cs lewis selected literary essays pdf

Selected literary essays

By c.s. lewis.

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This volume, available in print for the first time since 1980, includes over twenty of C. S. Lewis's most important literary essays, written between 1932 and 1962. The topics discussed range from Chaucer to Kipling, from 'The literary impact of the authorised version' to 'Psycho-analysis and literary criticism', from Shakespeare and Bunyan to Sir Walter Scott and William Morris. Common to each essay, however, are the lively wit, the distinctive forthrightness, and the discreet erudition which characterise Lewis's best critical writing.

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Selected Literary Essays

By C. S. Lewis

United Kingdom

New Zealand

Description

Selected Literary Essays includes over twenty of C. S. Lewis’s most important literary essays, written between 1932 and 1962. The topics discussed in this volume range from Chaucer to Kipling, from "The literary impact of the authorized version" to "Psycho-analysis and literary criticism," to Shakespeare and Bunyan, and Sir Walter Scott and William Morris. Common to each essay, however, are the lively wit, the distinctive forthrightness, and the discreet erudition which characterize Lewis's best critical writing.

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ISBN: 9780062313737

ISBN10: 0062313738

Imprint: HarperOne

On Sale: 05/11/2013

List Price 2.99 GBP

BISAC1: RELIGION / Christianity / Literature & the Arts

BISAC2: RELIGION / Spirituality

BISAC3: LITERARY CRITICISM / Books & Reading

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Selected Literary Essays includes over twenty of C. S. Lewis's most important literary essays, written between 1932 and 1962. The topics discussed in this volume range from Chaucer to Kipling, from "The literary impact of the authorized version" to "Psycho-analysis and literary criticism," to Shakespeare and Bunyan, and Sir Walter Scott and William Morris. Common to each essay, however, are the lively wit, the distinctive forthrightness, and the discreet erudition which characterize Lewis's best critical writing.

• C.S. Lewis and the Love of Words

How to Read All of C.S. Lewis’ Essays

One of the struggles as a C.S. Lewis reader is trying to navigate the essay collections. I have 19 anthologies and collections on my shelf, and a quick internet search is going to send you scurrying to about 25 different sources all told. Those sources come from separate UK & US publication streams, as well as a series of revised editions, abridgements, gift editions, selections, and reprints under different names.

Honestly, it’s a bit of a mess.

Arend’s lists were important as I set up my schedule to read Lewis chronologically (though I had to redate things by time of writing, rather than publication), and I find myself frequenting his webpage whenever I need to look something up.

• The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (revised and expanded edition, US, 1980): This is a beautiful collection that shouldn’t be confused with the 1949 collection of the same name (or  Transpositions and Other Essays in the UK).

• Christian Reflections (UK/US, 1967): These are Christian pieces that are a little lighter in tone, and offer cultural criticism and encouragement to Christian growth.  The Seeing Eye (1986) has most, but not all, of these pieces.

• Of This and Other Worlds (UK, 1982); On Stories and Other Essays on Literature (US, 1982): This is the most full collection of Lewis’ popular-level pieces on writing, literature, and science fiction. Don’t confuse it with the excellent collection  Of Other Worlds (1966), which has about half the essays plus four of the stories that are in  The Dark Tower and Other Stories (1977).
• The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (US, 1960): This is a volume that Lewis himself put together with his publisher but has been reprinted in a couple of series. These essays are within the apologetics and popular philosophy category (like God in the Dock  part 1).
• Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (UK/US, 1966): This volume contains some essays that introduce the reader to literature from the late middle ages through the time of Milton (roughly 11th-17th centuries), as well as some studies of individual books in that period.
• Selected Literary Essays (UK/US, 1969): A diverse collection that runs from Jane Austen to the King James Bible and all the way back through Tasso to the medieval storytellers.
• Image and Imagination: Essays and Reviews (UK/US, 2013): Although published last, this might be the best place for the reader new to Lewis’ academic literature essays. A lot of the books he reviews are great reads, and even the more obscure reviews contain Lewisian wit and knowledge. It also includes some essays that have been out of print for decades.

Some notes: The version I put first in the list is the one I have on my shelf (and typically the most accessible to others); the 3 literary collections (#s6-9) are the same on either continent. You’ll notice there is almost no overlap, so what looked like a complete mess falls into place in 2013 with the release of Image and Imagination . Arend divides the essays between academic (#s7-9) and popular (#s1-6), but the 1st section of  God in the Dock  (#2) is a bit of a challenge, and much of  Image and Imagination (#9) is fairly accessible. We could also divide the books between “Christian” (#s 1, 2, 3, 4, 6) and “literary” (#s 5, 7, 8, 9). There are likely some errors here (a lot of the essays are named various things and I might have messed it up); let me know if you see something.

