The Story of Marie Powell: Wife to Mr. Milton, by Robert Graves, 1943, is a 1943 historical novel based on a true story, the life of the young wife of poet John Milton. Graves tells it from her viewpoint and paints an unflattering portrait of Milton.
In addition to Milton and Marie, real historical characters included in the story include Edmund Verney, who is depicted as Marie's true love. [1]
Summarising the novel for the Carcanet edition, Simon Brittan wrote that:
"Graves regards [Milton] as one of the heinous monsters in the English poetic pantheon. Certainly his Mrs Milton is ill-used by a distended genius. Milton's first wife was sixteen when they married. Milton was after her dowry and when it did not follow he proved a domineering prig, unresponsive to her sensuousness or her down-to-earth wit. It was a spiritual misalliance, too: her Catholicism sorted ill with his beliefs. The dramatic political and military events of the English civil war touch her life at every point, and we witness the execution of Charles I close up. The depiction of everyday life at the time and the merciless portrait of the young Milton, are spell-binding." [2]
Geoffrey Wall concluded that Graves's Wife to Mr. Milton is 'a relentlessly effective satire on masculine self-regard.' [3] Matthew Adams has recently written, 'Ignoring the question of whether Milton had justly or unjustly been defamed, E.M. Forster pronounced Wife to Mr Milton a thumping good read yet remained concerned that Graves's portrait had depicted only half of the man, [... ]' [4] It has been noted that the English poet W.H. Auden liked to quote from Graves's Wife to Mr. Milton: "They tune the strings a little sharper at Cambridge." [5]
On a harsher note, James Macleod Sandison has reprimanded Graves's account of Milton: 'Before leaving the anti-Miltonists, I feel compelled to deplore Robert Graves' Wife to Mr. Milton: it is an unfortunate book which might do much to deepen the erroneous impression of Milton as a surly and narrow-minded puritan.' [6] In Graves's defence Ian McCormick has argued that 'The satiric reduction is a necessary one, for it appears to be part of a larger uneasiness in the text concerning the self-aggrandizement of the reasoning subject that might result in the straitjacket of the purely systematic or, at worst, the totalitarian ideologies of the modern period.' [7] This novel therefore shares a characteristic that McCormick has also identified in Graves's Antigua, Penny, Puce: 'Ultimately, Graves aetheticises history, politics and gender. there is a sportive element at work in his fiction which resists a permanent anchor.' [8]
The novel was republished in 2003 as part of the 'Millennium Graves' edition. More recently, Penguin Classics have published another edition of Graves, Robert. Wife to Mr Milton. (2012)
Captain Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celticists and students of Irish mythology.
The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by the English writer Robert Graves. First published in 1948, the book is based on earlier articles published in Wales magazine; corrected, revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1948, 1952 and 1961. The White Goddess represents an approach to the study of mythology from a decidedly creative and idiosyncratic perspective. Graves proposes the existence of a European deity, the "White Goddess of Birth, Love and Death", much similar to the Mother Goddess, inspired and represented by the phases of the Moon, who lies behind the faces of the diverse goddesses of various European and pagan mythologies.
Laura Riding Jackson, best known as Laura Riding, was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer.
Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by English author George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. It appeared in eight installments (volumes) in 1871 and 1872. Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midlands town, in 1829 to 1832, it follows distinct, intersecting stories with many characters. Issues include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Despite comic elements, Middlemarch uses realism to encompass historical events: the 1832 Reform Act, early railways, and the accession of King William IV. It looks at medicine of the time and reactionary views in a settled community facing unwelcome change. Eliot began writing the two pieces that formed the novel in 1869–1870 and completed it in 1871. Initial reviews were mixed, but it is now seen widely as her best work and one of the great English novels.
Eavan Aisling Boland was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role of women in Irish history. A number of poems from Boland's poetry career are studied by Irish students who take the Leaving Certificate. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.
Frank Raymond "F. R." Leavis was an English literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. He taught for much of his career at Downing College, Cambridge, and later at the University of York.
F. J. McCormick was an Irish actor who became known for his work at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. He acquired the stage name F.J. McCormick to disguise his identity from his current and future employers, and to avoid parental disapproval. He joined the Abbey at age 19, and acted in some 500 productions there. He is especially remembered for his work in the plays of Seán O'Casey.
Charles Hubert Sisson, CH, usually cited as C. H. Sisson, was a British writer, best known as a poet and translator.
The fifth season of the American drama/adventure television series Highlander began airing 23 September 1996 and finished on 19 May 1997. The series continues to follow the adventures of Duncan MacLeod, a 400-year-old Immortal who, just as the Immortals of the movies, can only die if he is beheaded. MacLeod is involved in the Game, an ongoing battle during which all Immortals have to behead each other until only one is left.
King Jesus is a semi-historical novel by Robert Graves, first published in 1946. The novel treats the historical Jesus not as the Son of God, but rather as a philosopher with a legitimate claim to the Judaean throne through Herod the Great, as well as the Davidic monarchy; and treats numerous Biblical stories in a non-religious manner.
Richard Boris Ford, was a literary critic, writer, editor and educationist.
David John Murray Wright was an author and "an acclaimed South African-born poet".
Robie Mayhew Macauley was an American editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned more than 50 years.
The Islands of Unwisdom is an historical novel by Robert Graves, published in 1949. It was also published in the UK as The Isles of Unwisdom.
X, A Quarterly Review, often referred to as X magazine, was a British review of literature and the arts published in London which ran for seven issues between 1959 and 1962. It was co-founded and co-edited by Patrick Swift and David Wright.
Patrick McGuinness FRSL FLSW is a British academic, critic, novelist, and poet. He is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Oxford, where he is Fellow and Tutor at St Anne's College.
The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German Translation is a literary translation award given by the Society of Authors in London. Translations from the German original into English are considered for the prize. The value of the prize is £3,000. The prize is named for August Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, who translated Shakespeare to German in the 19th century.
The 1981 Queen's Birthday Honours in New Zealand, celebrating the official birthday of Elizabeth II, were appointments made by the Queen in her right as Queen of New Zealand, on the advice of the New Zealand government, to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by New Zealanders. They were announced on 13 June 1981.