Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Enchanting Luna And Militant Mars: The Shorter Planetary Fiction Of C.S. Lewis, Bruce R. Johnson

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

As the debate surrounding Ward’s theory continues—all the more so with the recent release of a book version of The Narnia Code—a reexamination of Lewis’ shorter planetary fiction seems in order. In his lunar tale, “Forms of Things Unknown,” and in his Martian story, “Ministering Angels,” what aspects of the older cosmological model can be discerned? Are they in keeping with what Ward claims are the essences of Luna and Mars, as Lewis understood them? And what, if any, theological points may Lewis be making in these two tales? The present study will address each of these three issues. It …

C.S. Lewis, Public Intellectual, Samuel Joeckel

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Despite such hints and evocations, it appears that no one has attempted a systematic analysis of Lewis as a public intellectual. That is, no one has methodically employed extant theories on the concept of the public intellectual to assess how (or even whether) he fits the bill. No one has used these theories as an interpretive lens for analyzing Lewis’ writings. No one has analyzed the historical conditions during Lewis’ lifetime that pushed him into the role of public intellectual. No one has explored how Lewis adheres to the conventions of public discourse, the language of the public intellectual. And …

Adventures Dipped In Myth: The Voyage Of The 'Dawn Treader' As Quest Saga, D. G. Kehl

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"No works of Lewis deal with the quest motif more extensively, consistently, and significantly than The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–6)....It is The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader,’ however, which perhaps best exemplifies the quest motif and which itself constitutes a quest saga."

Review Of Narnia And The Fields Of Arbol: The Environmental Vision Of C. S. Lewis, Charles Huttar

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Matthew Dickerson and David O’Hara, Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009). xiii + 304 pages. $35.00. ISBN 9780813125220.

Review Of The Rhetoric Of Certitude: C. S. Lewis’ Nonfiction Prose, James T. Como

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Gary L. Tandy, The Rhetoric of Certitude: C. S. Lewis’ Nonfiction Prose (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009). 135 pages. $39.95. ISBN: 9780873389730.

Review Of The Magician’S Book: A Skeptic’S Adventures In Narnia, D. G. Kehl

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Laura Miller, The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008). 311 pages. $25.99. ISBN 9780316017633.

Review Of The Inklings Of Oxford: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, And Their Friends, Grayson Carter

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Harry Lee Poe [text] and James Ray Veneman [photography], The Inklings of Oxford: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Their Friends (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009). 176 pages. $24.99. ISBN: 9780310285038.

Review Of C. S. Lewis: Views From Wake Forest. Essays On C. S. Lewis By Walter Hooper, James Como, And Many Others, David G. Clark

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Michael Travers (ed.), C. S. Lewis: Views from Wake Forest. Essays on C. S. Lewis by Walter Hooper, James Como, and many others (Wayne, PA: Zossima Press, 2008). 288 pages. $23.00. ISBN: 9780972322157.

Review Of Why I Believe In Narnia: 33 Reviews & Essays On The Life & Works Of C. S. Lewis, James P. Helfers

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of James Como, Why I Believe in Narnia: 33 Reviews & Essays on the Life & Works of C. S. Lewis (Wayne, PA: Zossima Press, 2008). 288 pages. $15.99. ISBN: 9780972322188.

Review Essay: C. S. Lewis On The Final Frontier: Science And The Supernatural In The Space Trilogy, Sørina Higgins

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Sanford Schwartz, C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 256 pages. $27.95. ISBN: 9780195374728.

The Lore Of Wood And Stone: Magic In The Chronicles Of Narnia And The Lord Of The Rings, Louis Markos

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Lewis and Tolkien were apologists for magic in an age where the lore of wood and stone had all but been crushed between two opposing forces: secular technologies that seek to conquer nature and force it to serve the whims of man, and Christian churches that see in magic only the evil sorcery of Simon Magus and the Witch of Endor. In The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, modern readers are presented with a different incantation: a magic that shatters the anti-humanistic side of technology while affirming the deep and abiding creativity of the Triune God.