Wherever your interests lie, I hope this list supplements Arend Smilde’s excellent work to give you the resources you need to track down Lewis’ shorter work. For the burgeoning C.S. Lewis scholar, these are the nine core books that cover the majority of the short pieces you’ll need for your bibliography.

Full Excel Sheet:  How to Read CSL Essays Public

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66 responses to how to read all of c.s. lewis’ essays.

Thank you for this, much appreciated. I have often wondered how I would know if I had read all of his essays or not.

Sort of a lengthy checklist!

This is splendid: well done, and thank you very much! A very useful addition to Arend Smilde’s two pieces you link!

Two sudden thoughts:

Do you happen to know what the state of affairs is with respect to that wartime lecture on records, half of which Professor Poe happily rediscovered not so very long ago?

And, Arend Smilde once showed me (as I recall) an edition of the Socratic Club papers (by various hands, including Lewis’s), the details of which I forget – and have not paused to try to rediscover. Speaking of more hands than one’s, there is of course The Personal Heresy which began as an exchange of separately published essays by Lewis and Tillyard.

Another footnote: there is (I understand) a recording of Lewis reading his Cambridge Inaugural address, and (I further understand) its text differs from the printed one: Arend Smilde made use of both, for his Dutch translation!

I have not hear this recording (though I heard there were some differences). Is it secret?

In his translation (published in 1997) Arend Smilde notes that in April 1955 Lewis read a slightly revised version for BBC radio broadcast, under the title ‘The Great Divide’, and that it was then still available from The Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation Inc. in a collection called C.S. Lewis: Comments and Critiques. While there is also a 2001 note by the late Bruce Edwards online to the effect that it was then still the case, I am, bizarrely, having no luck searching online a bit to see if that is still the case, now!

I did find a little more detail about its first broadcast:

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/03568ecb9cd24764a1dee7bbbfe2d93e

I wish it was available. It isn’t the words so much as the sense of humour. I’d be curious to know whether his voice ever cracked when he was telling a joke. Was he ever sly. Did he wink where the text winks? That’s it. So where is the recording?

I fear the answer may be along the lines of ‘who (which library) owns a copy?’ – but maybe I’m just not handy enough at searching…

Just a partial answer–I don’t know on Poe–but Joel Heck has published as much of the Socratic Digest as is possible. Here is the US link: http://www.lulu.com/shop/joel-d-heck-editor/socratic-digest/paperback/product-20373348.html . Also, Heck as edited and re-produced the Personal Heresy–a book I enjoyed a lot.

Thanks for the publication details! – I’m sure that’s what Arend Smilde showed me one time, but I couldn’t remember any more details!

I don’t remember hearing about his Personal Heresy edition! I’ll try to follow that up. It certainly is a fascinating, enjoyable book to my mind, too.

Personal Heresy is also being re-released this week by Harper Collins in the US. I suspect the Euro scene will follow.

Good to hear!

Not sure if I’ve understood right, but this seems to be missing “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” (with replies and a rejoinder) from 1954:

http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/journals/ResJud/1954/30.html

Fascinating – thank you! I have never seen this publication of the essay (though I have read about it). What I am especially curious about is the lecture on “The Norse Spirit in English Literature” which Lewis prepared for the Joint Broadcasting Committee, part of which Harry Lee Poe encountered on a 78 rpm recording and wrote about in December 2015 in Christianity Today.

It’s in the one volume “Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces” (Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-628157-5)

Hi Leonna, David, and Oliver,” I believe I have “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” at 1949, which is in God in the Dock. David, we have about 1/2 of the Norse Spirit talk in Hal Poe’s second Lewis biography from a couple of years ago. It is neat to read. Almost everything is in the Wamsley essay collection! But it is very hard to find.

Wow. That’s a cool compilation.

I too have frequently availed myself of Smilde’s work, and appreciate your new aid which offers the new timeline information.

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Wow, talk about nerdy-love! I had no idea Lewis wrote essays, let alone wrote so many. This is wonderful. You’ve opened a whole new door of thought for me. Thanks for making the spreadsheet, I can only imagine how much time it took to collate all that information together. Go you! 🙂

Thanks. I suppose you have disregarded the Essay Collection (one-volume 2000, two-volume 2002) because it is no longer available — is that right?

