My new blog

My last (not final) post at Beyond the West was about The Green Knight, a late Medieval Arthurian story written in a conservative dialect of Middle English. Almost incomprehensible now, it is tough going for the best of readers, and yet it is such a fascinating story that it's definitely worth the trouble. The first verse, after briefly reciting the legend of the founding of Britain by a refugee from the Trojan War, dispenses with alliteration and takes up a new-fangled rhyming scheme:

...Felix Brutus
On many bonkes full brode Bretayne he settes,
Where werre and wrakke and wonder
Bi sythes has wonte therine,
And oft bothe blysse and blunder
Full skete has skyfted synne

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and it is from this verse I have taken the name for this blog. Bliss and blunder, where blunder is more akin to terror than it's modern sense...the twin peaks of life in the mortal zone. But history is more a record of blunder than of bliss, probably because blunder is more exciting.
My reason for choosing this line as a title has more to do with metaphysics. It is a dialectical statement. Pleasure and pain are the bookends of living experience, and a good laugh helps to get us through our years of earthly existence. The opacity of Gawain's language makes it difficult to perceive the humour of the most exalted hero of King Arthur's court being made a fool of by a giant green man. We laugh, but it is a serious business. When we pause for a few moments in our daily struggles, sometimes we reflect. What's it all about, Alfie?
That's going to be the subject of this blog. There has been a drastic collapse of morale among those of us who are heirs to the European intellectual legacy with the result that we no longer believe in ourselves. One symptom of that demoralization is the the elevation of the grotesque to godhead by our artists. My next post will be on that topic.