466 - Malcolm Guite - Old Stories Know Secrets That We Have Forgotten

Malcolm Guite is a poet and Anglican priest. He is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge and lives in Norfolk, England. He lectures widely in England and North America on Theology and Literature. His books include Sounding the Seasons; Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (Canterbury 2012). The Singing Bowl; Collected Poems (Canterbury 2013) and Parable and Paradox (Canterbury Press 2016) and Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder 2017) After Prayer (Canterbury Press 2019) and The Word Within the Words (DLT 2021) and Lifting The Veil, Square Halo, 2021.In 2023 he was awarded the Archbishop Lanfranc Medal for Education and Scholarship by the Archbishop of Canterbury.He is presently working on Merlin’s Isle: an Arthuriad a four volume epic poem on The Arthurian legendsHe has a Youtube series called ‘A Spell in the Library’ at https://www.youtube.com/c/MalcolmGuitespellYouTube version of this episode: https://youtu.be/E5En6DZTYFkGalahad and the Holy Grail: https://store.rabbitroom.com/products/merlins-islePatrons of The Symbolic World can watch the 30 minute documentary here: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/premium-content/merlins-isleSubscribe here if you’re not already a patron: https://thesymbolicworld.com/subscribeRegister for Universal History Masterclass during the month of July and get 15% off: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/universal-history-masterclass 🔓 Become a patron to support us and unlock exclusive monthly symbolism content: https://thesymbolicworld.com/subscribe💻 Website and blog: http://www.thesymbolicworld.comTimestamps:00:00 – Coming up01:29 – Introduction03:05 – Malcolm Guite’s Calling as Priest and Poet06:39 – Can the Imagination Be Dangerous?09:27 – Imagination as the Organ of Meaning11:58 – Fantasy, Escapism, and Enchantment15:46 – Why Arthurian Stories Resist Modernization19:57 – Galahad and the Grail21:20 – What Arthurian Stories Reveal About Human Brokenness23:27 – The Scope of Malcolm’s Arthurian Project26:05 – The Dolorous Stroke and the Origin of the Wasteland30:54 – “You Live in Just Such a World”33:20 – The Wasteland as a Pattern of Reality37:51 – Recovering the Christian Meaning of the Grail40:44 – Universal History Masterclass42:42 – Why Malcolm Chose the Ballad Form44:59 – The Collapse of the Materialist Worldview49:41 – Remembering Without Falling into Unreason51:46 – Tradition as Active Remembrance53:19 – Tradition as the Roots of a Living Tree54:40 – How Irony Destroys Old Stories57:56 – Daring to Be Naive Again58:28 – The Four-Volume Arthurian Series59:54 – Why the Beauty of the Book Matters01:01:10 – Chivalry, Masculinity, and the Civilized Warrior01:02:23 – Fellow Travelers in the Recovery of MeaningOur website designers: https://www.resonancehq.io/ My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson: https://matthewwilkinson.net/