David — All of Lewis’s five surviving papers for the Socratic Club have long found their way into the various collections. Even his 1943 Preface for the first Socratic Digest was reprinted (“The Founding of the Socratic Club”, in God in the Dock, 1970). See Walter Hooper’s list in his essay “Oxford’s Bonny FIghter” in James Como’s CSL at the Breakfast Table (1979, 2nd ed. 1992; re-issued in 2005 as Remembering CSL). The only thing that might be called an exception is the Socratic secretary’s account of CSL’s address on 8 Feb 1943, “If We Have Christ’s Ethics, Does the Rest of the Christan Faith Matter?”: but this short text is included in Hooper’s essay. By the way, Hooper’s list unaccountably omits “Is Theism Important?”, i.e. Lewis’s reply to H. H. Price, probably read in Michaelmas Term 1951 and also reprinted in God in the Dock, 1970.

Hi Arend, no thank you for your work! Mine was a few hours of playing; your work has been years of commitment. Yes, I left out the super big collections which are not impracticably expensive. I have also left out the non-US/UK editions that are floating around (partly because they are incomplete, and partly because though they may not break copyright in their country, it is not blessed by the CSL Co.). Your mentioning “Is Theism Important?” makes me realize I left off the question mark in the chart. It is worthy of note that Joel Heck edited the Socratic Papers that are available and that’s for sale online.

This is excellent; thank you! I’ve passed it on to other people who will appreciate it.

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Seeing this got me wondering how early Lewis wrote about science fiction – from your list, it looks like later than this (unless I’m forgetting some content of earlier essays):

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/15/winston-churchill-essay-alien-life-discovered-us-college-are-we-alone-in-the-universe

It also got me wondering if Churchill knew (of) any of the Ransom books: he could have read OSP before writing this!

Well, I don’t know that Churchill knew much about Lewis except what was in his version of the street, which was probably something like this, spoken over brandy in the 22 hours that Church hill was awake each day, “Pip pip, old boy. Have you heard of that medieval chap at Magdalen. Got religion, it seems. Good face for radio though.” Sorry, that’s how my mind works. Lewis’ first SF I think was Out of the Silent Planet after reading David Lindsay and Charles Williams, and after the bet with Tolkien.

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You may have responded to this above. I have a large collection called: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, edited by Lesley Walmsley, and published by Harper Collins Publishers. It is the UK version published in 2000 (says Text copyright 2000 C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd). I was wondering, how many of the essays that you mention above are contained in this collection, and which other essay collections would I need to get in order to have a full collection of Lewis’s essays. I already have almost every essay collection, but there are a couple that I haven’t yet purchased, and am wondering about whether it is necessary.

I think someone mentioned it, David. I don’t have that book, but I have a PDF that was built off of it. Because it is out of print and wasn’t released in the U.S., I left it out. As Canada, Australia and a few others have Lewis in public domain, I suspect these essays might become available there. Our version of gutenberg in Canada has the fiction. I haven’t compared the collection, but Arend Smilde has. Take a look at his links and he’ll lead you well.

There’s the one single hardback volume ed. / complied by Lesley Walmsley called “C. S. Lewis Essay Collection: and other short pieces” that had everything in. It was also available in two paperbacks — “Faith, Christianity & The Church” and “Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories”, which basically split the one book into two. I think if you have those two (or the single volume) then you have everything. I hope so!

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There is a new collection that would be useful to add to your chart:

https://www.amazon.com/Essay-Collection-Faith-Christianity-Church/dp/0007136536/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=cs+lewis+essays+faith+christianity&qid=1568650019&s=books&sr=1-3

It contains the following essays:

1. The Grand Miracle 2. Is Theology Poetry? 3. The Funeral of a Great Myth 4. God in the Dock 5. What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ? 6. The World’s Last Night 7. Is Theism Important? 8. The Seeing Eye 9. Must Our Image of God Go? 10. Christianity and Culture 11. Evil and God 12. The Weight of Glory 13. Miracles 14. Dogma and the Universe 15. ‘Horrid Red Things’ 16. Religion: Reality or Substitute? 17. Myth Became Fact 18. Religion and Science 19. Christian Apologetics 20. Work and Prayer 21. Religion Without Dogma? 22. The Decline of Religion 23. On Forgiveness 24. The Pains of Animals 25. Petitionary Prayer 26. On Obstinacy in Belief 27. What Christmas Means to Me 28. The Psalms 29. Religion and Rocketry 30. The Efficacy of Prayer 31. Fern-seed and Elephants 32. The Language of Religion 33. Transposition 34. Why I Am Not a Pacifist 35. Dangers of National Repentance 36. Two Ways With the Self 37. Meditation on the Third Commandment 38. On Ethics 39. Three Kinds of Men 40. Answers to Questions on Christianity 41. The Laws of Nature 42. Membership 43. The Sermon and the Lunch 44. Scraps 45. After Priggery-What? 46. Man or Rabbit? 47. ‘The Trouble with “X”…’ 48. On Living in an Atomic Age 49. Lilies That Fester 50. Good Work and Good Works 51. A Slip of the Tongue 52. We Have No ‘ Right to Happiness’ 53. Christian Reunion 54. Priestesses in the Church? 55. On Church Music 56. The Conditions for a Just War 57. The Conflict in Anglican Theology 58. Miracles 59. Mr. C.S. Lewis on Christianity 60. A Village Experience 61. Correspondence with an Anglican who Dislikes Hymns 62. The Church’s Liturgy, Invocation and Invocation of Saints 63. The Holy Name 64. Mere Christians 65. Canonisation 66. Pittenger-Lewis and Version Vernacular 67. Capital Punishment and Death Penalty

