Did The Poet Robert Graves Fight In World War I?

Yes, he did. He was severely wounded on the Somme in 1916 but he survived to write extensively of his war experiences. His autobiography, Goodbye to All That, written in 1929, describes the war from a soldier's point of view in great detail.

Robert Ranke Graves was born in 1895 and lived to the grand old age of 90, despite his brush with death in the war, and he died in 1985.

He was recognised for the quality of his war poetry quite early in his life and he is now ranked amongst the greatest of the war poets from that era. Between 1926 and 1939 he switched to writing love poems and these are now seen as some of the finest modern examples of this genre.

His experiences in the war obviously affected him very deeply. He was not directly involved in World War II but, after it ended, he became interested in Eastern religious philosophy and mythology and this was a feature of many of his later poems. His last poem collection was published in 1972.