Inklings Forever Volume 8 A Collection of Essays Presented at the Joint Meeting of The Eighth Frances White Ewbank Article 17 Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends and The C.S. Lewis & The Inklings Society Conference 5-31-2012 'Few Return to the Sunlit Lands': Lewis's Classical Underworld in The iS lver Chair Benita Huffman Muth Macon State College Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Muth, Benita Huffman (2012) "'Few Return to the Sunlit Lands': Lewis's Classical Underworld in The iS lver Chair," Inklings Forever: Vol. 8 , Article 17. Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol8/iss1/17 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inklings Forever by an authorized editor of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INKLINGS FOREVER, Volume VIII A Collection of Essays Presented at the Joint Meeting of The Eighth FRANCES WHITE EWBANK COLLOQUIUM ON C.S. LEWIS & FRIENDS and THE C.S. LEWIS AND THE INKLINGS SOCIETY CONFERENCE Taylor University 2012 Upland, Indiana Few Return to the Sunlit Lands: Lewis’s Classical Underworld in The Silver Chair Benita Huffman Muth Macon State College Muth, Benita Huffman. “Few Return to the Sunlit Lands: Lewis’s Classical Underworld in The Silver Chair.” Inklings Forever 8 (2012) www.taylor.edu/cslewis 1 Few Return to the Sunlit Lands: Lewis’s Classical Underworld in The Silver Chair Benita Huffman Muth Macon State College In re-reading the Narnia books as asserts his commitment to individual free an adult, classical studies professor Emily will. Wilson writes that Lewis fails to create a As his early interest in Greek world that “hangs together seamlessly mythology and Aeneid translation testify, and convinces us of its reality on its own classical motifs resonated with Lewis. terms. In Narnia, you can see the stitches A.T. Reyes reminds us Virgil in particular that patch a chunk from Mallory to a becomes a “personal touchstone” (6) for gobbet from Ovid.” John Goldthwaite Lewis. Virgil’s role in the development of sometimes finds this mingling of literary epic becomes central to Lewis’ “incompatible borrowings [. as] the scholarly work (9), and Virgil’s standing uncomfortable murmurings of The Man as a pagan prophet of Christianity made Who Read Too Much” (222), taking him a compelling model for both general particular issue with Lewis’ appropriation and personal religious parallels, as Lewis of classical material to create a Christian found in Aeneas the type of one who finds world (224). Yet today I wish to examine home after much wandering (7-8). these chunks and gobbets Lewis chooses, The Silver Chair’s Underland the manner in which he stitches them echoes the classical Underworld: dark, together, and the final effect of such a underground, and encompassing compilation. Wilson and Goldthwaite immense space. Its first cavern “was full rightly see Lewis’s extensive, of a dim, drowsy radiance” (125). It is “a multifaceted, and unabashedly displayed mild, soft sleepy place [. .] with a quiet borrowing from other texts, but sort of sadness like soft music” (215). mistakenly pass over these literary Like the Hades of Homer and the allusions merely as a world-building short Underworld of Virgil, the Underland is cut or as evidence of intellectual highly populated – there are Earthmen, braggadocio and ideological strange creatures, the Giant Time -- and inconsistency. Instead, Lewis’ multiple these inhabitants are either asleep or literary sources strategically point toward joyless. Just as Aeneas meets many his views of theology and humanity. For shades, Eustace, Jill, and Puddleglum meet example, Underland of The Silver Chair a hundred “dreadfully pale” (123) reformulates classical motifs and Miltonic Earthmen, who despite various forms references for a Christian purpose: to were “in one respect [. .] all alike: every create an Underland markedly face in the whole hundred was as sad as a differentiated from the 20th century’s face could be” (123). common, trivialized vision of Hell. In David Downing traces the doing so, The Silver Chair reflects Lewis’ similarities in their journey to Aeneas’ in position on what constitutes Hell and Lewis’ Aeneid translation. In both, 2 Few Return to the Sunlit Lands · Benita Muth travelers encounter a “ghostly multitude” His eventual rescue comes only at great and strange, monstrous creatures. They cost. Herakles rips him out of his travel through a silent forest, cross dark imprisoning chair, leaving part of his water in a leaky boat, encounter fiery buttock behind (Martin 138). Rilian, too, rivers, and learn secrets to aid their had been on a dangerous mission and escape. Downing also remarks that the succumbed to an imprisoning repeated commentary “Many fall down, enchantment. Rescue attempts cost the but few return to the sunlit lands” echoes lives