That is a strong collection. I see that it is available now, so I’m glad you linked it. I didn’t initially use it because, frankly, I couldn’t find it for a reasonable price. I do see it now! Most of the other volumes are pretty cheap used.

Also I’ve converted your chart to a PDF that is searchable for ease of finding essay titles – I’ve made the link available via Google Docs:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qe9aLtLmoK-HPIwMQtfnx7k5J0LvYJeJ

Thanks for all your work on this!

Thanks Tyler! I hope that is helpful to readers too.

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Selected Literary Essays

Selected Literary Essays is a collection of essays by C.S. Lewis . The book has been reprinted several times.

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Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces  is an anthology of Lewis’ essays, edited by Lesley Walmsley. One setting of the work currently exists. Second edition was renamed  C. S. Lewis Essay Collection  and divided into two paperback volumes.

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COL-LEC-HC1-1-00-Cover

HarperCollins Publishers (2002) Renamed: C. S. Lewis Essay Collection NOTE: EC1 divided into two paperback volumes

Titled: Faith, Christianity, and the Church (2002) Printing: Clays Ltd. St Ives plc

Paperback: Gold signature author over white title on blue bar over blue picture of Lewis looking out window ISBN: 0-00713653-6 429 pages

Printing History: 2. for £9.99

Titled: Literature, Philosophy, and Short Stories (2002) Printing: Omnia Books Ltd., Glasgow

Paperback: Gold signature author over white title on green bar over green picture of Lewis at desk ISBN: 0-00-713654-4 457 pages

COL-LEC-HC2a-2-x-Cover.

COL-LEC-HC2b-1-02-Cover

Tony Reinke

Miscellanies from the sonoran desert, c. s. lewis: essay collection and other short pieces (audiobook).

The most comprehensive collection of essays by C. S. Lewis was edited by Lesley Walmsley in 2000 and published in London. At just over 1,000 pages it is the largest of its kind. And although it was published rather recently, the book has already passed in and out of print and now into the status of a rare and collectible relic.

C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces is simply a goldmine. Used copies of the giant collection of 137 essays, letters, and short stories can be found, but for a price. A few rare hardcovers (and a few even rarer paperbacks) are on the market, starting at around $150!

A much easier way to get this entire collection is in a $35 audiobook through Audible . . . $19.95 audiobook through at Audible . I’m on my second listen through and loving it. The 39 hours of audio is performed by the late British actor, Ralph Cosham (1936–2014).

Here’s the track list:

