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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... textual analysis of The Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost, and the Chronicles, I relied on Lewis's own words about his own writing and the epic poems that he treasured throughout his life. Fortunately, Lewis did not hesitate to express ...
... texts on Lewis and perhaps provide a gateway for readers to look to Lewis's sources for themselves.2 Tracking every element of any literary work back to each possible influence is all but impossible. It is, however, possible to see how ...
... textual issues. Lewis's boldness in claiming his Christian beliefs, rather than making excuses for them, has also ... texts, so important to him on a variety of levels, were absorbed into the very essence of who Lewis was and what he ...
... texts like The Abolition of Man after happily reading through the entire Chronicles in a few weeks' time. Lewis himself was also aware of the scholarly tendency to disregard any piece of writing that a child might enjoy or that any ...
... texts. In addition, it is important to see why Lewis so clearly echoes The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost, and how all these elements work together to convey similar meanings.5 In order to analyze how the depiction of evil in Narnia ...
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 |