Editing The White Goddess (section)

==Scholarship and critical reception==
''The White Goddess'' has been seen as a poetic work where Graves gives his notion of man's subjection to women in love an "anthropological grandeur" and further mythologises all women in general (and several of Graves's lovers in particular) into a three-faced moon goddess model.<ref>Hunter, Jefferson (1983). "The Servant of Three Mistresses" (review of: Seymour-Smith, Martin, ''Robert Graves: His Life and Work''), in ''The Hudson Review'', Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1983–1984), pp. 733–736.</ref>
 
Graves's value as a poet aside, flaws in his scholarship such as poor [[philology]], use of inadequate texts and outdated archaeology have been criticised.<ref name="wood">{{cite book|last=Wood|first=Juliette|title=The Concept of the Goddess|editor=Sandra Billington, Miranda Green|publisher=Routledge|year=1999|page=12|chapter=Chapter 1, The Concept of the Goddess|isbn=9780415197892|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IoW9yhkrFJoC&pg=PA10|access-date=23 December 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Hutton|first=Ronald|title=The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy|publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]]|year=1993|page=320|isbn=9780631189466|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wNpVJQAACAAJ}}</ref> Some scholars, particularly archaeologists, historians and folklorists have rejected the work<ref name="paganism_reader">''The Paganism Reader''. p. 128.</ref> – which [[T. S. Eliot]] called "A prodigious, monstrous, stupefying, indescribable book"<ref>Quoted in J. Kroll, ''Chapters in a Mythology'' (2007) p. 52</ref> – and Graves himself was disappointed that his work was "loudly ignored" by many Celtic scholars.<ref name="White">White, Donna R. ''A Century of Welsh Myth in Children's Literature''. p. 75.</ref>

''The White Goddess'' was accepted as history by many non-scholarly readers. According to [[Ronald Hutton]], it remains a major source of confusion about the ancient Celts and influences many un-scholarly views of Celtic paganism.<ref name="Hutton-Pagan">{{cite book|last=Hutton|first=Ronald|title=The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy|publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]]|year=1993|page=145|isbn=9780631189466|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wNpVJQAACAAJ}}</ref> [[Hilda Ellis Davidson]] criticised Graves as having "misled many innocent readers with his eloquent but deceptive statements about a nebulous goddess in early Celtic literature", and stated that he was "no authority" on the subject matter he presented.<ref name=DAVIDSONROLESOF>Davidson, Hilda Ellis (1998). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=9IAyyYi0OC4C&pg=PA11 Roles of the Northern Goddess]{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}'', page 11. [[Routledge]]. {{ISBN|0-415-13611-3}}</ref> While Graves made the association between Goddesses and the moon appear "natural", it was not so to the Celts or some other ancient peoples.<ref name="Hutton-Pagan" /> In response to critics, Graves accused literary scholars of being psychologically incapable of interpreting myth<ref>Inter alia – The White Goddess, Farrar Straus Giroux, p. 224. {{ISBN|0-374-50493-8}}</ref> or too concerned with maintaining their perquisites to go against the majority view.

Some Neopagans have been bemused and upset by the scholarly criticism that ''The White Goddess'' has received in recent years,<ref>The Pomegranate 7.1, Equinox press, (Review of) "Jacob Rabinowitz, ''The Rotting Goddess: The Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity’s Demonization of Fertility Religion''"</ref> while others have appreciated its poetic insight but never accepted it as a work of historical veracity.<ref>Lewis, James R. ''Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft''. p. 172.</ref> Likewise, a few scholars find some value in Graves's ideas; Michael W. Pharand, though quoting earlier criticisms, stated: "Graves's theories and conclusions, outlandish as they seemed to his contemporaries (or may appear to us), were the result of careful observation."<ref>Pharand, Michael W. "Greek Myths, White Goddess: Robert Graves Cleans up a 'Dreadful Mess'", in Ian Ferla and Grevel Lindop (ed), ''Graves and the Goddess: Essays on Robert Graves's The White Goddess''. Associated University Presses, 2003. p. 188.</ref> The historian Norman Davies references Graves ideas from ''The White Goddess'' favorably in his book ''Europe: A History''. <ref name="Europe: A History">{{cite book|last=Davies|first=Norman|title=Europe: A History|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=1996|page=72|isbn=9780198201717|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jrVW9W9eiYMC&q=robert+graves#v=snippet&q=robert%20graves&f=false}}</ref>

According to Graves's biographer [[Richard Perceval Graves]], [[Laura Riding]] played a crucial role in the development of Graves's thoughts when writing ''The White Goddess'', despite the fact the two were estranged at that point. On reviewing the book, Riding was furious: "Where once I reigned, now a whorish abomination has sprung to life, a Frankenstein pieced together from the shards of my life and thoughts."<ref>Lindop, Grevel, editor (1997) ''Robert Graves: The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'', [[Carcanet Press]]</ref>