Intellectual History of Oxford and Cambridge During the Lewis Years

A Literary Biography of C.S. Lewis: The Intellectual History of Oxford and Cambridge during the Lewis Years Joel D. Heck 2 Table of Contents Contents INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD, 1925–1954 ............................................................................................................... 5 MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 1955–1963 ........................................................................................................ 6 CHAPTER 1. TRENDS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE ......................................................... 7 OXFORD UNIVERSITY ................................................................................................................................................... 7 AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR .............................................................................................................................. 28 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY ........................................................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 2. TRENDS IN EDUCATION .............................................................................................................. 52 CHAPTER 3. TRENDS IN PHILOSOPHY ............................................................................................................ 62 CHAPTER 4. TRENDS IN SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE ........................................................................ 71 SCIENCE .................................................................................................................................................................... 71 SOCIAL SCIENCE ........................................................................................................................................................ 84 CHAPTER 5. TRENDS IN RELIGION .................................................................................................................. 97 AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR ............................................................................................................................ 115 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY ......................................................................................................................................... 130 CHAPTER 6. HISTORY, POLITICS, AND TWO WORLD WARS ................................................................. 144 BETWEEN THE WARS ................................................................................................................................................ 144 WORLD WAR TWO ............................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. AFTER WORLD WAR TWO ......................................................................................................................................... 154 CHAPTER 7. THE ARTS ....................................................................................................................................... 161 APPENDIX I: THE NORWOOD REPORT ......................................................................................................... 163 APPENDIX II: THE WORKS OF C.S. LEWIS (1925–1963) IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER ................... 165 APPENDIX III: THE PRIME MINISTERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM ................................................... 181 APPENDIX IV: THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY ............................................................................. 182 APPENDIX V: THE PRESIDENTS OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD ............................................... 183 GLOSSARY ............................................................................................................................................................. 184 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................................... 185 INDEX ......................................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. 3 Introduction Most readers of Lewis become familiar with the contents of his works in the usual way. They know his works from reading them. But often we don’t know why Lewis wrote what he wrote. We can imagine the reasons from the content of the books and essays, but we often don’t know the issues that Lewis was addressing, such as the Freudian psychology that led to the essay “Transposition” or the influence of I.A. Richards and C.K. Ogden on The Green Book, which led to The Abolition of Man. This book supplies some of the background, the intellectual climate of Oxford and Cambridge during the Lewis years, the setting of the various writings of Lewis so that the reader better understands the individual works of Lewis in the light of this climate. It provides more comprehensively and in less detail what Doris Myers provided on a more limited, but in-depth scale in her excellent book, C.S. Lewis in Context.1 This book is not about most of the literary influences on Lewis. Literary influences find their origin at various points in the past, sometimes hundreds of years previously (e.g., Edmund Spenser and John Milton) and sometimes only a few years previously (e.g., G.K. Chesterton and Charles Williams). Except where the intellectual climate intersects with literary influences, this book does not attempt to analyze the literary influences on Lewis, since these have been demonstrated in many excellent books, especially in Reading the Classics with C.S. Lewis (by Thomas Martin, Baker, 2000) and in From the Library of C.S. Lewis (by James S. Bell and Anthony P. Dawson, Shaw, 2004). Lewis was inspired by Wordsworth, Milton, Spenser, Chesterton, and a host of other writers, and he patterned some of his poetry and prose after some of their works. But Lewis responded to the issues of the day, utilizing and evaluating those literary influences, but not often responding to them or disagreeing with them. They were more his ammunition than his target. The contentious Lewis took aim at those targets and defended many a dearly held position, often in the manner that W. T. Kirkpatrick had taught him. Many times there is no precise situation to which Lewis is responding, other than the literature he has just finished reading. This fact illustrates the fallacy of thinking that every writing of Lewis was written in response to recent events. In those cases where Lewis does not address some current trend, the reader will only learn about a few offhand references to people and events of the recent past. One additional benefit is that the reader will learn more thoroughly why it was said of Lewis that he was the best read man of his day. As Cambridge colleague Richard Ladborough wrote, “It is now common knowledge that his memory was prodigious and that he seemed to have read everything.”2 George Sayer later wrote, “Everyone recognized the breadth of his knowledge. He was widely read and had a remarkable memory that enabled him to quote at length from any author who interested him and even from some who did not.”3 1 Doris T. Myers, C.S. Lewis in Context, Kent State University Press, 1994. 2 Ladborough, “In Cambridge,” in C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table and Other Reminiscences. James T. Como, editor. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1992, 100. 3 From George Sayer, Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1988, 204. 4 This book is organized in two ways: First, in chronological order, based upon the year in which a work was written or published or a lecture was given. If a lecture, or series of lectures, was delivered in one year and that lecture published in a later year, the earlier year is used.4 This allows us to get as close as possible to the origin of the work. Second, this book is organized according to the academic disciplines that were prominent in the setting many call Oxbridge. This is, after all, a history, and we must match the ideas of the time with the written responses of Lewis. At the same time, while we follow a historical approach, we must also distinguish between the various academic disciplines, primarily philosophy, science, religion, and Lewis’ teaching field—English Language and Literature. Gathering together the various writings of Lewis in these academic disciplines will produce a glimpse of the mind of Lewis on those subjects. At times, we will have to leave the confines of Oxford and Cambridge to sample the thinking of Great Britain and, occasionally, that of Europe. Lewis did not live in an ivory tower. However, this book does not contain a history of Oxford and Cambridge from 1925 to 1963. It overlooks those celebrated dons with whose disciplines Lewis never interacted. For example, Lewis never mentioned in writing Oxonion J. D. Beazley (1885-1970), the world’s foremost scholar of Greek vases and vase painting, or John Morris, long-time influential professor of law at Lewis’ own college, Magdalene College. In this book, Beazley’s only mention comes in this paragraph. Other men and women will be overlooked, not because of the insignificance of their achievement, but because their contributions to the life of Oxford and Cambridge shed no light on the writings of Lewis. 4 A Preface to Paradise Lost, for example, was published in 1942, but the lectures on which that book is based were delivered in 1941. 5 Magdalen College,

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