Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 1964 The Web of Glory: A Study of the Concept of Man as Expressed in the Christian Fantasy Novels of Charles Williams Beverlee Fissinger Smith Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Beverlee Fissinger, "The Web of Glory: A Study of the Concept of Man as Expressed in the Christian Fantasy Novels of Charles Williams" (1964). Master's Theses. 1896. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/1896 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Copyright © 1964 Beverlee Fissinger Smith THE WEB OF GLORY: A STUDY OF THE CONCEPT OF MAl{ AS EXPRESSED IN THE CHRISTIAN FANTASY NOVELS OF CHARLES WILLIAMS BEVERLEE FISSINGER SMITH A Th•• is Submitted to the Faculty or the Graduate School ot Loyola University 1n Partial Pultillment at the Requirement. tor the Degree ot Master ot Arts June 1964 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Lite. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1 8ig1a. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• ii Chapter I. AN DrfRODUOTION TO CHARLES WILLIAMS. • • • • 1 Purpose and Procedure ot Thesis--Wl1liama the Man-­ Family Baokground--Education--Oxtord University Press--Wll1iwms the wrlter-~Intel1ectual Gitts-­ Conversations with the "Oxfol'd Circlett·... the Poet-­ Beatriclan rove in Early Sonnets--Orlginality ot Later Poet17 II. THE WEB OF GLORY. • • • • • • • • • • • • •• 18 Saoramental View ot Man and Nature--God as the Source 01' Good and Evll--Tne Way ot Attil'mation-­ Co-tnherenoe--Tbe Index ot the Body--The Image 01' the City--Substitution and Exchange--Meohanistio and Moral Ttme--Oonversion of Energies--In-coherence and Isolation--The Perversion of tbe Images III. ' THE NOVELS. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• 42 Out of the Mainstream--Ambivalence--Recent Interest--Duality 01' aetting--Black and White but No Shades ot Gray--Common Character.1stios of Plots--Emphasis on Etfects--}~jOl' C~iticism IV. MYTH, RITUAL, AND OCCULT. • • • • • • • • • • 57 Definition 01' MYth--Advantages--Identif1cation of Symbol and Object--Requisites tor a True Symbol--Order ot the Golden Dawn--War!n Heaven: Quest ot the Grail-Witches Sabbath~aCk Hass­ Perversion ot the Last Rites--~I Dimensions: Stone of Solomon5 Prime Matter- e AgnostIc Believers-Justice and Meroy-Courtesy as Ritual-­ The Plaoe ot the Lion: Arohet'YPal Images-The second Adam:S-I>rvfiie Eagle and the Pterodactly­ Renaming ot the Beasts--The Greater Trumps: The Tarot Cards-the POol-the Co-Redemptresa and the Seel'-the Cloudy Mist-Mad J~a and Iaia-the Handa-Doubting Thomas-the Hand ot Subjeotion Chapter Page IV. Shadows of Ecatasz: Revolt against Scientis~ 'aust!an~th-tne Conquest of Death-the Perverted Christ-tigure--Descent into Hell: Zion va. Gomorrah-­ Spiritual Incest--fiHeiiTSSpurlous Betrayal"--the Descent into Hell--Lility--the Rope--All Hallows. Eve: Simon Magus-the Invasion ot Supernaturi=the Unholy--­ Trinity-the Cleansing Waters V. The Conclusion. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 103 Full Circle... -Letter ot Christopher Fry--"Will-It." ADDENDUM: Letters. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 105 BIBLIOGRAPHY. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• 108 LIFE Bever1e. FisBinger Smith was born in Ohicago, Illinois, on December 18, 19)0. She was graduated trom st. W1l1ibrord High School, Ob.1oago. Illinois. in June, 1949. Atter graduation she worked tor the R.ft. DonneUey &: Sons oorporation, in the mail de­ partment, until her marriage in January 19.$0. After her JII8l'l'lage Mrs. Smith worked tor the Sherwin­ Wlll1a:u paint manutacturing oompany, Ohicago, lllino1s, until the birth ot her tirst son, in Apl-i1 19.$2. Atter her second son was ot sohool age. Ml's. Smi th re­ tUl-ned to oollege, and reoeived her degl-ee at bachelor ot &l-ts from St. Xartel- Oollege, Ohicago, Illinois, in June 1962. i SIGLA Abbreviations of Williama f Books (other than the Novels) Used in Secondary Footnotes Title Abbre viat 10n The FiWe .2t. Beatrice: .! Smg .!a 1c Dan e FiSl!£! .2t B,'k I He .2.!m!. D?wn l£m Heaven and the - ~lveneas~~ aLi. -- .!at Image .2.t Jib!. 01 tl and Other lasan , Note: Atter tn. tirst reterenoe. the novels will be rererred to only by title. 