RG/P/Nic & Robert Graves
RG/P/Nic: Letters by Robert Graves to his muse Margot Callas (England, 1961)
Among St John’s College’s alumni are a number of literary writers, including the poet and novelist Robert Graves (1895-1985), best-known for his historical novel I, Claudius (1934). The two letters displayed here are from a recent donation by Margot (Callas) Nichols, who was his muse between 1960 and 1963.
The Letters
Robert Graves was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford between 1961 and 1966. He held his first three lectures in Michaelmas Term 1961 (R.P. Graves 1995, p. 341).
The first letter, possibly written in late November, begins with a poem entitled ‘Protesta’, which Graves wrote in Spanish, apparently in reference to a silver chain Graves had given to Callas, expecting in vain to receive one from her. In the last two lines he accuses ‘my Muse (and more than a Muse)’ laughing at him even as she deceives (or beguiles?) and abuses him. In the note that follows, Graves takes back those two verbs, emphasising that they do ‘not really’ apply in Graves and Callas’s case. The remainder of the letter is an offer to provide Callas with more money to ensure her independence, as ‘here there are no strings’.
Letter by Robert Graves to Margot Callas (Oxford, [late November?] 1961)
In the second letter from 1 December, Graves mentions his final lecture ‘The Personal Muse’, which he is about to give to ‘around 1500 people, mostly undergraduates [who] will be there all agog, and I’ll be wearing my mortarboard hat and black gown, and coughing with the microphone – got a bad cold. Psychosomatic?’ It later appears he had expected Callas to join him in Oxford, which she did not. At the time, Callas was in Tangier (Morocco) with her lover, the poet Alastair Reid. Graves himself plans to leave England soon and return to Deyá (Mallorca) on 11 December 1961. At the end of the letter, Graves expresses his hope that Callas may join him again in the spring of 1962.
Letter by Robert Graves to Margot Callas (Oxford, 1 December 1961)
While Callas was not in Oxford for his first round of lectures as Professor of Poetry, she did join him and his wife Beryl for the lectures in Michaelmas Term 1962. We know that he gave her a tour of the St John’s College Library before giving a lecture on superstition (R.P. Graves 1995, p. 355).
The Muse
William Graves, the eldest son from Robert Graves’s second marriage with Beryl Hodge (née Pritchard), remembers the arrival of Margot Callas at Mallorca as follows: ‘a young Canadian divorcée of Greek/Irish extraction [who] was a strikingly beautiful young woman, with a classical profile, raven-black hair, grey-blue eyes and porcelain complexion. The estrangers were soon fighting among themselves over her.’ (W. Graves 1995, p. 148). To Robert Graves she ‘projected all the qualities [he] attributed to his White Goddess: beauty, intelligence, integrity, humour, independence, distain for his attentions’ (W. Graves 1995, p. 149).
Their relationship was not an easy one. She was troubled by his possessiveness and he let her periods of silence and evasiveness feed into his ‘personal anxieties’ (R.P. Graves 1995, pp. 329, 353). In his lecture ‘The Personal Muse’ on 1 December 1961, Graves reminded his audience that ‘A poet may … be mistaken in his Muse; she may prove unworthy of continued trust’ (R.P. Graves 1995, p. 342). Their relationship remained difficult until Graves found a new muse in the summer of 1963.
Graves at St John’s College
Robert Graves won an ‘an exhibition’ (a kind of scholarship) to study Classics at St John’s College in 1913. World War I prevented him from taking up the place until after the war. He joined St John’s in October 1919, switching from Classics to English Literature.
In his memoire Goodbye to All That, Graves remarks on how quiet Oxford was with ex-service men as students, who ‘did not feel tempted to rag about, break windows, get drunk, or have tussles with the police and races with the Proctors’ “bulldogs”, as in the old days’ (1960, p. 238). He does not say much about St John’s itself, but apparently the food left something to be desired (R. Graves 1960, p. 238).
As Oxford was ‘overcrowded’ (R. Graves 1960, p. 238), Graves first lived in Boars Hill and then in Islip. He found the English Literature course ‘tedious’ (R. Graves 1960, p. 239) and because of his post-traumatic stress disorder after the war, Graves was unable to take his BA degree, although he did gain a BLitt degree in 1925 (R.P. Graves 2010). In 1971, Robert Graves became an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College.
Lady Ottoline Morrell (1920), Robert Graves [Photograph]. © National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG Ax140911)
Robert Graves’s Working Library & Personal Papers at St John’s
Beryl Graves’s bequeathed her late husband’s working library, the manuscripts, letters, and other materials still in their house in Deyá (Mallorca), to St John’s College.
The collection has grown since then and it is now the largest and most varied collection of Robert Graves’s personal papers anywhere, holding over 15,000 Graves-related items. The original collection of personal papers consist largely of thousands of letters received by Robert Graves after he had returned to Deyá in the 1940s as well as some manuscripts of his literary work and his work as a critic and lecturer together with some diaries. To this have been added letters written by Robert Graves, most notably those to Margot (Callas) Nichols.
John Arthur Malcom Aldridge (1968), Robert Graves [Oil on canvas]. © National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 4683)
Access to this Collection is currently being improved and a designated tile for the Graves Collection will soon be live at www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/library/.