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Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis
An in-depth study of Lewis’s great love of literature and his monumental work as a literary critic.
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 3, 2017
An Exploration of Western Literature
16 March 2009
When I saw this book sitting on my friend's bookshelf it was instantly hooked, and after a quick flick through the contents I knew that I wanted to read it. I guess I am very blessed to have the friends that I have. Anyway, this is a book about C.S. Lewis and the literature that he read. Moreso it is like a exploration of western literature through the eyes of C.S. Lewis from the classic world through to the modern world. The exploration of the literature is sandwiched between an outline of C.S. Lewis as a person and a teacher and modern critic, particularly the post modern interpretation of literature where the original intentions of the author cease to be of importance and the beliefs of the reader take the center stage. In looking at this book, I will quickly look at Lewis as a person, and a brief exploration of his literary tastes (the breadth of which is incredible) and also a quick comment on post-modern criticism (which, at the time of writing, I did not care much for).
To me Lewis, as a teacher, would have swung between the incredibly scary to the life changing. He was a tutor that would challenge and question his students, and not in a half-hearted way, but in a way that forced them to think deeply about what they wrote and why the wrote it. When looking at an essay, he would tear it to pieces, forcing the student to justify why they said what they said. Personally, I do not like being put on the spot, but it is a method that forces one to not only come prepared, but also have strong arguments backing up ones' position. I doubt simply agreeing with everything Lewis said would have sufficed. However, while being scary, he would have been a lecturer that forced one to think deeply about what was written. Further, he was not one who favoured reading lists (and this was before computers and printers). Instead he would give his students ideas, forcing them to go out and explore for themselves. As mentioned, while being scary, he would have been a tutor that being in his class would have been a blessing indeed.
This book does not look at Lewis' theology (in that he wasn't a theologian, but rather a professor of literature who had a deep interest in theology). His specialty was medieval and renaissance literature (despite not accepting that there ever was a renaissance in English literature). As a child his father's rule was that he was allowed to read any of the mountains of books in his home, which looking back would have been an incredible experience. As a child he was taught the classic languages of Latin and Greek to the point where he could read a Greek text without having to translate it in his head (a skill I suspect not many people have these days).
As mentioned, this was not his specialty, but rather medieval and renaissance literature, being mostly Spenser's Faerie Queene (he didn't hold much stock in Chaucer). He also liked Milton's Paradise Lost (which he wrote a preface to). It seems that the literature that he liked the most was the literature that fired up his imagination. However, he did not care much for Bernard Shaw or Jules Verne (which I must heartily disagree) though he is always able to put a good argument in support of these positions (he did not care much for Verne's technobabble, whereas I consider Verne to be one of the fathers of modern science fiction). Further, Lewis did not seem to be too impressed with Shakespeare's plays (and Tolkin pretty much detested them).
Finally, literary criticism: this book ends with a very interesting chapter on literary criticism, and how postmodern criticism is destroying the original author. The author writes the work, but then the critics dive upon the work to drag their own interpretations from it, far from what the original author intended. It reminds me of a scene in a movie (Back to School), where the main character hires Kurt Vonnegat to write an essay on his own book, only to have it come back as a fail. While it may be amusing, unfortunately it is all too true. An English lecturer I had in university would also bring all her lectures on Shakespeare around to sex. Granted, Shakespeare was an incredibly dirty author (especially if one is able to see through the fog that the language throws up around the plays) but I would hardly call him sex obsessed (though gender identity does play a significant role in plays such as As You Like It, though the concept of girls dressing up as boys tends to have more to do with power and protection, considering the state of women back in those days, than some hidden sexual frustration). As a pastor used to say once, a text without a context is nothing more than a pretext, and that is what postmodern criticism creates.
16 March 2009
When I saw this book sitting on my friend's bookshelf it was instantly hooked, and after a quick flick through the contents I knew that I wanted to read it. I guess I am very blessed to have the friends that I have. Anyway, this is a book about C.S. Lewis and the literature that he read. Moreso it is like a exploration of western literature through the eyes of C.S. Lewis from the classic world through to the modern world. The exploration of the literature is sandwiched between an outline of C.S. Lewis as a person and a teacher and modern critic, particularly the post modern interpretation of literature where the original intentions of the author cease to be of importance and the beliefs of the reader take the center stage. In looking at this book, I will quickly look at Lewis as a person, and a brief exploration of his literary tastes (the breadth of which is incredible) and also a quick comment on post-modern criticism (which, at the time of writing, I did not care much for).
