For readers and thinkers on whom nothing is lost
For readers and thinkers on whom nothing is lost
With the most contentious US presidential election in my lifetime fast approaching, America feels more fragmented than ever. I consider whether a cause of the land of the free’s disunity problem lies within the country’s founding myth.
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‘La Belle Dame’ is one of Keats’ most enigmatic of poems, detailing the love and loss of a certain ‘Knight at arms’ the nature of which we are never properly told. But beyond the individual pining of a man over his lost ‘Lady in the Meads’, is there a wider truth that Keats is trying to tell, concerning the direction of literature and the fate of his fellow Romantics as a whole?
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It has always been a marvel to me how certain authors are capable of putting aside their own selves and portraying the fictional mind of their characters in such vivid and believable detail. Here, I consider whether an explanation for this ability can be found in the shamanic traditions and processes at the root of our human culture.
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Often, I write here about various stories that I have read, and the great minds that penned them onto the page. However, here I would like to take a wider look at the very requirement that we as humans have for narrative, and our innate and unconscious abilities to both shape them and be shaped by them.
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If one were to try and define true wisdom, they would not struggle to find potential answers offered by all forms of thought and philosophy from all corners of the globe. Here, I ponder the differences but also the overlaps between Western and Eastern answers for this most paramount of questions, and also the transcendental, unifying truths that underly all great works of literature, no matter which culture or race they spring from. Ultimately, I believe that such a search would take us to the very core of civilisation- that is, the root of human narrative.
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