Essays 1) The Grand Miracle 2) Is Theology Poetry? 3) The Funeral of a Great Myth 4) God In the Dark 5) What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ? 6) The World’s Last Night 7) Is Theism Important? 8) The Seeing Eye 9) Must Our Image of God Go? 10) Christianity and Culture 11) Evil and God 12) The Weight of Glory 13) Miracles 14) Dogma and the Universe 15) The Horrid Red Things 16) Religion: Reality or Substitute? 17) Myth Became Fact 18) Religion and Science 19) Christian Apologetics 20) Work and Prayer 21) Religion Without Dogma? 22) The Decline of Religion 23) Unforgiveness 24) The Pains of Animals 25) Petitionary Prayer: A Problem Without an Answer 26) On Obstinacy in Belief 27) What Christmas Means to Me 28) The Psalms 29) Religion and Rocketry 30) The Efficacy of Prayer 31) Fern Seed and Elephants 32) The Language of Religion 33) Transposition 34) Why I am Not a Pacifist 35) Dangers of National Repentance 36) Two Ways With the Self 37) Meditation on the Third Commandment 38) On Ethics 39) Three Kinds of Men 40) Answers to Questions on Christianity 41) The Laws of Nature 42) Membership 43) The Sermon and the Lunch 44) Scraps 45) After Priggery – What? 46) Man or Rabbit? 47) The Trouble With X 48) On Living in an Atomic Age 49) Lillies that Fester 50) Good Work and Good Works 51) A Slip of the Tongue 52) We Have No Right to Happiness 53) Christian Reunion: An Anglican Speaks to Roman Catholics 54) Priestesses in the Church? 55) On Church Music 56) Christianity and Literature 57) High and Low Brows 58) Is English Doomed? 59) On the Reading of Old Books 60) The Parthenon and the Optative 61) The Death of Words 62) On Science Fiction 63) Miserable Offenders 64) Different Tastes in Literature 65) Modern Translations of the Bible 66) On Juvenile Tastes 67) Sex in Literature 68) The Hobbit 69) Period Criticism 70) On Stories 71) On Three Ways of Writing for Children 72) Prudery and Philology 73) Tolkein’s “The Lord of the Rings” 74) Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said 75) It All Began With a Picture 76) Unreal Estates 77) On Criticism 78) Cross Examination 79) A Tribute to E.R. Eddison 80) The Mythopoeic Gift of Rider Haggard 81) George Orwell 82) A Panegyric for Dorothy L. Sayers 83) The Novels of Charles Williams 84) Learning in War-Time 85) Bulverism (or, The Foundation of 20th Century Thought) 86) The Founding of the Oxford Socratic Club 87) My First School 88) Democratic Education 89) Blimpophobia 90) Private Bates 91) Meditation in a Tool Shed 92) On the Transmission of Christianity 93) Modern Man and His Categories of Thought 94) Historicism 95) The Empty Universe 96) Interim Report 97) Is History Bunk? 98) Before We Can Communicate 99) First and Second Things 100) The Poison of Subjectivism 101) Equality 102) De Futilitate 103) A Dream 104) Hedonics 105) Talking About Bicycles 106) Vivisection 107) The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment 108) Behind the Scenes 109) The Necessity of Chivalry 110) The Inner Ring 111) Two Lectures 112) Some Thoughts 113) X-mas and Christmas 114) Revival or Decay 115) Delinquents in the Snow 116) Willing Slaves of the Welfare State 117) Screwtape Proposes a Toast

Letters 118) The Conditions for a Just War 119) The Conflict in Anglican Theology 120) Miracles 121) Mr. C.S. Lewis on Christianity 122) A Village Experience 123) Correspondence With an Anglican Who Dislikes Hymns 124) The Church’s Liturgy, Invocation, and Invocation of Saints 125) The Holy Name 126) Mere Christians 127) Canonization 128) Pittenger-Lewis and Version Vernacular 129) Capital Punishment and Death Penalty

Short Stories 130) The Man Born Blind 131) The Dark Tower 132) The Dark Tower (continued) 133) The Dark Tower (continued) 134) Ministering Angels 135) The Shoddy Lands 136) After Ten Years 137) Forms of Things Unknown

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11 thoughts on “ c. s. lewis: essay collection and other short pieces (audiobook) ”.

Agreed. I started a week or so ago, and I’m about 10 hours in. Love it.

Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging .

Thank you for sharing this! Sounds like a top notch quality audiobook is worth the buy in this instance!

Thanks for the Audible reminder! For anyone who wants to do this but doesn’t have an audible account, you can sign up for three months discounted membership using code “APPSUMO2015” and you will be charged $2.95 a month for the first 3! Then you get this book for $2.95! I don’t work for audible, just wanted to pass along the goodness. Though CS Lewis is certainly worth the $35.

Brilliant! Thank you

This is so great! Thank you for pointing it out – and providing the contents listing too! I’m a quarter of the way in now, but I imagine this will get regular listens for years to come.

Believe it or not, but I found a copy of this baby for less than 10$ in a bookstore somewhere in Kenya.

Paperback!!!!

I finished listening to it this morning. It includes several pieces I hadn’t read before. Outstanding.

Like a boss! Great work

Tony, thanks for bringing this up. I’m not an audiobook guy, but I snapped up those paperbacks while they were still in print. Even then, you had to order them from the UK or Canada. Why don’t they just reprint the silly things? I’d love to have a hardback.

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Essential C.S. Lewis

Providing Essential Information Related to C.S. Lewis

Tag: Selected Literary Essays

12/10-16 weekly dose of c.s. lewis quotes.