of many heroes; Rilian himself Dryden’s translation of the Sibyl’s looses irreplaceable years with his father. warning: “Smooth is the descent, and Thus, heroes can become victims, a threat easy is the way: / But to return, and view Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum also face. the cheerful skies, / In this the task and Such victims may be irretrievable, as was mighty labor lies.” Theseus’ companion Peirithoos. Herakles The invocation of the epic hero’s elects to leave him behind, as wrecking underworld journey conveys mythic his chair would have caused Hades to scope and archetypal significance to cave in (Martin 138). Although freed Lewis’ Underland, and Lewis’ classical from his chair, Rillian’s escape remains echoes do not confine themselves to uncertain, as the Lady’s death precipitates Virgil. Virgil’s epic itself responds to the Underland’s destruction. Odyssey, when Odysseus summons the In spite of classical resonance, dead on his journey home. Also, Lewis’ Donald Glover finds The Silver Chair’s travelers’ mission closely resembles Underland disappointing; not noting its Orpheus’ journey to retrieve Euridyce, classical sources, he calls it “dull and Theseus’ plan to liberate Persephone, or drowsy rather than sinister” (168). So it Herakles’ rescue of Alcestis. Like them, is worth noting that Lewis had other Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum come to underworld models he might have rescue the presumed-dead Rilian from a foregrounded. Lewis is certainly not the shadowy underground realm. first to create an underworld with Orpheus’ and Theseus’ failures classical flavor to evoke Christian show the near-impossibility of this task. concerns; both Dante and Milton connect External and internal dangers threaten its their overtly Christian infernal worlds to completion. Theseus fails to exercise classical models. More prominent proper wariness in the underworld. allusions to either would have added Though he cannily refuses to eat, he gets more thrill and menace and likely would permanently stuck in his stone seat have more strongly evoked Christian (Martin 138), reminiscent of the Silver reference for a popular audience. Chair into which Rilian is bound every Milton’s Hell in particular with its fire, night. While Orpheus gains Euridyce’s sulfur, and the “darkness visible” (1.63) of release, that success is snatched away by its burning lake has influenced English a failure in virtue, his impatience in visions of the underworld. Lewis’ looking back (Martin 49). Likewise, this scholarship was firmly grounded in mission is threatened by exterior perils -- Milton, as his Preface to Paradise Lost capture, imprisonment, and enchantment testifies. He also frequently draws from – and even more jeopardizing self- and manipulates Miltonic sources in his sabotage -- their voluntary capitulation to fiction, as in Perelandra and The the Lady’s drugging insistence that there Magician’s Nephew, to name only two is no Sun, no Overland, no Aslan. examples (Hannay 73-90, Baird 30-33, None but heroes can expect to and Muth). return from such a realm, and not all of Miltonic echoes are also present them, as evidenced by Theseus’ failure. in Underland. Milton’s Satan prefers to 3 Few Return to the Sunlit Lands · Benita Muth “reign in Hell rather than serve in no “darkness visible” here, as the Heaven” (1.262) and thus consolidates account emphasizes light and brilliance, power to create a kingdom. He and viewers eventually come to see. appropriates the region into which he has Rather than “ever-burning Sulphur” been thrown, recruits others, and directs (Milton 1.69), Bism’s smell is “rich, their building of Pandemonium. The sharp, exciting, and made you sneeze” Green Lady also has claimed an (The Silver Chair 180). Its colors remind undesirable property and recruited a of “a very good stained-glass window work force to recreate a kingdom, with the tropical sun staring straight complete with castle. Like Satan, through it at mid-day” (180). Instead of dissatisfied, she plans a stealth attack on Miltonic fallen angels ripping “the Aslan’s Narnia, beginning with the bowels of their mother Earth” for successful corruption of Rilian. As surely precious metal (Milton 1.687), gold and as Adam and Eve, Rilian exchanges his gems are “alive and growing” (The Silver inheritance for self-deluded enchantment. Chair 182) and may be squeezed for He thus becomes the Lady’s tool for drink. Bism is a wondrous part of a conquering his own country, with puppet fantastic Narnian creation, and rulership as his reward. As with Milton’s definitively not Milton’s Hell. Adam and Eve, recognition and Nor is Underland a classical repentance are his first steps toward Tartarus. Just as tweaking Miltonic redemption from the severe expectations highlights the significant consequences.