11 Some men are less than their works, some are more. Charles Willi~~s cannot be placed in either oase. To have known the man would have been enough; to know the books is enough; but no one who has known both the man and his works would have willingly foregone either ex­ perience. T.S. Eliot, Prefaoe to ~ Hallows t !:!!.. p. xi. CRAPl'ER I AN INTRODUCTION TO OHARLES WILLIAMS 1 Because oritioal work on the novels ot Charles WIlliams, scanty as it is, ooncentrates on Williams' oonoept ot romantic love and on its oorrelative theses, this paper Will pr1marily concentrate on his concept ot the nature ot man, as e.xpl'essed by his strange charaoters and his even stranger plots, Whioh are clothed in the machinery ot myth, ritual, and ocoult. JUst as it is not necessary to believe in the Swittian world or the Lilliputians or the Rabelaisian world ot Garga.ntua, it is not neoessary to accept literally the strange multi-leveled world and supernatural events posited by Williams in the novels. It is sutficient that Williams believed in them and wrote about them; thus, there will be no attempt in this paper to establish 1 at. the. excellent study br ~ McDermott Shideler, l:b!. 'l'heolo~ .R~C lQ.n (New York.! ~~962J), and that by Joan ~er f~tu8~ e Ji!ncipal TheoloSical Ideas in the Ohriatian Fanta., Novel. ot Oharles Williams" (unpublished Master's thesis, Lorola Un! veraity, Ohicago.l 196). , 2 the valid!ty or orthodoxy ot his ideas or to justlty them, exoept from a. 11 terary standpoint. Rather an attempt will be made to present What he said and !l2!! he said 1 t. Because some unders tand1ng ot Williams t symbolism and re­ curring themes, a.s well as an awareness of the man himselt ~ is requisi to tor an understanding of his view of man, the prellm.. !nary ohapters will be devoted to aoquainting the reader un­ familiar with Williams tdth the man himself and with his use ot synibols in the plsosentation of his thanes. The rest ot the study will concentrate on the novels themselves. This paper is not meant to be an exhaustive analysis ot the oorpus ot Williams' work; rather, it is hoped that it is another step towards the assignment ot the novels to their rightful plaoe in oontemporary literature • Charle. Walter Stansby Williams could easily have been a oharaoter in one ot his own novels, tor no one more ordinary, more unassuming, could be imagined. Bom September 20, 1886, he spent hi. lite in relative oblivion, even though he wrote forty 2 books which were published. and over two-hundred signed or!tical artioles and reviews, whioh appeared in various scholarl,. journals and London papers. Richard Walter Williams, Oharles' s 2 Inoluding seven voll.11lles ot poetI"Y, thirteen dramas, .even novels, rive books or literary criticism or essays, three theo­ logical volU11ltts, and eight historioal biographies. 3 father # was a chronometer-maker by p1"Otes8ion and an author by avocation. Although Charles W11li8ll1S was christened in St. Anne'. Church in F1nsburry (he was to remain in the AngUcan churoh the remainder 01" his 11te, never passing through any per10d 01" religious doubt common to so 1IUlnJ ot his day, such as Eliot and Auden), he gx-ew up 1n st. Albans, near London, where the family, aftex- his tathex-t a eyesight tailed, opened a small stationery and artists' matex-1ala shop. Williams was educated in the usual manner tor children ot his class. In 1894 he attended st. Albans Abbey School, and in 1898, won a COl.Ulty Council Scholarship to St. Albans Gr~ School. 1'here he met George Robinson, Who oame to share his love 01" literature and who remained one at his closest friends. Both boys won several prizes in writing contests tor the school magazine, and in 1901, both "'ere alrlal"ded an Intermediate Scholar­ ship to the lln1versity College, London, which was available tor a thr.e-7ea:r period. Untortunately, betoN the end at the 1903... 4 seasion, W1ll1ama was torced to leave because 01" his family'. tinancial situation. However, the two years at the Univeraity, spent in reading and absorbing literature, cultivated and deepened the literary taste Whioh his father bad instilled in him as a small child. Af'teX' leaving the Unlveraf.t7, Williams gained em­ plo~nt at the Methodist New Connexion PubUshing Otfice and Book Room, where, through a colleague, Harold Ey'ers, he was in­ troduced to Frederick Page, with whom he waa associated the rest ot his Ute. It was on the recOJ818ndat1on of' M:r. Page that 4 l"ill1ar.lS, in 1908, entered the Oxford Universt ty Press as a reader. And there he 't~as to rem:d.n until his death in May 194$- Although the Press gave W1111a.ms stability, tr1endah1p, and work that eneouraged the ranging power's of his m1nd, 1. t did not provide him 't41th the f'1nanclal socurlt1 that he longed tor but never possessed all his lire. He was tortwtate, however, in that, ~ 1913 on, the London publisher of An~n House of Oxford univ­ ersity ~ss 'f.tas Humphroy Milford, a pub15.shor who "allowed his staft g1'oe.t ft'eedom and [WhO] ImoVl ~!1111B.lns to1' tho Phoenix he WM f though sOl'I'1et1mes he t-las puzzled how to roconcile h1m w1 th oommercial necessities ..