In addition to referring to Dante occasionally in his scholarly books, Lewis published three essays specifically about Dante: “Dante’s Similes,” “Imagery in the Last Eleven Cantos of Dante’s Comedy,” and “Dante’s Statius” (available in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature). Readers unacquainted with The Divine Comedy can’t realize how much it influenced Lewis. Those well acquainted with it are apt Read More ›
The following little-known descriptions of Christianity are from the writings of C. S. Lewis and Karl Marx: 1. Union with Christ imparts an inner elevation, comfort in affliction, tranquil reliance, and a heart which opens itself to everything noble and great not for the sake of ambition or desire for fame, but for the sake of Christ. Union with Christ Read More ›
Kathryn Lindskoog and Gracia Fay Ellwood Earlier versions of this essay were published in The Christian Century and The Taste of the Pineapple. THE HUMAN RACE is haunted by the idea of doing what is right. In the first five chapters of Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis discusses the fact that people are always referring to some standard of behavior that Read More ›
“What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects — with their Christianity latent.” “Christian Apologetics” in God in the Dock 1. Spirits in Bondage (London: Heinemann, 1919; San Diego: Harcourt,1984). A collection of early poems published under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton. 2. Dymer (London: Dent, 1926; New York: Dutton, Read More ›
Walter Hooper’s C.S. Lewis: Companion and Guide $40 This 940-page volume from Harper-San Francisco is the first by Hooper that does not lead off with his fictitious secretaryship and/or deep friendship with Lewis. Instead, the book flaps identify Hooper as an eminent Lewis scholar, a trustee of his estate, and editor of Letters of C. S. Lewis (the collection originally Read More ›
It seemed ironic enough that in 1990 Collins (publisher of most C. S. Lewis books) paid biographer A. N. Wilson a small fortune to trash Lewis, and in 1995 Oxford University Press (publisher of six Lewis books) brought out John Goldthwaite’s Natural History of Make-Believe, trashing Lewis. An odd way for even the most cynical publishers to treat one of Read More ›
“Looking for God — or Heaven — by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare’s plays in the hope you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters or Stratford as one of the places. Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play. But he is never present in the same way as Falstaff Read More ›
In January 1996 Primary Colors, the anonymous novel by a political insider, was released by Random House. Thanks in part to curiosity about the author, it was on the New York Times best-seller list 20 weeks, nine weeks as number one. At mid-year 1.2 million hardbacks had sold, and it was being translated into foreign languages. Warner paid $1.5 million Read More ›
Readers have often wondered what Walter Hooper’s motivation is, and of course no one knows. But C. S. Lewis gave us a possible insight to that mystery in his little-known 1948 essay “Kipling’s World,” in Selected Literary Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969). There Lewis analyzed his ambivalent response to Kipling: strong admiration and strong recoil. “To belong, to be Read More ›
According to Books & Culture, celebrated Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, who died at 82 on 2 December 1995, had many careers: “as the last of the Oxford aesthetes, as a stagemanager at London’s Old Vic theatre, as the newspaper columnist who created and popularized the curmudgeonly Canadian commentator ‘Samuel Marchbanks,’ as a hopeful young playwright, as a disappointed middle-aged playwright Read More ›