Myth of Tristan and Isolde
Streaming coming soon
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Robert Johnson’s 1978 Panarion Conference lecture on the Tristan and Isolde myth as the root of Western romantic love, and on how love can be both divine and human. Developed in his book We (1983).
Robert Johnson
Robert A. Johnson (1921–2018) was an American Jungian analyst and author from Portland, Oregon, known for making Jungian psychology accessible to a wide public. He studied at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich and spent long periods in India, which deeply shaped his thinking. His best-selling books use myth and literature to explore psychological development: He (1974), She (1976), We (1983), Inner Work (1986), Owning Your Own Shadow (1991) and Transformation (1991), the last of which develops the ideas in his lecture on Don Quixote, Hamlet and Faust.
Parts
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Part 1: The Myth of Tristan and Isolde
1:19:31
Robert Johnson's 1978 Panarion talk on what the 12th-century Tristan myth reveals about modern relationships. He surveys the century that produced it (Gothic cathedrals, the first universities, the Grail legend, devotion to Mary, Catharism), retells Tristan's tragic love for Isolde, and presents romantic love as a 'divine fire'. Held consciously as both divine and human, love can lead back to one's inner sacred centre.