C. S. Lewis

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C. S. Lewis, photographed in 1947.

Clive Staples Lewis (b. November 29, 1898, Belfast - d. November 24, 1963, Oxford) was an Irish writer, novelist, essayist, Christian apologist and moral mythologist.

Early life

The second son of Albert James Lewis, a solicitor, and Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis, whose father was a Church of Ireland minister, he was baptized as an infant in the Anglican church at St Mark's Dundela, Belfast. Aged 4, after his pet dog "Jacksie" was killed by a car, Lewis declared that his name was now Jacksie. This later became truncated to Jacks which became Jack, the name used by friends and family for the rest of his life.His older brother was Warren Hamilton Lewis (1895 – 1973) whom C. S. referred to as "Warnie" and described as "my dearest and closest friend." The brothers formed a very close bond playing together at home home, writing and illustrating stories for their fictional world called "Boxen", a world populated by dressed, talking animals, and obviously the precursor of the land of Narnia, the magical land of children's adventures that retell the story of the Creation, Fall, and Redemption of humankind. Lewis loved to read, and as his father’s house was filled with books, he felt that finding a book he had not read was as easy as "finding a blade of grass." The "reality" he found on the pages of this extensive library seemed as tangible and meaningful to him as anything that transpired outside in the "real world", and he has said of these childhood years that "at the age of seven, and eight, I was living almost entirely in my imagination; or at least that the imaginative experience of those years now seems to me more important than anything else."

C. S. was homeschooled until he was 10 years old. On August 23, 1908 - her husband's birthday - Flora Lewis died of cancer. In the same year Albert Lewis' father and brother also died, and as their father grieved, C.S. and Warren Lewis were left with only each other for comfort and support.

Lewis as a child

Education

Lewis was enrolled at Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire, in Sptember 1908, where Warren was already a pupil. Lewis was unhappy at the "brutal" school, which in later life he referred to as "Belsen" or "Oldies" after the nickname of the Headmaster, Robert "Oldie" Capron (who was later committed to an asylum for the insane.) Lewis was withdrawn from the school in June 1910, the school closing shortly afterwards due to a lack of pupils. In September 1910 he was enrolled as a boarding student at Campbell College, Belfast, one mile from the family home, and where he remained until November of the same year, when he was withdrawn after developing serious respiratory difficulties.

As a result of his health problems, Lewis was sent in 1911 to Malvern, England, which was widely regarded as a health resort, especially for those with tubercolosis and lung ailments. He was enrolled as a student at Cherbourg House (which he referred to as "Chartres"), a prep school near to Malvern College where his brother Warren was by now a student, and here he remained until June 1913. His love of fiction developed further while at school: "I also developed a great taste for all the fiction I could get about the ancient world: Quo Vadis, Darkness and Dawn, The Gladiators, Ben Hur. Early Christians came into many of these stories, but they were not what I was after. I simply wanted sandals, temples, togas, slaves, emperors, galleys, amphitheaters, the attraction, as I now see, was erotic, and erotic in rather a morbid way."

It was during this time that he abandoned his childhood Christian faith. The Matron of Cherbourg House was very influential on the young Lewis, contributing enormously to his decision to declare himself an atheist:

She was floundering in the mazes of Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism; the whole Anglo-American Occultist tradition. I had never heard of such things before; never, except in a nightmare or a fairy tale, conceived of spirits other than God and men. I had loved to read of strange sights and other worlds and unknown modes of being, but never with the slightest belief. Without knowing it, I was already desperately anxious to get rid of my religion. I had set myself a standard. No clause of my prayer was to be allowed to pass muster unless it was accompanied by what I called a 'realization,' by which I meant a certain vividness of the imagination and the affections.

Night after night, dizzy with desire for sleep and often in a kind of despair, I endeavored to pump up my 'realizations.' This ludicrous burden of false duties in prayer provided of course, an unconscious motive for wishing to shuffle off the Christian faith.

You might ask how I combined this directly Atheistical thought with my Occultist fancies. They had only this in common, that both made against Christianity. And so, little by little I became an apostate, dropping my faith. Dear Miss C. had been the occasion of much good to me as well as of evil. Nor would I deny that in all her 'Higher Thought,' disastrous though its main effect on me was, there were elements of real and disinterested spirituality by which I benefited.

His melancholy search for the security and settledness he had taken for granted before his mother's death, the constant moving from school to school (where at each he faced the loneliness of being a non-athletic boy whose aesthetic sensibilities were out of step with his peers'), combined with the "distant" personality of his father make his adolescent rejection of religion easier to understand. This is qualified by the adult Lewis himself when he later described his young self as being (paradoxically) "very angry with God for not existing".