Below you’ll see seven quotes selected from a variety of Lewis’s works over the years that are related to this week (or month). There is also a special video version of this for my YouTube channel, Knowing and Understanding C.S. Lewis, and an audio-only version via my podcast, All About Jack. Direct links to each version are …

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12/3-9 Weekly Dose of C.S. Lewis Quotes

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11/26-12/2 Weekly Dose of C.S. Lewis Quotes

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10/29-11/4 Weekly Dose of C.S. Lewis Quotes

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4/16-22 Weekly Dose of C.S. Lewis Quotes

Welcome to Weekly Dose of C.S. Lewis Quotes! Below you’ll see seven quotes selected from a variety of Lewis’s works over the years that are related to this week (or month). There is also a special video version of this for my YouTube channel, Knowing and Understanding C.S. Lewis, and an audio-only version via my podcast, All …

Read the full post → “4/16-22 Weekly Dose of C.S. Lewis Quotes”

CSL Daily 12/05/20

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Unless there is something about which the author is never ironical, there can be no true irony in the work.” A Note on Jane Austen (Published in Selected Literary Essays; released on 12/4/1969) – – – FACT OF THE DAY: “Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus” is a satirical piece by …

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CSL Daily 12/04/20

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The Bible thus considered, for good or ill, as a single book, has been read for almost every purpose more diligently than for literary pleasure.” The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version (Published in Selected Literary Essays; released on Dec. 4, 1969) – – – FACT OF THE DAY: Selected Literary Essays, edited …

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[PODCAST] Essay Chat #20 – Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem? (Sarah Waters)

“Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem?” is an essay from the academic side of C.S. Lewis. However, even if you are less interested in this type of material, you will still find some useful information from what he discusses. This is part of an occasional podcast series of “essay chats.” Dr. Sarah Waters speaks with …

Read the full post → “[PODCAST] Essay Chat #20 – Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem? (Sarah Waters)”

CSL Daily 12/05/19

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Unless there is something about which the author is never ironical, there can be no true irony in the work.” A Note on Jane Austen (Published in Selected Literary Essays; released on 12/4/1969) – – – FACT OF THE DAY: “Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus” is a satirical piece by …

Read the full post → “CSL Daily 12/05/19”

CSL Daily 12/04/19

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The Bible thus considered, for good or ill, as a single book, has been read for almost every purpose more diligently than for literary pleasure.” The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version (Published in Selected Literary Essays; released on Dec. 4, 1969) – – – FACT OF THE DAY: Selected Literary Essays, edited …

Read the full post → “CSL Daily 12/04/19”

The Surprising Imagination of C.S. Lewis

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C. S. Lewis possessed a fascinating perception of the imagination. Because it was a world he inhabited so frequently, his understanding of it was not limited to a single definition but was distinguished as finely graded parts of a whole. This enabled him to wield one of his greatest powers as an author: using imaginative depiction to enable readers to see a particular thing or truth more clearly. This nuanced understanding has important implications not only for deepening our understanding of Lewis, but for how we use or abuse our own imaginations in matters of life and faith.

In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, Lewis outlines three distinctions of the imagination. First, he describes wish fulfillment, which he also calls reverie or daydream. This is often an unhealthy use of the imagination; it is self-referential and positions the self as the center of the universe and hero of the story. We can easily relate to this. Our daydreams of wealth, power, sex, heroism, and fame are rooted squarely in this type of imaginative fantasy. If we’re honest, we employ this function of the imagination on a daily basis, often without awareness.

The second distinction is invention, at which Lewis was so proficient—the power of depiction, of clarifying one’s vision. It enables us to see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. The benefit here is an enlargement of our being, of seeing the truth of something more deeply through a skillfully composed image or a well-told story.

Though Lewis writes extensively about his experiences of joy—the highest attainment of the imagination—his power as a writer is centered in the second distinction of imagination: depiction. For readers this ability to craft images and story contributes to an enhanced clarity and understanding of the world. Lewis writes elsewhere that “reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” 1 Stories and imaginative depictions bring truths to life out of the dry-as-dust regions in which reason often strands us. This does not mean we should denigrate the truths of reason; rather, we should recognize that the imagination gives us an additional bearing on reality.

