During this talk, Iron John author Robert Bly gives a delicate and lively view of the fantastic flowering of feeling in 12th Century Provence. The feeling thought, developed from Arabic, Gnostic, and Albigensian sources, blossoms as love poetry famous at that time. In this recording, Bly distinguishes between the literal mode, the psychological mode, and the mythological mode, and locates the “Amor” or ecstatic love in the latter, which led to Sufism among the Arabs. Bly’s recitation of Provencal poetry brings to awareness the terrible loss we suffered when these traditions were uprooted and destroyed.
