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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... creation of the stories I had loved since childhood. I began to suspect that my interest in the works of Spenser and Milton might have been partially fueled by meeting some of their characters, settings, and themes before: in Narnia ...
... lamppost where Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus, the fantastic creation of Narnia in The 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.
... creation of Jadis. Like Duessa, the White Witch appears with all the trappings of royalty and an usurped name. As Lucy reports, “She calls herself the Queen of Narnia though she has no right to be queen at all.... And she drives about ...
... creation of Digory and his dying mother, well knew the temptation o›ered by Jadis, for he knew the agony Digory feels and the longing to make everything right again. Such a longing is not, in and of itself, wrong, but, when manipulated ...
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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 |