He left Cherbourg House in the summer of 1913 and enrolled at Malvern College (which he called "Wyvern") where he studied until June 1914. In September 19 1914, Lewis was enrolled for private tuition with W.T. Kirkpatrick, known as the "The Great Knock," in Great Bookham, Surrey, where he remained until April 1917. Kirkpatrick, a former Headmaster of Lurgan College, Northern Ireland, had been both a tutor and legal client of Albert Lewis and had already successfully prepared Warren Lewis for admission to the Army's Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Lewis admired and strived to be like Kirkpatrick all of his adult life, and said of him "[he was] a man who thought not about you but about what you said." It is clear that "Professor Digory Kirk" of the Narnian tales is a tribute to Kirkpatrick.

In December 1916 Lewis first visited the University of Oxford to take a scholarship examination and in April 1917 began his study at University College, Oxford. Although interrupted by his service in World War I, Lewis resumed his studies in January 1919 and received a First in Honour Moderations (Greek and Latin Literature) in 1920, a First in Greats (Philosophy and Ancient History) in 1922, and a First in English in 1923.

Military service

Lewis had joined the Officer Training Corps in September 1913 whilst at Malvern College. Although he had left the corps when he had commenced his study under Kirkpatrick, he rejoined the Malvern Contingent of the Oxford University OTC in March 1917. On April 25, 1917 he applied to join an Officer Cadet Unit, stating a preference to serve in the infantry, preferably with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers or Royal Fusiliers, or with a horse transport unit of the Army Service Corps. Still under the age of 21, the application was counter-signed by his father and character references were taken from Arthur C.Allen (his former Schoolmaster at Malvern) and also from Kirkpatrick. His action was completely voluntary, as although conscription had been in force in Britain since the introduction of the Military Service Act in 1916, it did not apply to Irish nationals. Five days later the Officer Commanding Oxford University Officers Training Corps completed a recommendation that Lewis attend an Officers Cadet Unit, noting that Lewis was "likely to make an useful officer but will not have had sufficient training for admission to an OCU before the end of June".

The medical examination then conducted reveals that Lewis was 5 feet 10¾ inches tall and weighed 182 pounds, with a chest measurement of 34½ inches fully expanded and 32 at rest. His vision was rated "good".

On June 1, 1917 Lewis was admitted to No.4 Officer Cadet Battalion, with a minimum service commitment of 4½ months. It was during this period that Lewis shared a room and became close friends with another cadet, Edward Courtnay Francis "Paddy" Moore (1898-1918), striking a mutual pact that if either died during the war the survivor would take care of both their families. In September he was transferred from the Oxford University OTC to a temporary commission with the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Special Reserve of Officers in the Regular Army. He was posted to the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry in South Devon, and a few days later was then posted to join the 1st Battalion of the regiment in France.

He was wounded during the Battle of Arras on May 15, 1918 by shell fragments to the chest, which also broke a rib, left wrist and left leg. After a week of treatment he was evacuated back to England where he was hospitalized until December 24, 1918 and was demobilised from the Army. Paddy Moore had been killed in action near Peronne, France, and Lewis struck up a close relationship with his mother, Janie King Moore (1873-1951). Athough, at 45, she was 27 years older than Lewis they were clearly particularly fond of one another and Mrs. Moore played an important role in his convalescence as his father refused to visit him.

Mrs. Moore and The Kilns

In the the summer of 1920, Mrs. Moore and her daughter Maureen moved to Oxford and rented a house in Headington Quarry. Lewis lived with the Moores from June 1921 onward. In August 1930, they all moved to Hillsboro, Headington. In October 1930, Mrs. Moore, Lewis, and Warren Lewis, by now an Army Major, purchased The Kilns jointly, with title to the property being taken solely in the name of Mrs. Moore and the two brothers holding rights of life tenancy. Built in 1922, The Kilns was a modest twelve-room brick cottage. Warren said later: "Jack and I went out and saw the place on Sunday morning, and I instantly caught the infection: we did not go inside the house, but the eight acre garden is such stuff as dreams are made of."

Warren Lewis retired from the military and moved in to the The Kilns in 1932. The nature of the relationship between Lewis and Mrs. Moore has been the subject of much speculation, although it is most likely that he looked to her as a surrogate for his own dead mother, and she likewise for her dead son. Lewis' stepson Douglas Gresham stated in his biography of Lewis that the relationship "will remain a mystery". That he regarded her as an adoptive mother, and felt a filial duty towards her, became more apparent in later life, when Mrs. Moore became "difficult, demanding, and eventually demented" due to Alzheimer's Disease. In 1950 she was moved into a nursing home nearby. Lewis visited her every day, even turning down speaking engagements so as not to disappoint her. On her death in 1951 he said:

“

There has been a great change in my life owing to the death of the old lady I called my mother. She died, without apparent pain after many months of semi-conscious existence, and it would be hypocritical to pretend that it was a grief to us.

