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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Standard Edition of Graves's Poetry, 21 Aug 2000
By A Customer
The Standard Edition of Graves's PoetryI am reviewing Volume 2 The Complete Poems of Robert Graves in Three Volumes. Enthusiasts for Graves' poetry have waited a long time for this collection of his poems. Graves collected his poems in 1926, 1938, 1947, 1955[US], 1959, 1961[US], 1965, and 1975 and each time he would leave out some poems. For most of his life Graves was for most of that time a ruthless reviser and pruner of his own work. That meant a great many of his poems were left out, and for me some them were very worthy. The need for a complete edition has been around for a long time. Graves's widow Beryl and Dustin Ward edit the volumes. They are sympathetic editors. Their editorial practice is consistent. The editors give the poem's final version, and in notes record the changes from the first editions. Itermedidate changes are generally not covered. Sometimes this leads to a bad choice. I think it is universally agreed that Graves's poem "The White Goddess" is much better with the singular pronouns "I" and "my" rather than "we" and "our." Because the "we" and the "our" are Graves's final choices these are ones that are given. Of course such choices are easily amended. I took a pencil and crossed out the "we" and "our" and replaced them with "I" and "my." The Three Volume edition replaces Collected Poems 1975 as the standard edition of Graves's poetry. When I was reading Volume 2 of the Complete Poems and I was thinking which would be stronger set, one of the volumes of Graves's selected poems that have been published over the years, or this Volume 2, and I came to the conclusion that Volume 2 is better volume of any volume of Graves's selected poems. The quality of the poems written during Graves's prime are simply too good to miss out on any one.
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