Editing The White Goddess (section)

== Poetry and myth ==
Graves described ''The White Goddess'' as "a historical grammar of the language of poetic [[mythology|myth]]". It draws from the mythology and poetry of [[Wales]] and [[Ireland]] especially, as well as that of most of Western Europe and the ancient [[Middle East]]. Relying on arguments from [[etymology]] and the use of forensic techniques to uncover what he calls 'iconotropic' redaction of original myths, Graves argues for the worship of a single goddess under many names, an idea that came to be known as "[[Matriarchal religion]]" in [[feminist theology]] of the 1970s.

''[[The Golden Bough]]'' (1922, but first edition published 1890), an early anthropological study by Sir [[James George Frazer]], is the starting point for much of Graves's argument, and Graves thought in part that his book made explicit what Frazer only hinted at. Graves wrote: 
<blockquote>Sir James Frazer was able to keep his beautiful rooms at [[Trinity College, Cambridge|Trinity College]], [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] until his death by carefully and methodically sailing all around his dangerous subject, as if charting the coastline of a forbidden island without actually committing himself to a declaration that it existed. What he was saying-not-saying was that [[Christian legend]], [[Christian dogma|dogma]] and [[Christian sacraments|ritual]] are the refinement of a great body of primitive and even [[barbarian|barbarous]] beliefs, and that almost the only original element in Christianity is the personality of Jesus.</blockquote>

Graves's ''The White Goddess'' deals with [[goddess|goddess worship]] as the prototypical religion, analysing it largely from literary evidence, in myth and poetry.

Graves admitted he was not a medieval historian, but a poet, and thus based his work on the premise that the
<blockquote>language of poetic myth anciently current in the Mediterranean and [[Northern Europe]] was a magical language bound up with popular religious ceremonies in honour of the Moon-goddess, or Muse, some of them dating from the Old Stone Age, and that this remains the language of true poetry...</blockquote>
Graves concluded, in the second and expanded edition, that the male-dominant monotheistic god of [[Judaism]] and its successors were the cause of the White Goddess's downfall, and thus the source of much of the modern world's woe. He describes Woman as occupying a higher echelon than mere poet, that of the Muse Herself. He adds: "This is not to say that a woman should refrain from writing poems; only, that she should write as a woman, not as an honorary man."  He seems particularly bothered by the spectre of women's writing reflecting male-dominated poetic conventions.<ref>Graves, The White Goddess, pp. 446–447</ref>

Graves derived some of his ideas from poetic inspiration and a process of "[[Analepsis|analeptic thought]]", which is a term he used for throwing one's mind back in time and receiving impressions.

Visual iconography was also important to Graves's conception. Graves created a methodology for reading images he called "iconotropy". To practice this methodology one is required to reduce "speech into its original images and rhythms" and then to combine these "on several simultaneous levels of thought". By applying this methodology Graves decoded a woodcut of ''[[Judgement of Paris|The Judgement of Paris]]'' as depicting a singular Triple Goddess<ref>Von Hendy, Andrew. ''The Modern Construction of Myth''. p. 196.</ref> rather than the traditional [[Hera]], [[Athena]] and [[Aphrodite]] of the narrative the image illustrates.