The Greek Myths

The Greek Myths has long been among Graves’s most popular works, compendious in scope and lively in the telling. No poet of the twentieth century, not even Ezra Pound, was so compendiously learned as Graves in the origins of our Mediterranean cultures. While his approach to myth is original and sometimes contentious, his narrative is always compelling. Graves tells the myths of creation, the origins of the Gods and their lives, the exploits of the heroes and the Trojan War. The retelling is modern but the matter is not Graves is alive to the vivid otherness of the world he evokes. The Greek Myths are more than cultural it recovers the coherence of the ancient world. Graves’s organisation and comparisons of sources infer connections, common themes, synergies and tropes; his riskiest conclusions are persuasive because of the energy and penetration of his mind. He sees history, not psychology, through the myths and suggests that they have actual occasions which, in the telling and retelling, became charged spiritually, maturing into the coherence of religion. The Greek Myths, a reference book or as an exploration of our common roots is corrected in a limited edition as part of the Millennium Graves Programme.