and communication. Also see: Gary L. Tandy, The Rhetoric of Certitude: C. S. Lewis’s Nonfiction Prose (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2009). Another excellent resource that was especially influential to my thinking: Greg M. Anderson, “A Most Potent Rhetoric: C. S. Lewis, ‘Congenital Rhetorician’,” C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy, ed. Bruce L. Edwards (Westport: Praeger Perspectives, 2007), 195–228; Also see: James Como, Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis (Dallas: Spence Publishing Company, 1998).
123. Gary L. Tandy, The Rhetoric of Certitude: C. S. Lewis’s Nonfiction Prose (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2009).
124. Como, Branches to Heaven.
125. Greg M. Anderson, “A Most Potent Rhetoric.”
126. Corey Latta, C. S. Lewis and the Art of Writing: What the Essayist, Poet, Novelist, Literary Critic, Apologist, Memoirist, Theologian Teaches Us about the Life and Craft of Writing (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2016).
127. Terry Lindvall, C. S. Lewis’ Theory of Communication.
128. Owen Barfield, “Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis.” ed. G. B. Tennyson (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1989 and San Rafael: Sophia Perennis, The Barfield Press, 2006), 121–122.
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129. For a description of Lewis’s argument to look holistically at and along what is observed see: C. S. Lewis. “Mediation in a Toolshed,”God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 212.
130. C. S. Lewis, Letter to Sister Penelope CSMV, March 25, 1943, Collected Letters. II, 565.
131. Lewis, Sister Penelope, Collected Letters II, 565.
132. See: Johnson, “C. S. Lewis and the BBC’s Brains Trust,” 67–92.
133. Johnson, “C. S. Lewis and the BBC’s Brain’s Trust,” 67–92.
134. C. S. Lewis, “Christian Apologetics,” God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 96.
135. C. S. Lewis, Letter to Patricia Thomson, December 8, 1941, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis Vol. II: Books, Broadcasts, and the War 1931-1949, ed. Walter Hooper (London: HarperCollins, 2004), 499–500.
136. C. S. Lewis, as quoted by Walter Hooper, “Preface,” Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1966), v.
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| 2 | |
| The Making of a Master Communicator |
“[T];he only thing of any importance (if that is) about me is what I have to say … I can’t abide the idea that a man’s books should be “set in their biographical context” and if I had some rare information about the private life of Shakespeare or Dante I’d throw it in the fire, tell no one, and re-read their works. All this biographical interest is only a device for indulging in gossip as an excuse for not reading what the chaps say, [which] is their only real claim on our attention. (I here resist a wild impulse to invent some really exciting background—that I am an illegitimate son of Edward VII, married to a chimpanzee, was rescued from the practice of magic by a Russian monk, and always eat eggs with the shells on.)”1
- C. S. Lewis
“In his rooms in the New Building … I found a medium-size, rather stout, ruddy-faced man with a fine, large head (what the Germans call a ‘Charakterkopf’), and a booming voice much given to what someone once called ‘rhetorical guffawing’ (‘Ho, ho, ho, so you think Milton was ascetic, do you? Ho, ho! You are quite wrong there!’). Lewis looked—and often acted—like the book description of Friar Tuck. His general manner was pronouncedly and—it often seemed—deliberately hearty. But he displayed no heartiness during my first interview with him. Just as I was about to take my leave, Lewis said to me: ‘Are you aware, sir, that your fly is open?’ My surprise was so great that it precluded embarrassment: “If I had been, sir, I should never admit it.’ ”2
- George Bailey
“I’m tall, fat, rather bald, red-faced, double-chinned, black-haired, have a deep voice, and wear glasses for reading.”3
- C. S. Lewis
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C. S. Lewis would not have approved of this chapter. In fact, he would have hated it. He did not think it was helpful to delve into the personal background, especially the personality, of an author to understand the author’s work. His point: If you want to interpret someone’s work, just read what he or she has written; the writing should stand on its own merits. Echoing excerpts from the letter that opens this chapter (“[T];he only thing of any importance (if that is) about me is what I have to say”)4 is Lewis’s contribution to The Personal Heresy, published in 1939 and written in point-counter-point with Milton scholar E. M. W. Tillyard. It was one of Lewis’s few co-authored works.5 (Tillyard’s first name was Eustace; although Lewis had great respect for Tillyard, some speculate he was the namesake of Eustace Clarence Scrub, a sometimes-obnoxious character featured in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair.) In contrast to Lewis, Tillyard’s belief is that all poetry is about the poet’s state of mind.6 Tillyard argues that to interpret any text, including Milton’s Paradise Lost, insightfully and accurately, the reader must see the work as an expression of Milton’s personality.7 The fact that this chapter appears in this book reflects a nod toward Tillyard’s argument; understanding the background, experiences, and personality of an author can help put a work, or in this case, a communicator, in context.
Lewis, on the other hand, maintained that the poet’s personality and personal life are superfluous: “I … maintain that when we read poetry as poetry should be read, we have before us no representation which claims to be the poet, and frequently no representation of a man, a character, or a personality at all.”8
