© Don W. King

This first appeared in The Christian Scholar's Review 27 (Summer 1998): 404-405.

C. S. Lewis: A Centenary Retrospective

A retrospective should attempt to view its subject from as many angles as possible, bringing into sharp relief new or seldom noticed aspects. This issue of CSR celebrating the centenary of the birth of C. S. Lewis (1898-1998) is dedicated to that proposition. Consequently, there are no essays focusing upon Lewis as lay theologian, spiritual mentor, nor Christian apologist; we leave that worthy task to the many conferences, workshops, and other publications also appearing this year.[1] From the inception of this issue, the focus has been to extend and expand our perception of the literary accomplishments of this century’s most popular Christian writer.

While being viewed as a popular writer is frequently the death knell to being evaluated as a literary writer, Lewis has managed to overcome this stigma. This is due in no small part because of the depth of his formal education, his quick mind, his even-handed use of rhetoric, his sense of humor, his apt use of figurative language, especially analogy and metaphor, his fine ear for the sound of words, his turn of the phrase, and, finally, his intuitive ability to write clear, lucid prose. Beyond even these, however, Lewis’ success as a writer springs from his deeply held belief about the core values of civilized life, what he terms “stock responses.” Tracing these back to the Greek and Roman writers he so admired—Homer, Virgil, and Ovid—as well as the towering figures of western literature—Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Yeats—Lewis infuses his work with passages promoting honor, courage, bravery, honesty, charity, respect, and related values.

For example, in the poem “Spartan Nactus” he feigns being unable to understand the nuances of modern literature. Instead he says he is

One whose doom

Retains him always in the class of dunces,

Compelled to offer Stock Responses,

Making the poor best that I can

Of dull things . . . peacocks, honey, the Great Wall, Aldebaran,

Silver streams, cowslip wine, wave on the beach, bright gem,

The shape of trees and women, thunder, Troy, Jerusalem.[2]

In his address upon assuming the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature at Cambridge University in 1955, Lewis puts the same point slightly differently: “It is my settled conviction that in order to read Old Western literature aright you must suspend most of the responses and unlearn most of the habits you have acquired in reading modern literature.”[3] Throughout his writing Lewis never wavers from anchoring himself to stock responses; they are the common denominator, describing for him what it means to be fully human.

The essays in this issue reflect upon Lewis’ faith in stock responses. Marsha Daigle-Williamson’s essay on Lewis as literary critic argues he is the exemplar of T. S. Eliot’s claim a writer establishes “a place in literature” when his work fits the “whole existing order” of previous writers involving “a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.” Given Lewis’ frequently noted denigration of Eliot’s influence upon modern literature, it is ironic Lewis fits Eliot’s description. However, Daigle-Williamson uses this description as the context wherein to explore Lewis’ literary criticism, addressing specifically what Lewis sees as the purpose of literature, his literary predecessors, and his view of the function of literary criticism. The essay by David Downing considers the influence of Lewis the scholar upon Lewis the novelist, especially as seen in his use of Merlin from Arthurian legend in That Hideous Strength. Downing briefly traces the literary appearance of Merlin, noting how Lewis’ knowledge as a scholar of medieval literature informs his work as a novelist in portraying a Merlin in need of spiritual redemption.

Dominic Manganiello considers Lewis’ “answer” to William Blake’s objection to Dante’s notion of hell; in brief, Blake rejects the idea hell is a place of retributive justice. Manganiello deftly traces through The Great Divorce Dantean allusions, showing how Lewis attacks Blake’s antinomian ethics. In the end, Lewis validates an ethic grounded in “the eternal verities of the Commedia.” Brett Foster shifts the focus to Lewis as social critic in his discussion of The Abolition of Man. He considers Lewis’ defense of the Tao, “the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false,” and shows how writers as disparate as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Walker Percy, and Roger Shattuck likewise share Lewis’ concern for the Tao. Foster ends by briefly musing upon how Lewis’ views fit in a post-modern world.

Walter Hooper provides us a fascinating glimpse into Lewis as a lecturer at Oxford and Cambridge. In addition to listing by title, date, and place each lecture, Hooper offers thoughtful background information on the place of the lecture at these universities. Moreover, he traces in several instances how a series of lectures Lewis gives leads to scholarly publication, the most notable being A Preface to Paradise Lost. My essay on Lewis as poet argues his first published work, the volume of poetry Spirits in Bondage, is profoundly influenced by World War I and considers Lewis’ war poetry in light of that of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. The essay concludes by urging readers to consider how Lewis’ poetic sensibilities influence his prose.

I began by saying a retrospective should help us see its subject from new vantage points. It is tempting as well to suggest how the subject will be viewed in another hundred years. Will Lewis still be as popular in 2098 as he is in 1998? Which of his works will endure? How will his work influence the next several generations? Almost certainly Lewis will not be as influential one hundred years from now; yet hopefully another equally gifted writer will emerge to speak the same truths in a format and context relevant to his or her twenty-first century audience. Also, works like The Chronicles of Narnia and his Christian apologetics will endure much longer than his scholarly work (regretfully). And Lewis’ influence will never completely fade; he may be remembered by future generations as a composite of John Milton, John Bunyan, and Dr. Samuel Johnson. Lofty comparisons, but deservedly so.

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[1] As of the end of 1997, over thirty five events have been planned. For current information, see the “Newsletter of the C S Lewis Centenary Group” at coiace@iol.ie. It may be no exaggeration to say that Lewis’ centenary will be celebrated in one way or another somewhere in the world during every week of 1998.

[2] Punch 227 (December 1, 1954): 685. The title means “Spartan having obtained.” Revised and retitled “A Confession” in C. S. Lewis, Poems, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964), p. 1.

[3] “De Descriptione Temporum,” reprinted in Selected Literary Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 13.