To me Lewis, as a teacher, would have swung between the incredibly scary to the life changing. He was a tutor that would challenge and question his students, and not in a half-hearted way, but in a way that forced them to think deeply about what they wrote and why the wrote it. When looking at an essay, he would tear it to pieces, forcing the student to justify why they said what they said. Personally, I do not like being put on the spot, but it is a method that forces one to not only come prepared, but also have strong arguments backing up ones' position. I doubt simply agreeing with everything Lewis said would have sufficed. However, while being scary, he would have been a lecturer that forced one to think deeply about what was written. Further, he was not one who favoured reading lists (and this was before computers and printers). Instead he would give his students ideas, forcing them to go out and explore for themselves. As mentioned, while being scary, he would have been a tutor that being in his class would have been a blessing indeed.
This book does not look at Lewis' theology (in that he wasn't a theologian, but rather a professor of literature who had a deep interest in theology). His specialty was medieval and renaissance literature (despite not accepting that there ever was a renaissance in English literature). As a child his father's rule was that he was allowed to read any of the mountains of books in his home, which looking back would have been an incredible experience. As a child he was taught the classic languages of Latin and Greek to the point where he could read a Greek text without having to translate it in his head (a skill I suspect not many people have these days).
As mentioned, this was not his specialty, but rather medieval and renaissance literature, being mostly Spenser's Faerie Queene (he didn't hold much stock in Chaucer). He also liked Milton's Paradise Lost (which he wrote a preface to). It seems that the literature that he liked the most was the literature that fired up his imagination. However, he did not care much for Bernard Shaw or Jules Verne (which I must heartily disagree) though he is always able to put a good argument in support of these positions (he did not care much for Verne's technobabble, whereas I consider Verne to be one of the fathers of modern science fiction). Further, Lewis did not seem to be too impressed with Shakespeare's plays (and Tolkin pretty much detested them).
Finally, literary criticism: this book ends with a very interesting chapter on literary criticism, and how postmodern criticism is destroying the original author. The author writes the work, but then the critics dive upon the work to drag their own interpretations from it, far from what the original author intended. It reminds me of a scene in a movie (Back to School), where the main character hires Kurt Vonnegat to write an essay on his own book, only to have it come back as a fail. While it may be amusing, unfortunately it is all too true. An English lecturer I had in university would also bring all her lectures on Shakespeare around to sex. Granted, Shakespeare was an incredibly dirty author (especially if one is able to see through the fog that the language throws up around the plays) but I would hardly call him sex obsessed (though gender identity does play a significant role in plays such as As You Like It, though the concept of girls dressing up as boys tends to have more to do with power and protection, considering the state of women back in those days, than some hidden sexual frustration). As a pastor used to say once, a text without a context is nothing more than a pretext, and that is what postmodern criticism creates.
April 15, 2020
This is not an invitation to the classics. There is a book for that. This is a guidebook to literary criticism from the perspective of CS Lewis. I won’t cover every essay but rather try to show how Lewis would have thought through different moments in literature.
Lewis the Teacher
While he was a skilled lecturer, that’s not really what he was for. In his tutorial role he sought to “challenge [the student’s] mind by provoking him to reexamine old assumptions and gain new insights….He only wanted to be an energizing, provocative traveling companion” (Keefe 39).
An Argument for the Classics
I haven’t always been kind to the classics approach. I don’t like whitewashing them. Much of paganism, the Greeks included, was demon-worship and pederasty (especially the Greeks). With that said, their approach also formed the questions which we are still wrestling with. And the Christian thinkers soon took over the classical discussion.
Spenser
“To read Spenser is to grow in mental health.” We understand the moral allegory of Spenser not by simply noting that x = y. We have to get an emotional, even physical perception of what that moral quality feels like (Myers 91).
Renaissance
There is nothing really “Renaissancy” about this chapter. Some interesting observations, though. We are drawn to Lewis’s writings because he makes us feel as though we were really experiencing what he thinks the medievals would have felt when they looked at the universe. We chuckle at the Ptolemaic universe; they reveled in crystalline spheres within “spheres animated by the light of God” (Veith 107). While Ptolemaism is wrong, there is something even scientific about the Patristic and medieval focus on “light.”
Shakespeare
Hierarchy is a key theme (Manlove 124).
