For many readers, the name of Robert Graves appears associated with his novel I, Claudioa publishing success and a classic, whose fame was reinforced by a legendary BBC television series in the seventies. That historical chronicle of a peculiar Roman emperor and lucid story about the ins and outs of power eclipsed the rest of the broad, deep and versatile work of Graves, born in Wimbledon (London) in 1895 into a wealthy bourgeois family.
Now, the recent publication of his autobiography Goodbye to all that (Alianza), written in 1929 when he was 34 years old, highlights the talent of a writer 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 the First World War (1914-1918), Goodbye to all that marked the life and work of Graves and narrated the horror of the conflict.
“Of my school generation,” Graves wrote, “at least one in three died because they all got commissions as officers 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 about three months. By then he had already been injured or killed.”
As an upper-class 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 for his entire life, such as disgust at the smell of gas or fear at violent noises, that is, he suffered a profound post-traumatic neurosis. But his autobiography is not limited to those four horrific years, but also covers an unhappy childhood and adolescence with religious conflicts or homosexual impulses. Graves expert, professor and researcher at the University of the Balearic Islands, Eduard Moyà states that Goodbye to all that, a very significant title of what it tells, represents “the death certificate of a civilization of progress, a Western civilization that died in the trenches of that First World War.”
“That war was a brutal blow for a young poet like Graves,” says Moyà, “and it became the biography of his generation. It is a long-winded and exhaustive book because it takes a broad look at his classmates at school, at boarding schools or in the Army, while showing great honesty when talking, for example, about his attraction to some friends. It is a work, therefore, written with an open mind that includes his separation from Nancy Nicholson, his first wife, and his subsequent 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 testimonies about the First World War and a portrait of his generation written in an agile and very narrative style. Furthermore, it reveals his gradual declassification from the bourgeoisie to which he belonged and his approach to the proto-feminism of his wife, Nancy Nicholson, and progressive ideas.”
Graves shows himself as a guy with diverse interests that range from the practice of boxing, in which he excelled, to his love of mountaineering, but who little by little opts for poetry, in particular, and literature in general. In that period of training, George Mallory, his teacher and mountaineering pioneer, played a relevant role – he became his best man at his wedding – and who disappeared during an ascent of Everest surrounded by mystery in 1924. This is how he evoked the tragic expedition and paid tribute to his friend in his autobiography: “When the war ended, George loved the mountains more than ever. His death on Mount Everest came five years later. No one knows if he and Irvine actually managed to climb the last hundred meters of the climb or if they turned back, or what happened; but all of us who have climbed with George are convinced that he reached the summit and rejoiced as was his custom without leaving himself sufficient reserve for the descent.”
In 1926 Graves, already a specialist in English literature, obtained a teaching position at the University of Cairo where he moved with his wife Nancy, their children and Laura Riding, also a writer and friend of the couple. However, that trio ended explosively, as 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 move to Mallorca.
Mallorca, its place in the world
In the opinion of Eduard Moyà, Graves found the atmosphere in London oppressive and needed to escape. With a passionate vocation for poetry, follow in the footsteps of Keats or Byron and look for the Mediterranean. “Robert Graves,” says Moyá, “goes to a static paradise at that time that is the Mediterranean islands and chooses Mallorca on the recommendation of Gertrude Stein. He feels fascinated by that type of life in a society where technology had not yet arrived and that brings together the ingredients of his poetic imagination. He is above all a poet and in the mountains of Mallorca, in Deià, he finds inspiration and peace. There he will write and work with Laura Riding, he will finish the novel I, Claudio in 1934 and will remain on the island until the outbreak of the Civil War forces them to leave Mallorca in 1936.”
Despite his desire to return to Mallorca as soon as possible, the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 delayed his return until seven years later. Meanwhile, Graves separates from Laura and couples with Beryl Hodge, whom he would marry in 1950 and with whom he would have four children, among them William, current executor of his father’s legacy; and Lucía, writer. For four decades in Deià, until his death in 1985, the author of I, Claudio He will become a recognized and award-winning writer who gains the favor of a multitude of readers with his most popular works, while publishing essayistic books on classical culture for a more qualified audience.
His editor emphasizes that Graves occupies a prominent place in literature, among other things, “for reinterpreting classical myths.” “So, a book like The white goddess represents a cosmogony of myths from a woman’s perspective. Likewise, his works on Greek and Hebrew myths reveal his extraordinary training in classical culture,” adds Pilar Álvarez.
Both Professor Moyá and editor Álvarez agree that Graves loved poetry above all else. This does not mean, in the opinion of experts in his literature, that he was not also a brilliant novelist and essayist. In any case, its resounding success with I, Claudio, with a biography of Lawrence of Arabia and other novels it allowed him a comfortable and comfortable life in Mallorca. The director of Alianza highlights a quality of Graves: “He was a scholar who turned everything he studied into a literary work. It could be said that what he touched he turned into literature. We cannot forget that he was a professor at Oxford.”
Famous and rich, in harmony with nature in his small kingdom of Deià, in a privileged spot between the Tramuntana mountain range and the sea, Graves was involved with Mallorcan society and was not an isolated foreigner. He loved Mallorca 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 starting in the 1970s somewhat upset Graves because he had lost paradise. In his old age, he dealt with writers such as Camilo José Cela, who had settled in Palma in 1954 and became a frequent companion. In any case, Eduard Moyà, who has recently translated a collection of poems by Graves into Catalan (The crestall rost. Poems of muntanya, Moll editorial) maintains that Graves realized that the tourist invasion of Mallorca was ruining the paradise he had lived. “Graves was always a modernizing element on the island,” says Moyà, “until he realized that tourism opened a Pandora’s box.” Now, his mark has been left in its foundation and in a museum in Deià and, of course, in his extensive work. He wanted only this inscription to appear on the tombstone of his grave in the cemetery of this Mallorcan town: “Robert Graves. Poet 7-24-1895 / 12-7-85”.
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