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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... human, Narnian, and nonhuman females within the Chronicles who are generally positive or neutral. Examining Spenser and Milton as sources for Lewis's depiction of females reveals how varied and surpris- ing the roles of women in Narnia ...
... human being.2 When C.S. Lewis wrote about the composition process he followed for the Chronicles of Narnia, he frequently emphasized that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was born out of images he had been mulling over for years ...
... human tendencies can turn dangerous. Just as witches have always used what seems innocent—apples, spindles, romantic fulfillment—Jadis and Duessa promise the protagonists what they think most desirable and attempt to convince them that ...
... human. In Mr. Beaver's opinion, this is further evidence of how dangerous she is: “take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be Human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't ...
... human blood in the Witch.” “That's why she's bad all through, Mr. Beaver,” said Mrs. Beaver [77]. Jadis's descent from Lilith is a connection to the Hebraic and Babylonian archetype of Adam's first wife “cast out of Eden for ...
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 |