Robert Graves Nicholas Halstead

Early Life Born on July 24, 1895 in Wimbledon, England. Born to Alfred Perceval Graves and Amelia von Ranke. He was the third of five children.

Education Received early education at a series of six preparatory schools. Took up poetry and boxing after being persecuted for the German element in his name. Won a classical exhibition to St. Johns College in his final year at Charterhouse.

The Great War After World War 1 broke out, Graves enlisted immediately. He built a reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about frontline combat. He was hit by shell-fragment and was reported dead, but he recovered and went back to the war. He met Siegfried Simpson, a fellow soldier and war poet, during this conflict.

Postwar After the war, he had a wife, Nancy Nicholson, and a growing family, but was financially insecure. He went to Oxford to study English Language and Literature. His family later moved to Worlds End Cottage, where he became friends with T.E. Lawrence.

Literacy Career Published Lawrence and the Arabs in 1927, and it was a commercial success. In 1934, he published I, Claudius, his most commercially successful work. In 1955, he published The Greek Myths, a collection of retells of Greek Myths.

Literacy Career cont. He became a professor at Oxford from 1961-1966 In 1967, Graves, along side with Omar Ali-Shah, published a new translation of The Rubaiyats of Omar Khayyam. This translation became controversial as it challenged the translation made by Edward Fitzgerald. From the 1960s to his death, he exchanged letters with Spike Milligan.

Achievements In 1934, he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for I, Claudius, and Claudius the God. He was one of 16 war poets to have their name carved into a slate stone in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner in 1985.

Death He began to experience memory loss in the early 1970s, and this forced him to start working. By this time, he had produced over 140 literary works. On December 7, 1985, he died from heart failure at age 90. He was a very well received poet during his life.

Works Two of Robert Grave’s works include: Two Fusiliers A Dead Boche I will be examining Two Fusiliers.

Two Fusiliers This poem describes the emotional intensities of wartime friendships. The opening is a disbelief of surviving the war, while the middle is him remembering a fallen comrade. The ending can symbolize a flower rising from a grave, and is a prelude to death, the ultimate bonding force.

Sources/Citations http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2008/03/war-poet-wednesday/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Graves http://www.warpoets.org/poets/robert-graves-1895-1985/ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and- poets/poets/detail/robert-graves