Sanford Schwartz offers a penetrating new reading of Lewis's celebrated Space Trilogy. Taken together, Schwartz's readings call into question Lewis's self-styled image as a "dinosaur" out of step with the main currents of modern thought. Far from a simple struggle between an old-fashioned Christian humanism and a newfangled heresy, Lewis's Space Trilogy should be seen as the searching effort of a modern religious apologist to sustain and enrich the former through critical engagement with the latter.
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal, established by the Arizona C. S. Lewis Society in 2007, is the only peer-reviewed journal devoted to the study of C. S. Lewis and his writings published anywhere in the world. It exists to promote literary, theological, historical, biographical, philosophical, bibliographical and cultural interest (broadly defined) in Lewis and his writings. The journal includes articles, review essays, book reviews, film reviews and play reviews, bibliographical material, poetry, interviews, editorials, and announcements of Lewis-related conferences, events and publications. Its readership is aimed at academic scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, as well as learned non-scholars and Lewis enthusiasts. At this time, Sehnsucht is published once a year.
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal, established by the Arizona C. S. Lewis Society in 2007, is the only peer-reviewed journal devoted to the study of C. S. Lewis and his writings published anywhere in the world. It exists to promote literary, theological, historical, biographical, philosophical, bibliographical and cultural interest (broadly defined) in Lewis and his writings. The journal includes articles, review essays, book reviews, film reviews and play reviews, bibliographical material, poetry, interviews, editorials, and announcements of Lewis-related conferences, events and publications. Its readership is aimed at academic scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, as well as learned non-scholars and Lewis enthusiasts. At this time, Sehnsucht is published once a year.
The writings of C. S. Lewis have a universal appeal. His Chronicles of Narnia are by far the best known, but he was also a prolific literary scholar, essayist, broadcaster, novelist, poet, and Christian apologist. Following the chronology of Lewis's life, James Como draws out the core themes of his writings, showing how his ideas evolved.
After Humanity is a guide to one of C.S. Lewis's most widely admired but least accessible works, The Abolition of Man, which originated as a series of lectures on ethics that he delivered during the Second World War. These lectures tackle the thorny question of whether moral value is objective or not. When we say something is right or wrong, are we recognizing a reality outside ourselves, or merely reporting a subjective sentiment? Lewis addresses the matter from a purely philosophical standpoint, leaving theological matters to one side. He makes a powerful case against subjectivism, issuing an intellectual warning that, in our "post-truth" twenty-first century, has even more relevance than when he originally presented it. Lewis characterized The Abolition of Man as "almost my favourite among my books," and his biographer Walter Hooper has called it "an all but indispensable introduction to the entire corpus of Lewisiana." In After Humanity, Michael Ward sheds much-needed light on this important but difficult work, explaining both its general academic context and the particular circumstances in Lewis's life that helped give rise to it, including his front-line service in the trenches of the First World War. After Humanity contains a detailed commentary clarifying the many allusions and quotations scattered throughout Lewis's argument. It shows how this resolutely philosophical thesis fits in with his other, more explicitly Christian works. It also includes a full-color photo gallery, displaying images of people, places, and documents that relate to The Abolition of Man, among them Lewis's original "blurb" for the book, which has never before been published.
On the fiftieth anniversary of his death, C.S. Lewis was commemorated in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, taking his place beside the greatest names in English literature. Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where Lewis taught, also held celebrations of his life. This volume gathers together addresses from those events into a single anthology. Rowan Williams and Alister McGrath assess Lewis's legacy in theology, Malcolm Guite addresses his integration of reason and imagination, William Lane Craig takes a philosophical perspective, while Lewis's successor as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English, Helen Cooper, considers him as a critic. Others contribute their more personal and creative responses: Walter Hooper, Lewis's biographer, recalls their first meeting; there are poems, essays, a panel discussion, and even a report by the famous 'Mystery Worshipper' from the Ship of Fools website, along with a moving recollection by Royal Wedding composer Paul Mealor about how he set oneof Lewis's poems to music. Containing theology, literary criticism, poetry, memoir, and much else, this volume reflects the breadth of Lewis's interests and the astonishing variety of his own output: a diverse and colourful commemoration of an extraordinary man.
