V-2nd - 4?

[Mark Kohut]

Thing One. Malta only appears once in The White Goddess and only as a natural 
place word, it seems from Google Book Search. 


 So, if TRP learned what is below, I guess it comes from elsewhere, but dunno?   


I would answer Yes to Robin's ob.......Adams came to the Feminine in her 
societally "divine" energy (Although he did not share that
belief in divinity)....

And this is what Graves' The White Goddess is all about, it seems. (I have tried 
to read this book twice, once recently, and cannot---
without massive note-taking and excuses made for it (in my mind), so I have 
checked out others' analyses)...

Good essay on how Graves came to be inspired and then write it by P.R. 
Graves.......suffice to say: The Whilte Goddess stood for a 'particular creative 
force", yet was also a 'living reality"...[see Graves' life on the succession of 
real women muses in them. I have read a bio of him] 


and, to speak to another question of Ian's: Graves conception of 'the Triple 
Goddess' [nother name] came with an historical vision that She when
possible existed when patriarchal cultures did not...in fact, in many instances, 
the King died......when Queen Isis [nother name] ruled..........

Graves argued that when Apollo, the god of order and rationality assumed power 
in a culture, the White Goddess died...................
The White Goddess was ALSO........imagination (as a 
force)................................[Graves really did load different meanings 
onto his concept, ala
a real literary symbol---which was so real to him]


I would argue that in V., TRP does believe in some kind of divine Feminine and 
in a King-is-Dead masculine wasteland........
Fuller treatments of the 'divine' masculine, if they are in his works, come much 
later, i suggest.........if at all...................


----- Original Message ----
From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Sat, July 31, 2010 1:17:30 PM
Subject: Re: V-2nd - 4?

Is P Stencilizing the divine feminine? It certainly wouldn't be an isolated 
example.
On Jul 31, 2010, at 10:08 AM, Ian Livingston wrote:

> Recently came across an interesting essay, "The Case of the Missing
> Goddess: Plurality, Power and Prejudice in Reconstructions of Malta's
> Neolithic Past" by Kathryn Rountree in the Journal of Feminist Studies
> in Religion, Vol 19, No. 2 (Fall, 2003). The author argues that a
> strong cult of the mother goddess existed on Malta long before the
> Knights of St. John showed up. All this fascination with the mother,
> the mysterious other, the feminine V.... How much did P know about
> Malta? Is any of this serendipitous?