Seventeenth Century
CS Lewis had an uneasy truce with John Donne (Price 141). Lewis admired him but didn’t like him. He much rather appreciated George Herbert (148). Even more, Herbert, like Bunyan, informed Lewis’s use of allegory. Pride of place, of course, goes to John Bunyan. His prose often “reaches right down” inside of you.
Milton
There is a whole chapter on John Milton, which isn’t surprising. In many ways Lewis’s Preface to Paradise Lost is better than the book. We should note in this chapter that Lewis identifies several stumbling blocks for people first getting into Milton.
A key theme for Milton, at least on one level, is hierarchy. (Lewis would later exploit this theme in That Hideous Strength). Satan’s flaw is rebellion. Of course, Milton never really harmonizes this with his own rebellion against His Majesty, Charles I.
Restoration and the Eighteenth Century
With a few exceptions, Lewis didn’t care much for the Restoration era. This is commonly called the “classical era” of English literature. But if that’s true, then Lewis raises a good point: Alexander Pope, that most classical of writers, wrote wit and satire--definitely not a classical theme.
Where the “classical” label does fit is in the later reaction of Romanticism. Romanticism in literature aims for the spontaneous. The classical aims for form and balance.
The author of this chapter suggests that Out of the Silent Planet is classical, whereas Perelandra pushes romanticism.
Towards the end of the 18th century we come to the greatest writer after Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson. As Lewis says, “Johnson always gets to the heart of the issue.” He notes that Johnson’s Rambler essays have a bracing and manly style. He even says he gets more pleasure from reading the Rambler than any other literature. Johnson’s other work on English poets is “pure Englishness” in prose.
He further notes that Jane Austen wrote with a cadence similar to Johnson. Indeed, Lewis notes that like Johnson, Jane Austen wrote with a “hardness” of “Firmness.”
The Romantics
The Romantics sought for a moral guide in nature and a belonging to nature. Lewis was too good of a Christian for this, even if he did capture the Romantic sense of “longing.” While I think the Romantic period is overrated, writers such as Blake did influence Lewis’s Great Divorce.
The book concludes with a survey of modern literature, which for humanity's sake we won't talk about.
Lewis the Teacher
While he was a skilled lecturer, that’s not really what he was for. In his tutorial role he sought to “challenge [the student’s] mind by provoking him to reexamine old assumptions and gain new insights….He only wanted to be an energizing, provocative traveling companion” (Keefe 39).
An Argument for the Classics
I haven’t always been kind to the classics approach. I don’t like whitewashing them. Much of paganism, the Greeks included, was demon-worship and pederasty (especially the Greeks). With that said, their approach also formed the questions which we are still wrestling with. And the Christian thinkers soon took over the classical discussion.
Spenser
“To read Spenser is to grow in mental health.” We understand the moral allegory of Spenser not by simply noting that x = y. We have to get an emotional, even physical perception of what that moral quality feels like (Myers 91).
Renaissance
There is nothing really “Renaissancy” about this chapter. Some interesting observations, though. We are drawn to Lewis’s writings because he makes us feel as though we were really experiencing what he thinks the medievals would have felt when they looked at the universe. We chuckle at the Ptolemaic universe; they reveled in crystalline spheres within “spheres animated by the light of God” (Veith 107). While Ptolemaism is wrong, there is something even scientific about the Patristic and medieval focus on “light.”
Shakespeare
Hierarchy is a key theme (Manlove 124).
Seventeenth Century
CS Lewis had an uneasy truce with John Donne (Price 141). Lewis admired him but didn’t like him. He much rather appreciated George Herbert (148). Even more, Herbert, like Bunyan, informed Lewis’s use of allegory. Pride of place, of course, goes to John Bunyan. His prose often “reaches right down” inside of you.
Milton
There is a whole chapter on John Milton, which isn’t surprising. In many ways Lewis’s Preface to Paradise Lost is better than the book. We should note in this chapter that Lewis identifies several stumbling blocks for people first getting into Milton.
A key theme for Milton, at least on one level, is hierarchy. (Lewis would later exploit this theme in That Hideous Strength). Satan’s flaw is rebellion. Of course, Milton never really harmonizes this with his own rebellion against His Majesty, Charles I.
Restoration and the Eighteenth Century
With a few exceptions, Lewis didn’t care much for the Restoration era. This is commonly called the “classical era” of English literature. But if that’s true, then Lewis raises a good point: Alexander Pope, that most classical of writers, wrote wit and satire--definitely not a classical theme.
Where the “classical” label does fit is in the later reaction of Romanticism. Romanticism in literature aims for the spontaneous. The classical aims for form and balance.
The author of this chapter suggests that Out of the Silent Planet is classical, whereas Perelandra pushes romanticism.
Towards the end of the 18th century we come to the greatest writer after Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson. As Lewis says, “Johnson always gets to the heart of the issue.” He notes that Johnson’s Rambler essays have a bracing and manly style. He even says he gets more pleasure from reading the Rambler than any other literature. Johnson’s other work on English poets is “pure Englishness” in prose.
He further notes that Jane Austen wrote with a cadence similar to Johnson. Indeed, Lewis notes that like Johnson, Jane Austen wrote with a “hardness” of “Firmness.”
The Romantics
The Romantics sought for a moral guide in nature and a belonging to nature. Lewis was too good of a Christian for this, even if he did capture the Romantic sense of “longing.” While I think the Romantic period is overrated, writers such as Blake did influence Lewis’s Great Divorce.
The book concludes with a survey of modern literature, which for humanity's sake we won't talk about.
May 13, 2017
As editor Thomas Martin says, many English teachers and students have come to "value Lewis as a guide to literature" (9). Indeed, and this book serves as a guide for how to enlist Lewis as a guide.
Aside from a valuable chronological overview of Lewis's interaction with centuries of literature, one helpful chapter presents a picture of what Lewis was like as a professor. Carolyn Keefe gives several anecdotes of Lewis's pedagogy and the ways he would both challenge and encourage his students.
This book has pointed me again to read the works that Lewis read to gain a greater appreciation and admiration for all of Lewis's own works and the ways they would marshal literature in the purpose of illuminating the Great Author.
Aside from a valuable chronological overview of Lewis's interaction with centuries of literature, one helpful chapter presents a picture of what Lewis was like as a professor. Carolyn Keefe gives several anecdotes of Lewis's pedagogy and the ways he would both challenge and encourage his students.
This book has pointed me again to read the works that Lewis read to gain a greater appreciation and admiration for all of Lewis's own works and the ways they would marshal literature in the purpose of illuminating the Great Author.
October 25, 2024
Didn’t read this, but read his new book! So good.
September 8, 2018
This book, Reading the Classic’s with C.S. Lewis, does capture a lot of what is interesting about C.S. Lewis, but it seems like the contributor’s views of those classics chosen are just mixed with some of Lewis’s thoughts. The bigger question is, which classics, and in what order, would have Lewis chosen to emphasis how he felt, because those choices would have defined his legacy for us and I don’t think this book does that.
In an early chapter, “Entering Imagined Worlds”, Lewis viewpoint on literature in general is discussed. He says there that “the good of literature is that we want to be more than ourselves. We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.” He adds to this, and ties the thought together, by saying “We demand windows, even doors, that admit us to experiences, other than our own.
He left the Christianity of his youth, but literature eventually brought him back. His approach to the classics, and to reading, was shown in his insistence that authors like Dante, Spenser or Milton need to be understood by looking deeper into their literary forbears. Seeing a train of thought suggests that we ought to know more about how Lewis would connect the classic’s presented. What was his train of thought?
Romanticism, as a literary genre, was discussed in the book showing that Lewis felt it was more than what was generally thought during his time. He added the idea that “Sweet Desire” was a concept that should be added to understanding Romanticism. It explains that it was the search for both a moral direction, and a sense of belonging, in people. He said a longing for more was common in all people.
Lewis’s writings about fantasy, science fiction, and imagination seem to have been the bridge back to Christianity for him, and a genre that allowed him to bring the scared into the mundane world. He said that fairy tales and the traditional treatment of the hero, was a simile of the coming of Christ.
Critics continue to try to explain the difference between science fiction and fantasy, but Lewis says that the difference is that science fiction writers expend more effort to make their imaginative worlds seem plausible.
Lewis said, both literary and unliterary readers can be guilty of using a text by looking for validation of the reader's own beliefs in the work, rather than humbly "receiving" the story the author presented. He said his own view was that “in reading literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eye, but it is still I who see.”
I liked the book for the thoughts about Lewis that it pulled together but didn’t think the insight into the classics discussed was really Lewis’s thoughts. More about this book at www.connectedeventsmatter.com Also see Literary Favorites for more about C.S. Lewis
In an early chapter, “Entering Imagined Worlds”, Lewis viewpoint on literature in general is discussed. He says there that “the good of literature is that we want to be more than ourselves. We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.” He adds to this, and ties the thought together, by saying “We demand windows, even doors, that admit us to experiences, other than our own.
He left the Christianity of his youth, but literature eventually brought him back. His approach to the classics, and to reading, was shown in his insistence that authors like Dante, Spenser or Milton need to be understood by looking deeper into their literary forbears. Seeing a train of thought suggests that we ought to know more about how Lewis would connect the classic’s presented. What was his train of thought?
Romanticism, as a literary genre, was discussed in the book showing that Lewis felt it was more than what was generally thought during his time. He added the idea that “Sweet Desire” was a concept that should be added to understanding Romanticism. It explains that it was the search for both a moral direction, and a sense of belonging, in people. He said a longing for more was common in all people.
Lewis’s writings about fantasy, science fiction, and imagination seem to have been the bridge back to Christianity for him, and a genre that allowed him to bring the scared into the mundane world. He said that fairy tales and the traditional treatment of the hero, was a simile of the coming of Christ.
Critics continue to try to explain the difference between science fiction and fantasy, but Lewis says that the difference is that science fiction writers expend more effort to make their imaginative worlds seem plausible.
Lewis said, both literary and unliterary readers can be guilty of using a text by looking for validation of the reader's own beliefs in the work, rather than humbly "receiving" the story the author presented. He said his own view was that “in reading literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eye, but it is still I who see.”
I liked the book for the thoughts about Lewis that it pulled together but didn’t think the insight into the classics discussed was really Lewis’s thoughts. More about this book at www.connectedeventsmatter.com Also see Literary Favorites for more about C.S. Lewis
December 24, 2021
The description on Goodreads is entirely wrong, the Sermon on the Mount was never mentioned. 0/5 stars for Goodreads description, would not recommend reading it.
April 18, 2019
Perfect as an overview of Lewis’s thinking and English literature. A book I will refer to again and again.
May 2, 2012
After a long semester of the saturation of contemporary thought, ranging from psychoanalysis to poststructuralism to postlacanian, reading this book was like taking a deep whiff of fresh air.
The linguistic turn of contemporary thought was a tad claustrophobic and inherently reductionistic: for if all of us are caught in the house of language, what makes the linguistic critics any more free?
How liberating to be reminded of the joy of literature - as umberto eco says, "A fictional text has an ontology of its own that must be respected."
The line that riveted me was: "... If structuralist principles are by no means necessary, then poststructuralism is one of the great non sequiturs of contemporary thought" (378).
I'd get this book just for its last chapter.
The linguistic turn of contemporary thought was a tad claustrophobic and inherently reductionistic: for if all of us are caught in the house of language, what makes the linguistic critics any more free?
How liberating to be reminded of the joy of literature - as umberto eco says, "A fictional text has an ontology of its own that must be respected."
The line that riveted me was: "... If structuralist principles are by no means necessary, then poststructuralism is one of the great non sequiturs of contemporary thought" (378).
I'd get this book just for its last chapter.
May 23, 2014
The problem with books like this is that they are about books of wisdom without having much wisdom themselves; they are so tied to getting the facts right that they get nothing else right. I especially hate it when books like this criticize Narnia or Perelandra; okay, why would a footnote-spawn be an expert on Lewis's failings.
On the other hand, it is fun to browse what Lewis liked and didn't like and it makes me really want to read Boswell's Life of Johnson and Hooker (working on it). Also, it is curious to see what Lewis has said that has and has not proved prophetic (though they still dodge whether Lewis's high, high praise of Williams's poetry still has potential.) A book glad to have read more than to actually read. Please more Planet Narnia!
On the other hand, it is fun to browse what Lewis liked and didn't like and it makes me really want to read Boswell's Life of Johnson and Hooker (working on it). Also, it is curious to see what Lewis has said that has and has not proved prophetic (though they still dodge whether Lewis's high, high praise of Williams's poetry still has potential.) A book glad to have read more than to actually read. Please more Planet Narnia!
May 15, 2008
If you ever wished that you could have Lewis as your literature tutor, here is your chance. An intellectual treat and inspiration to dust off the "old books" and have a go.
November 21, 2016
Skimmed. There were some interesting insights, but the essays didn't really provide an in-depth read of the classics with Lewis, as the title claims. The book needed to be tighter and shorter.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews