Robert Graves

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of ‘I, Claudius’ who was also one of the finest poets of the twentieth century. Robert Graves (1895 -1985) placed his poetry far above his prose. He once declared that from the age of 15 poetry had been his ruling passion and that he lived his life according to poetic principles, writing in prose only to pay the bills and that he bred the pedigree dogs of his prose to feed the cats of his poetry. Yet it’s for his prose that he’s most famous today, including ‘I Claudius’, his brilliant account of the debauchery of Imperial Rome, and ‘Goodbye to All That’, the unforgettable memoir of his early life including the time during the First World War when he was so badly wounded at the Somme that The Times listed him as dead.

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Guests

• Paul O'Prey No other episodes
  Emeritus Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Roehampton, London
• Fran Brearton 5 episodes
  Professor of Modern Poetry at Queen's University, Belfast
• Bob Davis No other episodes
  Professor of Religious and Cultural Education at the University of Glasgow

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Programme ID: m0023pzc

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023pzc

Auto-category: 821.912 (English poetry - 20th century)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, Robert Graves, 1895 to 1985, was one of the finest poets of the 20th century.