However, the imagination as truth-bearer is often misunderstood. We relegate its function and primary use to that of childhood or to the strictly imaginary (which we might equate with falsity), thereby debasing it of any meaning or significance. We rarely understand that our imaginations are a vital source of meaning. The American poet and author Wendell Berry corrects this misapprehension:

Worst of all, the fundamentalists of both science and religion do not adequately understand or respect imagination. Is imagination merely a talent, such as a good singing voice, the ability to “make things up” or “think things up” or “get ideas”? Or is it, like science, a way of knowing things that can be known in no other way? We have much reason to think that it is a way of knowing things not otherwise knowable. As the word itself suggests, it is the power to make us see, and to see, moreover, things that without it would be unseeable. In one of its aspects it is the power by which we sympathize. By its means we may see what it was to be Odysseus or Penelope, David or Ruth, or what it is to be one’s neighbor or one’s enemy. By it, we may “see ourselves as others see us.” It is also the power by which we see the place, the predicament, or the story we are in. 2

Reason provides only half the story. Imagination makes up the difference. It enables us to see not only the manifest reality of the world around us, but the greater story in which we are participants: the story that is being told for all time, past, present, and future. And this ability to perceive the story we are in is critical in matters of faith.

Imaginative Faith: The Assurance of Things Not Seen

When we exercise faith, what else do we use but our imaginations? We wrap words around things in the world to define them and gain greater clarity. The word definition means “of the finite.” Thus, we use our reason to understand the particulars of our world. But God is infinite; He breaks the category of definition. We can’t wrap words around Him, and our reason collapses in attempting to apprehend Him. To understand God at all, we must speak by what the medieval scholastics called the way of analogy. Jesus Himself spoke about the kingdom of heaven only in parables or similes. That is, He used depictions of the imagination that would allow us to grasp, in human terms, a dim idea of God’s attributes.

Thus Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like  a man who sowed good seed.  Like  yeast.  Like  treasure hidden in a field.  Like a merchant looking for fine pearls. Each of these is a depiction of a thing from human experience using an analogy that allows us to apply our imaginative grasp of that thing to God.

We see, when we see at all, only through a glass darkly. Scripture informs us that faith is the assurance of things not seen; that is, things that cannot be discovered through discursive reasoning. The imagination helps us maintain and grow this tenuous position. It enables us to speak of heaven and of sehnsucht, of all that we yearn for that cannot be fulfilled on earth. So we need a greater understanding of and respect for the imagination and how it can provide truth about reality in ways that our reason alone cannot.

Lewis spent the early years of his life attempting to reconcile the divided parts of his mind. How could imagination ever be a source of truth comparable with reason? He loved and valued imagination, but his materialistic worldview wouldn’t allow him to believe it was anything more than make-believe. He wrote a poem, titled “Reason,” about this essential division in his mind. In the poem he asks this question:

Who [will] make imagination’s dim exploring touch Ever report the same as intellectual sight? 3

I believe this split is present in the minds of many followers of Christ today, a division that simply does not give credence to imagination as a primary factor in how we understand and approach God. We are in fact using it, but our ignorance of its role and its functions and our facile understanding of it, as a childish appurtenance that we have long outgrown, causes us to reject and devalue it. We therefore need a more robust conception of how the imagination functions.

Nuanced Imagination: The Key to Deeper Clarity and Truth

For example, Lewis writes of the penetrating imagination that seeks to get at the truth of a thing by looking at it from many different angles. He cites Shakespeare as the great master of the penetrating imagination, often giving numerous metaphors to describe one thing. This allows us to go deeper and expand our understanding.

Primary imagination helps us to make sense of the data supplied by our five senses. Material imagination attempts to depict accurately the material world through vivid description. Realizing that imagination enables us to grasp the complexities of the world and to understand them in matters of truth, we can have a sure, but not a last, word. We can always delve more deeply, apply our understanding more widely, and see it in coherent relation to other truths.

Not every nuance of the imagination is a positive one. Lewis describes the transforming imagination that engages in idealized projection, placing inflated expectations onto the objects of its affection. Similarly, the generous imagination embellishes a thing beyond what it deserves. It is the blind estimation of an idea that can result in groupthink and inner-circle mentality.

To gain more clarity about how Lewis gave overlaid the imagination with nuances, let’s examine one positive and one negative use.

Satisfied Imagination: The Charged World

The satisfied imagination is a nuance that discovers delight in the familiar and in the repetition of the mundane. Lewis writes that the medieval scholastics were the great masters of the satisfied imagination. They created a cosmology of unbelievable complexity. Their model of the universe was not only systematic but also incredibly repetitious, almost mind-bogglingly so. And they reveled in this extensive reiteration.

The model divided the heavens from the earth. All in the realms of the heavens was perfect and ordered, immutable and noncontingent. On earth everything was subject to change and decay and randomness. The medievals delighted in their model because it depicted the heavens as the realm of perfect order that we on earth should attempt to emulate. Contemplation of this order and harmony returns our minds to the source of order and harmony, that is, to God.

And perfect order is simply perfect repetition: each thing fulfilling its nature as it was created. The sun rises each day. The stars appear each night. Each created object fulfills its nature again and again. Only humans have the ability to live at random and to interrupt the pattern.

This ordered repetition of the familiar, Lewis writes, is also where we begin to understand that God is the ground and supplier of both our personal and material reality. All things have their source in God’s sustaining and creative power. Once we embrace this concept, all reality becomes a conduit by which we can apprehend God. 4

Through this realization, we must learn what it means to reenchant the familiar, to see the world around us anew. G.K Chesterton writes,

Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.

5 How can we do this? Lewis notes that any pleasures we experience are “shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibility.” 6 God breaks into our lives through the simplest things: a dog’s smooth fur or the way new leaves appear as green mist on springtime trees. We apprehend God through our pleasures, but we often aren’t aware of it.

As long as familiarity breeds contempt, we will fail. If we are to properly use the satisfied imagination, Lewis notes, we must overcome four obstacles. First is inattention; we are simply not aware enough. The second is the wrong kind of attention. We could imagine that our pleasure in the mundane is simply internal and personal, that its source is not divine. Third is greed; we want the experience again and again. And the fourth is pride, believing that we have been supplied with a secret knowledge denied to others.

7 The satisfied imagination acts as a corrective to the “grass is greener” mentality that prompts us to always seek the next thing or the new vista. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” 8  writes poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Most of the time we are essentially asleep, and we cannot see past the mundane. We must come awake and stay awake if we are to fully use the satisfied imagination and experience Chesterton’s thousandth look.

Controlled Imagination: Virtue as Fantasy

The controlled imagination is a negative use. It projects self-seeking desires onto others to gain ascendency over them. It is akin to the distinction of imagination that Lewis labels wish fulfillment. The self becomes the center of the universe. The controlled imagination can also be what Lewis calls servile. Contrast this with the free  activity in which the self is not central to the thing imagined. The servile activity fuels the controlled imagination with images and wish fulfillment dreams that keep us imprisoned within a fantasy world. George Macdonald writes that “the one principle of hell is—I am my own.” 9  Perhaps Lewis’s best example of the embodiment of the controlled imagination is in  The Screwtape Letters, a fictional work in which a junior devil attempting to guide a human soul to hell is advised by his uncle about the best tactics to use to accomplish this diabolical work.

Seeing With Others’ Eyes: The Imagination as Reconciliation

Finally, how do we use our imaginations for the glory of God? Most uses of the imagination are ultimately reconciling. They enable us to reconcile ourselves to a larger world, to see that world accurately, even with its sorrows and failures, for what it is rather than what we want it to be. They provide us with hope and idealism without illusion. They enable us to see that “we may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.  And the  incognito  is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” 11 As we give nuance to our own imaginations, they give us bearings on our idea of God, what Lewis terms the “Bright Blur,” consequently enriching our lives and deepening our understanding.

At the end of Experiment in Criticism,  Lewis writes that his own eyes are not enough for him. He would see what others have seen. Even that is not enough. He would see what they have imagined. Even more, he regrets that the beasts cannot write books that would allow him to see how the world appears to the eye of a bee or mouse or how it comes charged to the olfactory sense of a dog. 12 We live, as it were, in a narrow prison of self. We desperately need those other eyes to see the world rightly and to continue to expand our understanding. God calls us to live in and know this world well. We best glorify Him when we are most fully ourselves, that is, when we are most like Him and most clearly seeing His creation. The rightly used imagination helps us get there.

Mark Neal, is the co-author of The Surprising Imagination of C.S. Lewis: An Introduction . He has published numerous other articles, interviews on C.S. Lewis, and contributed chapters to books. He lectures both nationally and internationally. Currently the VP of digital marketing for a firm located outside of Chicago, he works with higher education, nonprofits, business and publishing. He has lectured and published on marketing, advertising and social media strategy. Mark is a graduate of Wheaton College and earned his Master’s degree in education from National Louis University. Connect with Mark at  www.markneal.org .

Recommended Reading: Jerry Root and Mark Neal,  The Surprising Imagination of C.S. Lewis: An Introduction  (Abingdon Press, 2015)

The purpose of this book is to introduce C.S. Lewis through the prism of imagination. For Lewis, imagination is both a means and an end. And because he used his own imagination well and often, he is a practiced guide for those of us who desire to reach beyond our grasp. Each chapter highlights Lewis’s major works and then shows how Lewis uses imagination to captivate readers.

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