Why Father Christmas Appears In Narnia, P. H. Brazier

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"Though Lewis did not explain the presence of Father Christmas in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, given his methodology of “supposal” it is reasonable to formulate an explanation in these terms, rather than seeking allegorical coincidences; clearly, in the context of the internal coherence within the story, this explanation makes a certain sense. Father Christmas’ presence in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe may at first generate confusion and skepticism from those who fail to see that he is a “gift-bearer” sent by Aslan. In Platonic terms, however, he is ultimately a gift-bearer sent by God, Aslan’s …

What C.S. Lewis Really Did To "Cupid And Psyche", Charles Huttar

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

The story of Lewis's engagement, starting at age 18, with Apuleius's story of Cupid and Psyche.

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Exhibition, Bruce R. Johnson

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

Back Matter (Volume 2, Issue 1), Grayson Carter

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Personal Heresy: A Controversy, Bruce R. Johnson

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of The Personal Heresy: A Controversy. By C. S. Lewis and E. M. W. Tillyard. Edited by Joel Heck, with an Introduction by Bruce L. Edwards. Austin, Tex.: Concordia University Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-8818481-0-3. Pp. xix + 129. $19.95

Review Essay: Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens In The Imagination Of C. S. Lewis (Connell), Charles W. Connell

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis. By Michael Ward. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978- 0-19-53138701. Pp. xii + 347. $29.95.

Review Essay: Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens In The Imagination Of C. S. Lewis (Higgins), Sørina Higgins

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis. By Michael Ward. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978- 0-19-53138701. Pp. xii + 347. $29.95

C.S. Lewis: Literary Criticism And Critical Theory A Primary And Secondary Bibliography, James P. Helfers

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Excerpt: "A major problem with compiling a focused bibliography of texts related to C. S. Lewis’ work as a literary critic and critical theorist is that critical theory as a concept is a relatively recent invention. One can think of critical theory as the explicit consideration of the ontological and epistemological status of objects of literary study, and as the philosophical consideration of various aspects of the interpretation of texts (hermeneutics). Although a number of philosophical writings since the Greek Classical Period have significance for critical theory, the idea that an interpretive approach to texts can be considered philosophically probably …

Toward A Narnian Valuation Of Nature: Participatory Ontology, Jeff Sellars

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Lewis’ appreciation of nature begs the question: from where does the natural world gain its purpose and meaning? Lewis’ valuation of nature can be understood perhaps best through participatory ontology: the immanent world is valued and saved only through the participation of the divine; the lower life is brought up into the higher life. This view can be seen very openly and unmistakably throughout The Chronicles of Narnia, where the natural Narnian world of plants, animals, trees, and creatures of all kinds are celebrated, and some are eventually included in the New Narnia.

Diversity In Times Of Adversity: Sounding A Horn In Narnia, D. G. Kehl

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Why, one might ask, does Lewis go to such great lengths to specify twelve different varieties of animals—“all you variety of creatures”—if not to stress diversity? In Letters to Malcolm Lewis wrote: “If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them.”

Front Matter (Volume 2, Issue 1), Grayson Carter

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

Backmatter (Volume 1, Issue 1), Grayson Carter

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Essay: Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis Can Train Us To Wrestle With The Modern And Postmodern World, William Gentrup

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

A lengthy review of Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis Can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World. By Louis Markos. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003.

ISBN 0-8054-2778-3. Pp. xv + 174. $19.99 [paper].

Grooving A Symbol: Turkish Delight In Narnia, Del Kehl

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Excerpt: Imagine yourself a writer living in Britain during the late 1940s. You are writing a book for children, but you believe that a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then, and that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The challenge before you is to choose something a witch might offer enticingly to a boy of ten or eleven, most likely some delicious viand, to symbolize temptation, solicitation to evil. What would it be? This was the challenge facing C. S. Lewis as he wrote The Lion, …

A Time For Joy: The Ancestry And Apologetic Force Of C.S. Lewis' Sehnsucht, James P. Helfers

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Excerpt: "In sum, it is clear that Lewis owes a great debt to Wordsworth’s idea of Joy, a debt he acknowledges explicitly through the title of his autobiography. Their views of the experience have much in common: for both it is an intense long- ing, for both it undergirds their sense of the reality of an eternal realm, as well as guiding them toward either virtue (in Wordsworth’s case) or a contemplation of and belief in the eternal (in Lewis’ case). Both of their experiences connect, ei- ther explicitly or implicitly, with the philosophical notion of the sublime. There are …