”

University Professor

Between October 1924 and May 1925, Lewis held the post of philosophy tutor at University College, Oxford while the permanent tutor, E.F. Carritt, took an absence for study leave in the America. In 1925 he was made a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and tutored there until 1954, when he accepted the Chair in, and became first Professor of, Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge. Among many of his students at Magdalen College was the poet John Betjeman, although there was no friendship between them - Lewis disliked Betjeman's relaxed attitude towards his work, including Betjeman appearing in tutorials still wearing his bedroom slippers.

Return to Christianity

The renewal of his pre-adolescent faith was depicted by Lewis as the result of the writings of two religious authors, and discussions with three friends, each of whom Lewis cites as a critical influence upon his conversion. The first of these was the 19th century novelist George MacDonald, whose works, Phantastes and Lillith, Lewis read at age nineteen and "baptized his imagination, preparing him for a preternatural world beyond the strictly materialist one he had grown so tired of."

The second author was G. K. Chesterton, whose The Everlasting Man, provided a "Christian theory of history." In Surprised by Joy Lewis says: "In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."

By 1929, Lewis had renounced atheism, and declared himself a theist: "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." His detractors have made much of his apparent loathing of his return to theism, usually quoting his statement "I came into Christianity kicking and screaming", but seen in the full context of his writings this was not a loathing of God or Christianity, but a self-loathing of what that would personally mean to him about himself: "All my acts, desires, and thoughts were to be brought into harmony with universal Spirit. For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me: a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds."

The three friends who influenced him were his tutor Kirkpatrick, who taught Lewis "a form of rigorous inquiry that sought objective truth through the relentless probing of an opponent's positions and definitions, a fierce and, in Kirkpatrick's hands, exaggerated version of Socratic dialogue." Owen Barfield, one of his close friends at Oxford, contributed to his acceptance of theism by forcing Lewis through debate to overcome his "uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited." Liberated from the notion that the past was invariably wrong and that the present always the barometer of truth, Lewis was able to embrace the possibility that the ancient Christian narrative could have validity even in the twentieth century.

It was Lewis' frequent discussions with J.R.R. Tolkien that proved the final turning point. Tolkein was himself a devout Catholic, and through their debates Lewis came to understand that while Christianity may itself comprise a mythology of sorts, it was, in fact, "the true myth, myth become fact" and the one in which Lewis could put his full confidence, heart, mind, and soul. On the evening of September 19, 1931 he invited Tolkien and Hugo Dyson to dine with him in Magdalen College. The talk continued through the night, in Lewis' rooms and also out in the grounds of the college. Lewis recalls in Surprised by Joy that an outing with his brother the following day saw his final acceptance of Christianity: "When we set out [by motorcycle to the zoo] I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did." In a letter to his long time friend Arthur Greeves, dated October 1, 1931, Lewis writes: "I have just passed on from believing in God to definitely believing in Christ — in Christianity. My long night talk with Dyson and Tolkien had a good deal to do with it."

Lewis the author

Many consider Lewis the most important Christian writer in the English language. He is, certainly, among the most popular. Over fifty books have been published to his credit, and annual book sales remain over two million, with more than 200 million copies of his books sold worldwide. All have never been out of print, and there are more than 200 individual fan clubs, readers groups and C.S. Lewis societies around the world. However, his success and prominence can not be interpreted by evaluating his novels or poetry alone. Dabney Hart, who has written and lectured extensively about Lewis said "I think it does no disservice to him to say that he is not one of the great novelists of the 20th century. I think he would have been the first person to say that himself." Biographer John Ryan Duncan sums up Lewis' literary greatness as "his ability to simplify an intellectual or philosophical concept and to assist readers on a spiritual journey of their own." The heart of Lewis' work is about values, morality and the battle between good and evil, and he used his writing to ask the philosophical, psychological, and moral questions that are at the core every person's existence: Is there a God? If so, is there only one God? If there is a God, then why does evil permeate our world? Why is there famine, war, overpopulation, death and destruction? How does belief in God help nurture happiness and fulfillment? How does faith heal and help someone overcome pain?

The way Lewis posed spiritual questions in both his fiction and non-fiction writing set him apart from many writers of his or any generation. Few writers are able to place the search for God or enlightenment in a context that is equally thought provoking and entertaining. Lewis was able to walk that fine line. His intellect and his vast knowledge of English literature and mythology helped him craft his argument and his storytelling. But it was more than that: Lewis was also able to harness the same imagination and creativity that served him as a child and use it to explore different worlds, colorful landscapes, and multi-dimensional characters consumed by the same human frailties and temptations that besiege us all.

