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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... enchanted to learn that there were six more Chronicles when a family friend gave me the entire set. Over the years I wore out two complete sets of the Chronicles with my frequent re-readings and was delighted to discover other facets of ...
... enchanted, that animal may be able to talk, that seemingly ordinary little girl may become a hero, that old wardrobe may be a gateway to another world. Because of this, scholars, like myself, are returning to the stories we have loved ...
... enchanted food, such as Turkish Delight. In addition, her red mouth marks one of her most powerful weapons: words which often twist and distort the truth in order to bring others under her sway. She also uses words in a more tangible ...
... enchantment. The other one, perhaps more important, is the technique of mental confusion and the subjugation of ... enchanted that people “would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it until ...
... enchantment and her manipulation of life and death for the mortally stricken Sans joy. Certainly, counteracting the forces of life and death and turning people into other things is a perversion and corruption of nature. However, by ...
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 |