Now, Jean Moorcroft Wilson – author of noted biographies of Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Thomas and Isaac Rosenberg – offers what must surely be the definitive analysis of Graves the child, poet, soldier and author up to 1929 when Good–Bye to All That was published.Īs a poet Robert Graves judged that war–induced long–borne mental torments had informed, indeed, aided his work and, like Sassoon, that he was damaged by war seems beyond dispute. Graves has been the subject of at least two biographies since 2003 the first by Miranda Seymour, the second by Robert King in 2008. Nevertheless, it must still be viewed, as Paul Fussell noted as long ago as 1975, as, ‘fiction disguised as disguised as a memoir’. Whilst others who served with him in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers – Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Blunden and Doctor J C Dunn – have questioned the veracity of the experiences Graves records, the quality and perception of the book’s authorship have ensured continued readership and praise. Since 1929 Good–Bye to All That has seen as key work of Great War writing. The 2003 Penguin edition of his complete poems alone contains 837 pages and includes formerly un–published and posthumously published works. Prolific barely indicates the length and breadth of Robert Graves’ writing. Bloomsbury, £12.95, 460pp, 24 ills, list of abbreviations, notes, index.
0 kommentar(er)
