Volume 20 Number 4 Article 3 Winter 1-15-1995 An Interview with Owen Barfield Astrid Diener Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Diener, Astrid (1995) "An Interview with Owen Barfield," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 20 : No. 4 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol20/iss4/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol20/iss4/3 P * g e 14 Is s u e 78 ^ djrNTeR 1995 ^Kvrl^l-ORe lNnr(SKM.@w wntflfe) © w <sim IEm{pi<slL®) PoencD icnohi — JSexw eeM doKicepxiO M £1 m O P u b l i c a x i o m COKlOUCTeO 25 J^ARCl} 1994 AKlO eOlTGO BY £3sTRlD XheKIGR Introduction of you at this time, that you were rather an 'isolated' oetic Diction was first published by Faber and figure in the way you were thinking. It would therefore Faber in 1928. But its origins lie as far back as be interesting to learn from you about the reaction of 1921, or early 1922, when Owen Barfield chose your friends and surroundings when you communi­ the language of poetry as a subject for his B.Litt. cated your new ideas about poetry to them. thesis at Oxford. By reflecting on the language of the Owen Barfield: I communicated most of them to C.S. poetry of the past, and the "felt change of consciousness" Lewis. And he was — I wouldn't call him quite a experienced by the reader of the present, he arrived at the Romanticist, but he had this love of literature, and larger theory of an "evolution of consciousness". His certainly of the Romantic poets, as much as I did. And thought was inspired simultaneously by Romantic poetry he had a very powerful imagination. But I w asn't really and philosophy, and the latter provided him with a start­ in touch with the contemporary literary people much. ing point for his enquiries. But, as he records in the 1972 I just felt the impulse to put down what poetry meant afterword to Poetic Diction, he had no model supporting his to me, and therefore what it could mean to other peo­ theory before he became acquainted with Anthroposophy ple, I suppose. and the works of Rudolf Steiner (which are largely con­ cerned with the concept of an evolution of consciousness) -1 Diener: Your ideas about poetry seem so strikingly new at the time that I wonder how easy or difficult it actually This suggests a long period of transition from the actual was for you to put them into shape, and to communi­ conception of his thoughts to their coming into shape and cate them. their final publication as Poetic Diction. In the interview printed below I had the opportunity of asking Mr Barfield Barfield: I tried to put down what I was thinking. And, as about those beginnings of Poetic Diction. I asked him about I say, what I thought about poetry, particularly lyric the various influences that helped him to put his thoughts poetry of the recent past, even more particularly Ro­ into shape: specifically about the first reactions to his new mantic poetry, was not what was being said by the ideas, about the general intellectual climate of the time and literary circles of the time particularly. So, I just wasn't his own reactions to it, and more generally about the role interested in th em ... I didn't care for T.S. Eliot's poetry of Anthroposophy in the development of his thought. at all. I think that is really all I can say ... My family — Owen Barfield is a contemporary of C.S. Lewis and T.S. they weren't by any means philistines, but they weren't Eliot— in some ways two very contrasting literary figures specially interested in poetry. So, I had no particular in twentieth century English literature. While C.S. Lewis audience or literary companionship th ere... It just hap­ was, since his undergraduate days, a close friend of Bar­ pened, really [laughs]. field's, T.S. Eliot became the publisher of Poetic Diction and D ien er You say you were discussing your ideas with C.S. other works of his. Among the questions I posed were, Lewis. I take it that one of the things you were dicussing finally, those concerning his relation to Lewis and Eliot. was the importance of imagination and whether it He once remarked (in relation to C.S. Lewis, but it applies could be a vehicle for truth, or whether it was simply a equally to himself): "A good deal could be said about the desirable pleasure of the human soul ...2 absolute necessity of humour, as an available ingredient to any really deep thinker, as distinct from either a merely Barfield: Yes. Sorry for interrupting you, but there I could rapid or a m erely solemn one". I am most grateful for the go a little further in answering your previous question humour and the patience he displayed in answering, with ... Imagination as a vehicle for truth: I was very much great generosity, all those many questions of mine. I* struck, as I began to get fond of poetry, with the fact that it wasn't just enjoying the poetry at the time, but, also, I would also like to express special thanks to my super­ it did enlarge or deepen my experience of the world visor, Professor A. D. Nuttall (New College, Oxford)— for around me, especially the natural world, of course. And his enthusiastic support of, and his invaluable advice on, that aspect of poetry reading didn't seem to be attracting the present interview. any attention, particularly, from anyone else. The Interview Diener: And it seems that it also didn't quite attract CS. Astrid D iener: You stress very much that your ideas, with Lewis's attention in the same way as it attracted yours. your turning towards Romanticism, were so much Barfield: I think that's not quite true; he had a great love against the stream that, in a way it seems, if one thinks of nature. There was very much poetry he knew by ^ Y T f r L o K e Issu e 78 KJwTeR 1995 P * . g e i s heart, far more than I did [laughs]. And he would such thoughts as those of Virginia Woolf certainly very often come up with appropriate quota­ Barfield: I never read much of Virginia Woolf. I read To tions if we went out for a walk or anything; and if he the Lighthouse, and one or two other things. I think I was struck by anything he would be more likely to cap thought she was a bit Of a dilettante, but I did her quite it with a quotation from English poetry, or even both wrong. I didn't really read enough of her to justify or Latin and Greek poetry, than I would. He didn't theo­ form any opinion, I think. I associated her with the rize about it. That's the difference. He didn't want to Bloomsbury Group. Also, I tended rather to shun books theorize about imagination — he loved it. just because they were very popular then [laughs]. And Diener: And this theory about poetry as a means of cog­ I knew that the people whose books were popular had nition seems to be something on which you and Lewis quite different ideas about life than I had [laughs]. actually disagreed. Diener: It's only when comparing what Virginia Woolf Barfield: Very much so. Yes. H e didn't like the idea of says w ith w hat you say (I'm not very sure how close having any concrete relation between imagination and the relation is) — it seems there was 'something in knowledge: Knowledge was a job for science. He was, the air', which was picked up by different people philosophically, really a materialist — in the kind of independently, by Virginia W oolf, or by yourself, or deepened form where it was called Subjective Idealism. having been long developed by Rudolf Steiner in W hen it came to actual detailed knowledge of any sort, Germany, for instance. that was a job for scientists. He accepted the materialist Barfield: Also by the German Naturphilosophen. And they assumption of nineteenth and twentieth century science. were brought to England by Coleridge, of course. Col­ I think somebody put it (it was a man, who wrote about eridge meant a lot to me. history) who said all history was history of thought; he said that couldn't be applied to nature because nature has Diener: When were you actually acquainted with Ste­ no inside.