by :
Deborah Higgens
Department of English
Southern College
Collegedale, Tennessee
Prepared for the
International Faith and Learning Seminar
held at
Newbold College, Bracknell, Berks, England
June 1994
196-94 Institute for Christian Teaching
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904 USA
Why This Story?
C. S. Lewis believed that "a children's story is the best art-form for something you have
to say" (Lewis, On Stories 32). So he took a fairy-tale image from his childhood, a faun carrying an umbrella, inserted a lion about which he had been having 149 dreams (53) and began a delightful children's story that ended up as Christian allegory only because the Christian "element pushed itself in of its own accord" (46). Children's narrative, in the form of the fairy tale, is simple and straightforward. Lewis liked the fairy tale form because it excluded a love interest and close psychology,
And the moment I [Lewis] thought of that [the Fairy Tale] I fell in love with the Form itself: its brevity, its severe restraints on description, its flexible traditionalism, its inflexible hostility to all analysis, digression, reflections, and 'gas'. I was now enamored of it. Its very limitations of vocabulary became an attraction; as the hardness of the stone pleases the sculptor or the difficulty of the sonnet delights the sonneteer.(46-47)
Lewis used the fairy-tale form to "steal past those watchful dragons" (47) of difficult theology that he felt froze the feelings of the individual towards the simplicity of the story of salvation. Therefore he was writing for children "only in the sense that I [Lewis] excluded what I thought they would not like or understand; not in the sense of writing what I intended to be below adult attention" (47). The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is basically the gospel story, written simply, for all (children and adults) to read and enjoy.
One finds a freshness, a serious delightfulness, in opening a section of God's book with
Lewis' work. This book can help "steal past those watchful dragons" guarding students who have heard the salvation story many times and would therefore be inclined to tune out "one more time," while still appealing to students not raised in a Christian
institutional system.
Biography About Author:
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963), known as Jack to his friends, was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably the most influential Christian writer of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English literature at Oxford University until 1954, when he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. His major contributions in literary criticism, children's literature, fantasy literature, and popular theology brought him international renown and acclaim. Lewis and his good friend J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the The Lord of the Rings, were part of the Inklings, an informal writers' club that met at a local pub to discuss story ideas. Lewis's fascination with fairy tales, myths, and ancient legends, coupled with inspiration drawn from his childhood, led him to write The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of the best-loved books of all time. Six further books followed to become the immensely popular The Chronicles of Narnia. The final title in the series, The Last Battle, won the Carnegie Medal, one of the highest marks of excellence in children's literature. His other distinguished and popular accomplishments include Out of the Silent Planet, The Four Loves, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity.
Download:
.jpg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment