The following comes from a “weekly response” on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “A History of the Kings of Britain.” I was (before this paragraph) complaining about how stupid Freud is, though the question in general was why things like death, destruction, and drama is so appealing. Hopefully it still flows out of context…
Yet from where, in the end, does our seemingly human enjoyment of “ruin” come? For there is much death and destruction in Arthurian literature, and for that matter most of the mythological and folkloric tales that I personally have read. The argument I propose, at least conditionally, is one in which places a rather heavy emphasis on these tales being influenced by an entire community. Modern stories are mostly all told by a single author, yet tales such as the Arthurian cycle are told and retold orally over hundreds of years, collecting ideas, images, thoughts, and many other complicating factors along the way. One telling may emphasize Arthur and Guinevere while others may focus upon the wars, all depending on the cultural ideas of the teller as well as the make-up of the listeners. Many times legends and myths appear piecemeal, but that is only because they have been told by countless numbers in their ever-continuing lives. If each retelling of a tale is focused upon both the ideas and needs of a particular community, it can be said that myths and legends are laden with the thoughts, hopes, fears and expectations of the communities it has passed through. My argument is enjoyment with “ruin” in such tales come not from a fascination with unpleasure, but because listeners hear within each tale all those things just mentioned and, in effect, they hear a search for meaning conducted over centuries.
