Milton, Spenser and The Chronicles of Narnia: Literary Sources for the C.S. Lewis NovelsIn 1950, Clive Staples Lewis published the first in a series of children's stories that became The Chronicles of Narnia. The now vastly popular Chronicles are a widely known testament to the religious and moral principles that Lewis embraced in his later life. What many readers and viewers do not know about the Chronicles is that a close reading of the seven-book series reveals the strikingly effective influences of literary sources as diverse as George MacDonald's fantastic fiction and the courtly love poetry of the High Middle Ages. Arguably the two most influential sources for the series are Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen and John Milton's Paradise Lost. Lewis was so personally intrigued by these two particular pieces of literature that he became renowned for his scholarly studies of both Milton and Spenser. This book examines the important ways in which Lewis so clearly echoes The Faerie Queen and Paradise Lost, and how the elements of each work together to convey similar meanings. Most specifically, the chapters focus on the telling interweavings that can be seen in the depiction of evil, female characters, fantastic and symbolic landscapes and settings, and the spiritual concepts so personally important to C.S. Lewis. |
From inside the book
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... Magician's Nephew. After beginning my college teaching career, and often feeling pangs of sympathy for Lewis the teacher as I tried to convey my own passion for literature to students who saw poetry as a form of torture rather than a ...
... Magician's Nephew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MN The Last Battle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LB Introduction “Any children's story,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “that can be 5 A Note on Citations.
... Magician's Nephew, or the incredible sights encountered by the crew of the Dawn Treader at the end of the world: “Together they [the Chronicles] 15 Introduction.
... Magician's Nephew 72 Although the Chronicles clearly focus on the positive and powerful force of Aslan and his followers, evil in the series is given a thorough and well-developed treatment that echoes The Faerie Queene and Paradise ...
... Magician's Nephew, Digory, struggling with the reality of his mother's terminal illness, has been sent on a mission to retrieve an apple that, once planted, will produce a tree to protect Narnia from the evil Jadis represents. He is ...
Contents
17 | |
The Depiction of Evil Men Mortals Monsters and Misled Protagonists | 51 |
Girls Whose Heads Have Something Inside Them The Characterization of Women | 77 |
An Inside Bigger Than Its Outside Setting and Geography | 107 |
Knowing Him Better There Spirituality and Belief | 135 |
Conclusion | 159 |
Chapter Notes | 163 |
Bibliography | 177 |
Index | 183 |