Bücher der Reihe C. S. Lewis Secondary Studies

"Previously published by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1981 "--Title page verso.

""I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices, almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.""--C. S. Lewis on The Chronicles of Narnia

""That a writer of Dr. Lewis's scholarly and literary stature should publish more than a dozen books directly or indirectly defending Christianity is news; that his works should have such wide repercussions is still more significant news and merits a second thought. What does it mean when his books become best-sellers? Does the fact indicate anything about the intellectual currents of the present decade? If so, it seems time to examine more closely the exact kind of Christianity and philosophy presented in Dr. Lewis's writings, and the literary techniques that have brought him into the forefront of authors dealing with religious themes.""""In this book I hope to add something (though not too much) to the scanty supply of biographical information available about Dr. Lewis, but my main concern will be with his ideas, the way he presents them, and the significance of his popularity. ""--from the foreword by the author

Word and Story has broken new ground by enlisting well-known scholars in the examination of Lewis's ideas about language and narrative, both as stated in theory and as exemplified in practice. Never before has such clear, significant, and thorough work in these areas been brought together in one place.This compilation of sixteen essays demonstrates how an awareness of Lewis's ideas about language and narrative is essential to a full understanding and appreciation of his thought and works. The contributors examine Lewis's poetry, The Dark Woods, Studies in Words, and other works that have so far received little attention, in addition to more familiar parts of the Lewis canon. By approaching Lewis primarily as an artist and theorist, not just a Christian apologist, these essays offer new insights into his creative imagination, critical acumen, and his craftsmanship as a writer. One comes away from this book with a fresh vision and with heightened expectation, eager to return to Lewis's works.""[Word and Story is] superior . . . to any other collection that has so far appeared [on C. S. Lewis]. . . . One comes across many observations in this book that evoke the response, not just of an acquiescent nod, but also of further reflection.""--Owen Barfield, from the afterwordPeter J. Schakel is the Peter C. and Emajean Cook Professor of English at Hope College. He is the author of five books on C. S. Lewis: Reading with the Heart, Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of ""Till We Have Faces"", Imagination and the Arts in C.S. Lewis, The Way into Narnia: A Reader's Guide, and Is Your Lord Large Enough? He has also coedited several literature textbooks with Jack Ridl. Charles A. Huttar is Emeritus Professor of English at Hope College. He is the editor of Imagination and the Spirit: Essays in Literature and the Christian Faith presented to Clyde S. Kilby, coeditor of The Rhetoric of Vision: Essays on Charles Williams and Scandalous Truths: Essays by and about Susan Howatch, and author of many essays on Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams.

C. S. Lewis's extremely popular works of fiction have been widely discussed in terms of the ideas and religious themes they express and defend, but less often in terms of their purely literary qualities. Ironically, Lewis, himself a noted literary critic, would have objected to any such one-sided analysis of his works. To concentrate exclusively, or even primarily, on the content of a work without a consideration of its form and style was, in his view, a seriously unbalanced method of criticism.The Longing for a Form corrects this critical imbalance by supplying a theoretical background and detailed close readings for a better understanding and appreciation of Lewis's fiction as works of art. Following three general studies, a section of the book is devoted to each to Lewis's major efforts in fiction--the Ransom trilogy, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Till We Have Faces--considering the distinctive literary features of each group and individual books within the group.Running through the book is an emphasis on form--as literary kind and as structure--and a recurrent attention to three themes of particular importance in Lewis as a writer of fiction: objectivism, longing, and the literary artist as creator. Individually, the essays supply fresh insights into the style and meaning of specific works by Lewis; as a group they illustrate a depth, technical skill, and unity of thought and theme which have not previously been accorded Lewis as an artist in fiction.Peter J. Schakel is Professor of English at Hope College in Holland, MI.

C. S. Lewis has been read and studied as though he were two authors--a writer of Christian apologetics and a writer of science fiction and fantasy. Only in recent years has there been any move to examine his work as the creation of a single, unique mind. This is the first major critical study to undertake that task. Chad Walsh, who wrote an earlier study of Lewis, Apostle to the Skeptics, reassesses the Oxford don's legacy fifteen years after his death--his poetry, visionary fiction, and space fiction; The Chronicles of Narnia; Till We Have Faces; his criticism; and his religious-philosophical writing. Lewis emerges as an archetypal Christian and the creator of some of the most original books of our century.

Fifty years after his death, C. S. Lewis fascinates his readers still. Well established as a key figure in children's literature he is increasingly recognized as a significant Christian thinker. The authors in this volume are from a wide range of Christian traditions--testimony to the reach and significance of Lewis's legacy. The essays return to Lewis's devotional and theological works, assessing their place in his own thought and in the theology of the twentieth century. Lewis emerges as an insightful and creative theologian whose ideas continue to surprise in their sophistication and fecundity. Indeed, it is suggested that he represents a way of doing theology--"mere theology"--which suggests ways in which Christian thought may reengage the complex cultural debates of the contemporary world.