is several decades before Graves became focused on the Goddess myth; the editors of Robert Graves: The Complete Poems assert that his Goddess “obsession” began in 1944 (xli). While this earlier poem and “The White Goddess” both deal with the divine, “The God Called Poetry” asserts the deity in charge of poetry is male. Graves’s descriptions of the White Goddess focus on her deathly whiteness, while the God is “Black as pitch and white as snow” (Line 53). The God has two heads, while the Goddess has a threefold nature. However, Graves asserts in both “The God Called Poetry” and his prose work The White Goddess that poetry is divinely inspired.

“The Sky” by Laura Riding (1924)

This poem appeared in the Poetry Foundation’s publication, Poetry, shortly before she met Graves and became his muse. It shares some elements with “The White Goddess,” including a focus on the color white; Riding writes, “there is no whiteness / Like the whiteness of these women” (Lines 9-10). These women are “cold” (Line 2) and “cruel” (Line 8), which is later echoed by Graves in the “cruelty” (Line 21) in “The White Goddess.” Riding was Graves’s “cruel mistress” for many years; for over a decade, Graves sent her all his poems and required her approval, destroying some she disapproved of, according to the editors of Robert Graves: The Complete Poems (xli).

“Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare (1609)

Several features of this poem influenced Graves’s composition of “The White Goddess.” The literary device of the blazon, or catalogue of a woman’s features, is challenged by both Shakespeare and Graves within 14 lines. Shakespeare’s dark lady also demonstrates a capacity for cruelty in his sonnet sequence that can be compared to the cruelty of Graves’s Goddess. The dark lady and the Goddess both function as muses to the two poets, respectively.