Narnia, Perelandra—places of wonder and longing. The White Witch, Screwtape—personifications of evil. Aslan—a portrait of the divine. Like Turkish Delight, some of C.S. Lewis’s writing surprises and whets our appetite for more. But some of his works bite and nip at our heels. What enabled C.S. Lewis to create such vivid characters and compelling plots? Perhaps it was simply that C.S. Lewis had an unsurpassed imagination. Or perhaps he had a knack for finding the right metaphor or analogy that awakened readers’ imaginations in new ways. But whatever his gifts, no one can deny that C.S. Lewis had a remarkable career, producing many books in eighteen different literary genres, including: apologetics, autobiography, educational philosophy, fairy stories, science fiction, and literary criticism. And while he had and still has critics, Lewis' works continue to find devoted readers. The purpose of this book is to introduce C.S. Lewis through the prism of imagination. For Lewis, imagination is both a means and an end. And because he used his own imagination well and often, he is a practiced guide for those of us who desire to reach beyond our grasp. Each chapter highlights Lewis’s major works and then shows how Lewis uses imagination to captivate readers. While many have read books by C.S. Lewis, not many readers understand his power to give new slants on the things we think we know. More than a genius, Lewis disciplined his imagination, harnessing its creativity in service of helping others believe more deeply. “Truly fresh, rhetorically astute works about C. S. Lewis are rare, but this provocative new volume by Jerry Root and Mark Neal emerges at just the right time to reinvigorate Lewis scholarship beyond the clichés we continue to repeat to each other. The Surprising Imagination of C. S. Lewis delivers just that salvo, an ingenious, empathetic, lavishly informed elucidation of Lewis’s understanding of the life of the imagination.” —Bruce L. Edwards, Professor Emeritus of English and Africana Studies, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH “Our grasp of ‘imagination’ is such a pale and paltry thing; Neal and Root offer a much-needed corrective by illustrating Lewis’s robust use of the word. The happy result is a more accurate and nuanced reading of Lewis. But there is more: through their careful work, we are graced with a rich, new vocabulary to discern and describe the many uses of creative imagination all around us.” —Diana Pavlac Glyer, Professor of English at Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA, author of The Company They Keep: C .S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community “This fabulous book on Lewis’s imagination will delight readers new to Lewis and those who, like the authors, have been reading him for decades. It shimmers with the joy of exploration and discovery. The Surprising Imagination of C. S. Lewis is a reliable and inspiring guide not only to Lewis but to a treasure trove of imaginative books that fired Lewis’s own imagination. In Robert Frost’s delightful phrase, this book is the occasion for a ‘fresh think.’” —Wayne Martindale, Emeritus Professor of English, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL “Jerry Root and Mark Neal make excellent use of Lewis's literary criticism of other authors to show how he employed different varieties of imagination in his own works. The result is a good book about Lewis and an even better one on the capacity of imagination to enrich each of our lives every day.” —Mark Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN “For nearly four decades I have been reading books and articles in the field of Lewis studies. This volume is one of the most original and fascinating books on Lewis to appear in a long time.” —Lyle W. Dorsett, Billy Graham Professor of Evangelism, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Birmingham, AL
C. S. Lewis embodied the Christian mind because he saw the world as a coherent unity. His writing consistently pursued the good, the true, and the beautiful. He used nonfiction to point out the reasonableness of Christianity and used his fiction to create compelling illustrations that make faith in Christ an obvious and attractive conclusion. This book explores the Christian mind of C. S. Lewis across the spectrum of the genres he worked in. With contributors from diverse disciplines and interests, the volume illuminates the many facets of Lewis’s work. The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis assists readers to read Lewis better and also to read other works better. The overarching goal is, just as Lewis would have desired, to help people see Christ more clearly in the world and to be more like Christ.
