AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Intro
This chapter examines Robert Graves' significant contributions to both poetry and prose, emphasizing his deep passion for poetry. It also touches on his familial influences and the literary inspirations that impacted his early career.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of 'I, Claudius' who was also one of the finest poets of the twentieth century. Robert Graves (1895 -1985) placed his poetry far above his prose. He once declared that from the age of 15 poetry had been his ruling passion and that he lived his life according to poetic principles, writing in prose only to pay the bills and that he bred the pedigree dogs of his prose to feed the cats of his poetry. Yet it’s for his prose that he’s most famous today, including 'I Claudius', his brilliant account of the debauchery of Imperial Rome, and 'Goodbye to All That', the unforgettable memoir of his early life including the time during the First World War when he was so badly wounded at the Somme that The Times listed him as dead.
With
Paul O’Prey Emeritus Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Roehampton, London
Fran Brearton Professor of Modern Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast
And
Bob Davis Professor of Religious and Cultural Education at the University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Robert Graves (ed. Paul O'Prey), In Broken Images: Selected Letters of Robert Graves 1914-1946 (Hutchinson, 1982)
Robert Graves (ed. Paul O'Prey), Between Moon and Moon: Selected letters of Robert Graves 1946-1972 (Hutchinson, 1984)
Robert Graves (ed. Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward), The Complete Poems (Penguin Modern Classics, 2003)
Robert Graves, I, Claudius (republished by Penguin, 2006)
Robert Graves, King Jesus (republished by Penguin, 2011)
Robert Graves, The White Goddess (republished by Faber, 1999)
Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (republished by Penguin, 2017)
Robert Graves (ed. Michael Longley), Selected Poems (Faber, 2013)
Robert Graves (ed. Fran Brearton, intro. Andrew Motion), Goodbye to All That: An Autobiography: The Original Edition (first published 1929; Penguin Classics, 2014)
William Graves, Wild Olives: Life in Majorca with Robert Graves (Pimlico, 2001)
Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Assault Heroic, 1895-1926 (Macmillan, 1986, vol. 1 of the biography)
Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Years with Laura, 1926-1940 (Viking, 1990, vol. 2 of the biography)
Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves and the White Goddess, 1940-1985 (Orion, 1995, vol. 3 of the biography)
Miranda Seymour: Robert Graves: Life on the Edge (Henry Holt & Co, 1995)
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode