THSFICTION0B0 .S. L$W I8 Thesis for The
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THSFICTION0B0 .S. L$W I8 ý Thesis for the Degree of :Doctor of philosophy The University of Leeds by Jobs D. Heigh Deoeiaber 1962. i. PON'ACE All the articles on, and references to, Lewis which I have consulted are listed in the Bibliography. As for as I am aware, there has been no previous full-length treatment of Lewis's fiction. the most complete study of his thought known to me is Chad Walsh's C. 9 . Lewis; Apostle to the Skeptics (1949) , which deals, often briefly, with Lewis's fiction, though not, of course, with 'The Chronicles of Narnia' and Till We Have Faces, As indicated at several points in the thesis ,I find myself in general agreement with Chad Walsh, whose book I was not able to utilize until revising my first version. John Wain's recent autobiography, Sprightly Rt iinß (1962), appeared in time for me to quote its account of Lewis's views on romance (Dhopter XIX of this thesis ), but too late for me to supplement my brief description of Levis In life at Oxford (Chapter II of the thesis ). It gives a fascinating account of Lewis and his circle in wartime Oxford. ii. CONTSNTs E°R° Prefsoe i Cue-titles and symbols iv I TIE FORMATIVEMEATS 1 11 TIE YEIºRSOF ACHIEV. NT 20 III THE PILGRIM'S 1ZG&ES8 30 IV THOM 53 V THEOLOGYINTO FICTION 69 VI THE SCMTAPE LETTERS 78 VII TIM GREATDIVOIC$ 95 VIII THE THEOLOGICALROMANE 110 IX TILL WE WE FACES 128 I THEPLANETARY ROMMS 143 II OUT a TIE SILUT P_LANE _T_ 165 X11 PEWELA)F! --- 185 x III $HAT HIDEOUS$T1 TH 216 XIV THE CHILDREN'SFANTASY 241 XV THEWO1LD OF NARNIA 255 XVI OYMBOLICTHEOLOGY 271 XVII THE ETHICS UP MLPLAM3 289 XVIII THE GRAN) WBIGN 306 X31 is IS ANDCONTEMPORARY CRITICISM 325 XZ LEWI8 , YAURIA A* GMKSM 353 X11 CON LUSION 375 iii . fppeodixss t A' TiZ BCBOTAYELETTEBB' ANDJOHN YWGaWAN'$ 'INFffiiTAL CcivrmmmE' 385 B 8CIEN0 FICTION AND TBB COMIC VOYAGE 387 C TIE ANTIQUITYOF YAIffi 3B8 D VENUSIN EA,BLIES FICTION 390 IC IüLDAIN'8 LI? M81?USta 391 p IN= OF AUTHM WHD WE INB'LtIMM LBfiIE's FICTI OIi 392 Di0TE8 398 BIBLIOGBAPHY 436 iv . Cue-titlea and Symbols 1. Works written or edited by 0 .S. Lewis Abolýn s The Abolition of Mon Allegory s The Allegory of Love Ceepiont Prince Csspians the return to Narnia Divoreo I The Great Divorce LMs English Literature in the Sixteenth Century BMW i Essays Presented to Charles Williams Broeýts An Experiment in Criticism HB: The Norge and his Boy r. LHi The Last Battle ý LOW The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe # George YaoDonolds An Anthology raelea t Miracles sA Preliminary Study IC i More Christianity i®Ts The Magician's Nephew OIWf Out of the silent Planet Pain s The Problem of Pain Prof &a* s A Preface to Paradise Lost 8sfleationa s Reflections on the psalm 8e sýa The Pilgrim's Regress The Silver Chair So, TheSorewtape Letters _res_ý: AL_ Surprised by joy Mpg an Asked for a Paper Y. TWWCI 'Three Ways of Writing for Children' Transpositions Transposition and other Addresses Iie s That Hideous strength Wif' s Till We dare PPuoes Vo as Its VoY*Ae of the Dswn Treader' 2, Other Works Voyage 1946 Arcturus& Lindsay, David lA to Arcturus ed. Clarke, AC., The Exploration Clarke s of Spooe 2nd ed ., Penguin, 1959 Crouch, S., 'Chronicles Crouohs M. of Narnis' , Junior Bookshelf vol. 20, no . 5. 'S6 Din = Dorton, FJH., Children'a Books in England, 2nd ed 1958 DýSt Dictionary of National Bioýrsphy MS Wells , HA ., The Fire t Yen in the on Atlantic Zdition, 1925 Greens Gresn, 8. L., Into Other Worlds 1957 Lilith s IteeDon$ld, George, Liliths a Romane 1895 Nios Nioholson, Marjorie Hope, Yo a to the Now the Mearillan Company, New York, 948 Phantaetes sYaoDonald, George, Phentastea jA Fairie R Dent, 1913 FL i Yilton, John, Paradise Lost (twentieth SSeo.s 8o_r century) TUI s The Time Literary Supplement Walsh t Walsh, Chad, C_Leiis s Apostle to the Skeptics 1949 Wiilllia I Charles Will iamst Seleoted Wri ohosen by Anne Ridler, 1 8ariptarel refersnoes are to the A. Y., unless otherwise ststsd and are given so follows $ 1. CHAP TIR I THISFOBIGºTIVS MAW Clive Staples Lewis was born at Belfast on 29th November, 1898, the second son of a solicitor and a clergyman's daughter. His father's ancestors had been Welsh farmers; his mother came from a long line of 'clergymen, lawyers, sailors and the like', Lewis has told his own story in Surprised by Joy, a spiritual autobiography which provides an indispensable account of his development. It traces the formation of the religious convictions that underlie all f io his work - critical,, apologetic and tional . Like Augustine's Confessions, it is concerned primarily with his conversion to Christianity, but it contains more autobiographical details then can well be summarised in a brief account. Two strains in Lewis's temperament, the romantic and the rational, may be traced to his ancestry. My father's true Welshmen, people were sentimental , passionate and rhetorical, easily moved both to anger and to tenderness; men who laughed and cried a great deal and who had for not much of the talent happiness . The Hamilton. were a cooler race. Their minds were critical and ironic and they had the talent for happiness in a high degree - went straight for it as experienced travellers go for the best seat in a train. From my earliest years I was aware of the vivid contrast between my mother's cheerful and tranquil affection and the ups and downs of my father's emotional life, and this bred in me long before I was old enough to give it a name a certain dis- trust or dislike of emotion as something uncomfortable and dangerous embarrassing and even ,2 Lewis's story shows how a critical mind and certain deeply felt intui. 2. time were reconciled in Christianity.. A 'certain distrust' of the f more powerful human emotions lingers on in his is tion . Only with The Four Loves (1960) does his treatment of human affections and passions achieve a satisfying width and balance. Lewis 'a early years may be divided between a predominantly happy childhood and outwardly unhappy schooldays. Thanks to good parents end a kind narse his childhood, apart from nightmares occasioned insects, 'a humdrum, happiness' by a fear of was period of prosaic . The only aesthetio experiences, 'already incurably romantic, not formal', were aroused by his brother's toy garden and the low line of the Castlereagh Hills seen from nursery windows, 'They were not for off but they were, to children, quits unattainable. They taught as longing - SebWUQht: made ms for good or ill, and before I was six years old, a 3 votary of the Blue Flower. When Lewis was seven his family moved to the 'New House', of 'The which the features may be traced in Chronicles of Narnia' , where his voracious appetite for books and his taste for romantic scenery were both gratified. Receiving education from his mother and a gover- ness, he had still, with the removal of his brother to boarding school, plenty of solitude. An 'extreme manual clusminess' prevented his from enjoying hobbies and sports, so he took to composing, and illustrating, stories set in an imaginary 'Animal Land'. This was an outlet for 'invention', not 'fantasy', and in the holidays his brother shared in its development. Through Animal Land, he says, 'I was training myself 3" to be a novelist.... not a poet.... there was no poetry, even no romance, in it. It was almost astonishingly prosaic' . The significant imagina- to those Traherne Wordsworth, tive experiences , oomparable of and were of another kind. They same to his through three oddly diverse objects - the memory of his brother's toy garden, the 'Idea of Autumn' in Beatrix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin, and the northern magic of Temper's Drape. The quality they bad in common was 'that of on unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from from I doubt Happiness and Pleasure. " .. whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, ezchange it for all the pleasures in the world. ' 'Joy' was to prove the supreme influence on his life, and is the key to all his work. His mother's death brought this childhood period to an end. To his distaste for all the flummery of the funeral, he traces a defect he has never fully overcome - *a distaste for all that is public,, all that belongs to the collective; a boorish inaptitude for formality'. The subsequent period at prep, school in 32gland was extremely =pleasant* Lewis heads his account of it 'Concentration Camp' , and labels the strange establishment at which he was a boarder, 'Bslsen'. The curriculum was narrow and monotonous; the facilities for reorea- tion slight. Some of the innumerable eanings administered by 'Oldie', its tyrsnnioal and half-samaße headmaster, are among the memories be 4. 'could willingly dispense with' . Yet just as his mother's death had drawn Lewis and his brother together, so oppression knit the boarders at oldie's into a company of friends, 'To this day' he writes 'the vision of the world which comes most naturally to me is one in which "we two" or "we few" (and in a some "we happy few") stand together against something stronger and larger.