Nov 25, 2023·edited Nov 25, 2023Liked by Joel J Miller
Readers of Spenser's Faerie Queene, a great favorite of Lewis's, will find a likely origin of his method in the Narnian books. Spenser freely mingles Classical and Northern European mythology and folklore, and elements of Western history. As for the Calormenes, they are "Paynims," idolaters.
Lewis writes enjoyably about Spenser in Selected Literary Essays ("On Reading 'The Faerie Queene'" is a good one to start with), a portion of English Literature in the 16th Century, and, for last, Spenser's Images of Life.
I'm afraid that, where the FQ is taught at all any more, teachers burden the student with bosh about "critical lenses" of postcolonialism, gender issues (Britomart!), etc. and allusions by Spenser to contemporary politics. For most readers these are not good ways to make acquaintance with this poem, which should be read largely for pleasure. Anyway that's what I aimed at when I taught Book I, using the very reader-friendly edition published by Canon Press, Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves. There is wisdom there that doesn't require the tools of today's scholarship to perceive.
Lewis said ideally one would meet the FQ as a young person in a copiously illustrated edition. Get hold of the Dover paperback of Walter Crane's drawings for the FQ and enjoy them as you read Spenser.
This info is kind of a relief to me, actually. When I moved to London in my 20's to work among "people of the East" (the East End of London, actually, but also originally much much further East), I reread both Narnia, and I remember being stunned at the glimpses of culture I was encountering in real life, especially in the Horse and His Boy. But I was also disquieted that it seemed like most of that cultural/literary borrowing got applied to Narnia's "villains." I'm rather happy for the revelation that some of those Eastern literary devices, etc, were also woven into the Narnian Paradise and other places. (And I did know about the name Aslan. That always helped!)
For me, Lewis's genius was his ability to take so many different legends and traditions and show how they inevitably pointed to the truth of Christianity. "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face."
One year as a fourth-grade teacher, I read the entire Narnia series to my class, because it was all they wanted to hear. I think now it is time to reread it just for myself. I’ve forgotten so much.... great article, Joel. Thanks.
I especially love Lewis’s statement, “A man writing a story is too excited about the story itself...” That reminds me that writing is best undertaken as a joy. Many an author has said they are glad “to have written” a work, but fewer are those who can say they truly reveled in and relished the process itself.
The real difference between Lewis and Tolkien is that Tolkien is Le Morte d'Arthur and. C.S. Lewis is Orlando Furioso. One is the totality that has every detail from the beginning even if it is not in the author's mind to put it in the novel. The other one is a potpourri of tales mixed together and has a hidden meaning in the Bible. Some people don't like the fact that people who don't accept the Bible except CS Lewis, but that is their problem because CS Lewis admitted that others who don't accept the underlying principle can read it as an allegory. (Yes, I know that's a long sentence - Sosumi)
I loved the Narnia books when I was a child, and later as an adult when I began to understand the meaning in the stories he was weaving from so many threads. Do you know Katherine Langrishe's book 'From Spare Oom to War Drobe'? It's a fascinating read, where, accompanied by her nine year old self, she revisits and re-analyses Lewis's motivation, intention and possible sources. It's a delightful book. Here's a link. https://www.katherinelangrish.co.uk/books/from-spare-oom-to-war-drobe-travels-in-narnia-with-my-nine-year-old-self/
I always thought the bird on the tree was a phoenix, another recurring bird of various mythologies. I enjoyed Lewis's magpie fantasy in Narnia and understood it because, in my child brain, I liked to combine all my favourite fairytales too.
[N.B. Tolkien, for all he deplored Lewis's recombinant Narnia, did the same borrowing and recombining with Middle Earth - the stealing of the cup and the ensuing dragon wrath in The Hobbit are found in the Firedrake section of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, while the wearer-destroying Ring of Power, the tragedy of the children of Hurin, and the romances between immortal Elf and mortal Human all have parallels in the eleventh century High German Nibelungenlied.]
The Tree of Life is nearly universal in mythology, from the Ygddrasill of the Norsemen to the Anishinaabe Nation in North America: https://nativecanadianarts.com/gallery/tree-life-jjacko/. After all, the Tree not only appears in Genesis, but also in Revelation.
This is so interesting. I think the best writing is informed by the author's own absorption of his reading, and so often it draws on the archetypes that constantly pop up in myth and traditional stories. Reading such a book is enriching because in it you see reflections of the same archetypes that crop up in your own imagination. A great book or poem is a multi-faceted diamond, each face showing a new insight, which is why every time you read it you get some other insight from it.
Readers of Spenser's Faerie Queene, a great favorite of Lewis's, will find a likely origin of his method in the Narnian books. Spenser freely mingles Classical and Northern European mythology and folklore, and elements of Western history. As for the Calormenes, they are "Paynims," idolaters.
Lewis writes enjoyably about Spenser in Selected Literary Essays ("On Reading 'The Faerie Queene'" is a good one to start with), a portion of English Literature in the 16th Century, and, for last, Spenser's Images of Life.
I'm afraid that, where the FQ is taught at all any more, teachers burden the student with bosh about "critical lenses" of postcolonialism, gender issues (Britomart!), etc. and allusions by Spenser to contemporary politics. For most readers these are not good ways to make acquaintance with this poem, which should be read largely for pleasure. Anyway that's what I aimed at when I taught Book I, using the very reader-friendly edition published by Canon Press, Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves. There is wisdom there that doesn't require the tools of today's scholarship to perceive.
Lewis said ideally one would meet the FQ as a young person in a copiously illustrated edition. Get hold of the Dover paperback of Walter Crane's drawings for the FQ and enjoy them as you read Spenser.
This info is kind of a relief to me, actually. When I moved to London in my 20's to work among "people of the East" (the East End of London, actually, but also originally much much further East), I reread both Narnia, and I remember being stunned at the glimpses of culture I was encountering in real life, especially in the Horse and His Boy. But I was also disquieted that it seemed like most of that cultural/literary borrowing got applied to Narnia's "villains." I'm rather happy for the revelation that some of those Eastern literary devices, etc, were also woven into the Narnian Paradise and other places. (And I did know about the name Aslan. That always helped!)
For me, Lewis's genius was his ability to take so many different legends and traditions and show how they inevitably pointed to the truth of Christianity. "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face."
One year as a fourth-grade teacher, I read the entire Narnia series to my class, because it was all they wanted to hear. I think now it is time to reread it just for myself. I’ve forgotten so much.... great article, Joel. Thanks.
I especially love Lewis’s statement, “A man writing a story is too excited about the story itself...” That reminds me that writing is best undertaken as a joy. Many an author has said they are glad “to have written” a work, but fewer are those who can say they truly reveled in and relished the process itself.
Thanks Joel. Insightful and interesting as always. I am feeling a need to revisit Lewis at some point. It has been a few years.
The real difference between Lewis and Tolkien is that Tolkien is Le Morte d'Arthur and. C.S. Lewis is Orlando Furioso. One is the totality that has every detail from the beginning even if it is not in the author's mind to put it in the novel. The other one is a potpourri of tales mixed together and has a hidden meaning in the Bible. Some people don't like the fact that people who don't accept the Bible except CS Lewis, but that is their problem because CS Lewis admitted that others who don't accept the underlying principle can read it as an allegory. (Yes, I know that's a long sentence - Sosumi)
I loved the Narnia books when I was a child, and later as an adult when I began to understand the meaning in the stories he was weaving from so many threads. Do you know Katherine Langrishe's book 'From Spare Oom to War Drobe'? It's a fascinating read, where, accompanied by her nine year old self, she revisits and re-analyses Lewis's motivation, intention and possible sources. It's a delightful book. Here's a link. https://www.katherinelangrish.co.uk/books/from-spare-oom-to-war-drobe-travels-in-narnia-with-my-nine-year-old-self/
I always thought the bird on the tree was a phoenix, another recurring bird of various mythologies. I enjoyed Lewis's magpie fantasy in Narnia and understood it because, in my child brain, I liked to combine all my favourite fairytales too.
[N.B. Tolkien, for all he deplored Lewis's recombinant Narnia, did the same borrowing and recombining with Middle Earth - the stealing of the cup and the ensuing dragon wrath in The Hobbit are found in the Firedrake section of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, while the wearer-destroying Ring of Power, the tragedy of the children of Hurin, and the romances between immortal Elf and mortal Human all have parallels in the eleventh century High German Nibelungenlied.]
The Tree of Life is nearly universal in mythology, from the Ygddrasill of the Norsemen to the Anishinaabe Nation in North America: https://nativecanadianarts.com/gallery/tree-life-jjacko/. After all, the Tree not only appears in Genesis, but also in Revelation.
Loved this.
This is so interesting. I think the best writing is informed by the author's own absorption of his reading, and so often it draws on the archetypes that constantly pop up in myth and traditional stories. Reading such a book is enriching because in it you see reflections of the same archetypes that crop up in your own imagination. A great book or poem is a multi-faceted diamond, each face showing a new insight, which is why every time you read it you get some other insight from it.
Do you by chance recall the source for the Seneca quote? From one of his letters or essays?