C.
S. Lewis
(1898-1963)
LIFE:
Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898, the second son of a lawyer (his older
brother, Warren (“Warnie”), was three years older than him).
His family was of Welsh origin. Lewis’s mother died when he was 10
years old, and he and his brother were sent to school in England; one of
his ways of compensating was to compose stories. As a child, he listened
with great interest to fairy tales told to him by his Irish nurse, and
also loved the stories of Beatrix Potter, himself
writing stories set in “Animal Land.” Manlove claims that Lewis “learned
to fear emotion” through observation of his father’s grief at the death
of his mother. Sammons concludes that her death left him “angry with
God,” perhaps suggesting an origin for his loss of faith in his early teens.
Lewis won a scholarship to Oxford but WWI broke out shortly after he began
attending. Although he was not required to serve, being Irish rather
than English, he volunteered for the British Army and served as an officer
until he was wounded in an artillery attack.
While teaching at Oxford, Lewis initially set up a household with the sister
and the mother of his friend, Paddy Moore; in 1930, he and Warnie bought
a new home where Lewis and Mrs. Moore lived (joined by Warnie when he retired
from the Army in 1932). Lewis and Mrs. Moore, who was 16 years older
than he, lived together “off and on” until her death in 1951; he never
spoke to others about the nature of this relationship.
Lewis was converted to Christianity as an adult (he had fallen away from
his childhood religion when he was in his early teens) and wrote his first
book of Christian apologetics, The Pilgrim’s Regress, in 1933.
As he recalled later, the conversion took place on a motorcycle ride with
his brother in 1931, although he had admitted the existence of God two
years earlier.
In 1933, the year of Pilgrim’s Regress, he took part in the first
meeting of the Inklings, which continued to meet regularly for the next
16 years. In 1938, he published his first work of popular fiction,
Out
of the Silent Planet, the first volume in the space trilogy.
He was already established as a scholar and writer of religious books and
novels for adults when he began to work on the Narnia stories. During
WWII, some children from London were sent to live in his home in the country,
to keep them safe from the bombings; this experience helped to trigger
his interest in writing for children, and also gave him the situation that
begins LWW.
Lewis first began corresponding with Joyce Davidson (Gresham) in 1950,
responding to letters from her. She had read his works and been influenced
by them to convert to Christianity. She came to England and met Lewis
in 1952, while she was still married; they became friends but at this point
apparently nothing more. The next year, she divorced and moved to
England with her boys, renewing the friendship with Lewis.
In 1954, Lewis moved from Oxford to Cambridge, where he finished out his
academic career. He initially married Joyce in 1957, partially to
give her British citizenship so that she would not be deported; she was
very sick and expected to die from cancer shortly after the marriage.
However, she experienced a remission of the cancer.
WORK:
"At first," wrote C. S. Lewis, "they [the Chronicles of Narnia]
were not a story, just pictures." The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
began with a mental image of a snowy wood with a little goat-footed faun
scurrying along carrying an umbrella and a pile of parcels. "This picture,"
he later recalled, "had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then,
one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: 'Let's try to make a
story about it . . .' "
Lucy in the book was named for Lucy Barfield, the daughter of Lewis’s friend
Owen Barfield. Some time after the book appeared, Lucy Barfield was
stricken with MS; she continued to receive letters from Lewis’s readers
wishing her well and asking about Narnia, which some believed she had actually
visited.
Tolkien thought LWW was poorly done, with
too many elements that clashed with one another: both a wicked witch and
Father Christmas, both children and talking animals. He also
thought that Lewis’s work was excessively didactic and preachy in its Christianity.
According to Manlove, Narnia “is a world still capable of primal innocence”
despite the temporary successes of evil. The morality of the world
is absolute, with spiritual distinctions drawn in black and white.
It is Aslan that maintains the purity of the land through his perfect goodness
(104).
Although Lewis did not think of his work as an allegory in the sense of Pilgrim’s Progress, he acknowledged that it could be read allegorically. The religious themes of the whole series were described by Lewis in a letter like this:
Lewis’s BooksThe Magician's Nephew tells of the Creation and how evil entered Narnia, The Lion etc. - the Crucifixion and Resurrection, Prince Caspian - restoration of the true religion after a corruption, The Horse and His Boy - the calling and conversion of the heathen, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - the spiritual life (especially in Reepicheep), The Silver Chair - the continuing war against the powers of darkness, The Last Battle - the coming of Antichrist (the ape). The end of the world and the last judgement.'
Sources:
L. Sprague De Camp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of
Heroic Fantasy. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1976; Bruce L. Edwards,
“C.S. Lewis: A Modest Biography” (http://cslewis.drzeus.net/bio/bio.html);
Anne-Marie Imbornoni, “C.S. Lewis: The Creator of Narnia” (http://kids.infoplease.lycos.com/spot/narnia-lewis.html);
Into the Wardrobe: The C.S. Lewis Website (http://cslewis.drzeus.net/);
C. N. Manlove, Modern Fantasy: Five Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1975; Narnia.com (http://www.narnia.com/);
Martha C. Sammons, A Guide Through Narnia. Wheaton,
IL: Harold Shaw, 1979.
A. Waller Hastings
Professor of English
Northern State University
Aberdeen, SD 57401
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