The circle of literary friends he met through his time at Magdalen College became an informal discussion society known as the "Inklings", and included J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, as well as his brother Warren. The Inklings gathered regularly at "The Eagle and Child" public house where they drank beer, discussed philosophy, and critiqued each other's work. They also met informally in Lewis' rooms at the college. Both Tolkien and Lewis shared their classic works with The Inklings during the writing stage, including Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia.

Bibliography

Nonfiction

• The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936)
• Rehabilitations and other essays (1939) — with two essays not included in Essay Collection (2000)
• The Personal Heresy: A Controversy (with E. M. W. Tillyard, 1939)
• The Problem of Pain (1940)
• A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942)
• The Abolition of Man (1943)
• Beyond Personality (1944)
• Miracles: A Preliminary Study (1947, revised 1960)
• Arthurian Torso (1948; on Charles Williams's poetry)
• Mere Christianity (1952; based on radio talks of 1941–1944)
• English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (1954)
• Major British Writers, Vol I (1954), Contribution on Edmund Spenser
• Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (1955; autobiography)
• Reflections on the Psalms (1958)
• The Four Loves (1960)
• Studies in Words (1960)
• An Experiment in Criticism (1961)
• A Grief Observed (1961; first published under the pseudonym N. W. Clerk)
• Selections from Layamon's Brut (ed. G L Brook, 1963 Oxford University Press) introduction
• Prayer: Letters to Malcolm (1964)
• The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964)
• Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1966) — not included in Essay Collection (2000)
• Spenser's Images of Life (ed. Alastair Fowler, 1967)
• Letters to an American Lady (1967)
• Christian Reflections (1967; essays and papers)
• Selected Literary Essays (1969) — not included in Essay Collection (2000)
• God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (1970)
• Undeceptions (1971)
• Of Other Worlds (1982; essays) — with one essay not included in Essay Collection
• Present Concerns (1986; essays)
• All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C. S. Lewis 1922–27 (1993)
• Essay Collection: Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories (2000)
• Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church (2000)
• Collected Letters, Vol. I: Family Letters 1905–1931 (2000)
• Collected Letters, Vol. II: Books, Broadcasts and War 1931–1949 (2004)
• Collected Letters, Vol. III: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963 (2007)
• The Business Of Heaven:Daily Readings From C.S.Lewis ed. Walter Hooper, 1984, Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc.

Fiction

• The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)
• Space Trilogy
  • Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
  • Perelandra (aka Voyage to Venus) (1943)
  • That Hideous Strength (1946)
• The Screwtape Letters (1942)
• The Great Divorce (1945)
• The Chronicles of Narnia
  • The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
  • Prince Caspian (1951)
  • The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
  • The Silver Chair (1953)
  • The Horse and His Boy (1954)
  • The Magician's Nephew (1955)
  • The Last Battle (1956)
• Till We Have Faces (1956)
• Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1961) (an addition to The Screwtape Letters)
• Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964)
• The Dark Tower and other stories (1977)
• Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis (ed. Walter Hooper, 1985)

Poetry

• Spirits in Bondage (1919; published under pseudonym Clive Hamilton)
• Dymer (1926; published under pseudonym Clive Hamilton)
• Narrative Poems (ed. Walter Hooper, 1969; includes Dymer)
• The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis (ed. Walter Hooper, 1994; includes Spirits in Bondage)

Accolades

• 1st Hon. Moderates: University College, Oxford
• 1st Hon. Greats: University College, Oxford
• 1st Hon. English: University College, Oxford
• 1921 Chancellors English Essay Prize: Optimism
• Fellow: Magdalen College, Oxford
• 1937 Gollancz Memorial Prize for Literature: The Allegory of Love
• Honorary Doctor of Divinity: University of St. Andrews
• Fellow: Royal Society of Literature
• COBE :Declined
• Honorary Doctor of Letters: Laval University, Quebec
• Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature: Magdalene College, Cambridge
• Honorary Fellow: Magdalen College, Oxford
• Fellow: British Acadamy
• 1956 Carnegie Medal: The Last Battle
• Honorary Fellow: University College, Oxford
• Honorary Doctor of Literature: University of Manchester
• Honorary Fellow: Magdalene College, Cambridge

External links

• C.S. Lewis Society of California
• Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College
• "C. S. Lewis: A Modest Literary Biography and Bibliography," by Bruce L. Edwards
• "Finding the Permanent in the Political: C. S. Lewis as a Political Thinker," by John G. West
• "Still Surprised by Lewis," by J.I. Packer
• C.S. Lewis Foundation
• Into the Wardrobe
• "C. S. Lewis and the Materialist Menace," by John G. West
• New York C.S. Lewis Society
• The Question of God, PBS series
• C.S. Lewis and the Inklings
• "C. S. Lewis on Mere Science," by Michael Aeschliman
• "Truth in the Fire: C. S. Lewis and Pursuit of Truth Today," by Dallas Willard