what they felt like, to see the world through our ancestors’ eyes.”3 Why is this important? Lewis writes in An Experiment in Criticism that we live in a narrow prison of self. We need others’ eyes in order to apprehend reality and expand our understanding—this means not only the voices of the present, but those of the past as well. In opening doors to other historical times and works, Lewis is giving us these eyes. This kind of vision allows us to engage our current cultural situations more effectively and enriches our own understanding and perception of the world.
We need to be awake to our current situation so we can best be prepared as Christians to confront culture ethically rather than retreat from it, and so we don’t get lulled back to sleep by the siren song of culture. In speaking of our ability to be perceptive, Lewis notes,
[Y]ou and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.4
Waking up is crucial to our spiritual and moral education. The study of the literature of the past keeps us sharp, develops virtue, and keeps our faith from suffering from the same soporific, lulling effect. The open doors Lewis invites us to go through can help keep us sharp and awake and imaginatively engaged.
These neglected works open onto new vistas, new modes of thought and understanding that enable us to see the world, as poet Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, that is “charged with the grandeur of God.” Lewis writes that “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”5 Lewis sensed this richness and this deep delight in God’s revelation of beauty in every sphere of life. For him, this delight was most often found in literature. Thus, as he throws wide the doors of his own pleasure in words, language, and the imaginative creation of past centuries, we can better see the world that is crowded with God. As Eric Liddell of the popular film Chariots of Fire said, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.” We might similarly say of Lewis that God made him an astute critic of literature, and in that exercise he reveled in God’s pleasure. It is clear from many of Lewis’s writings that he keenly felt this unique pleasure given to him by great literature. These works are a passing on of that pleasure that we might likewise partake in it.
Finally, Lewis writes that most of his books are evangelistic: “What we want is not more little books about Christianity,” he writes, “but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent.”6 Similarly, G. K. Chesterton wrote that he didn’t become a Christian because one or two things proved it to be true; he became a Christian because everything seemed to point to its truth. Lewis is often quoted along these lines when he wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”7 He saw, and the readers of this book should see, that faith can be strengthened by a widening of the Christian worldview.
Thus, Lewis provides a model of faith integration. In a secular age we tend to compartmentalize our lives, including our faith. We don’t understand how to integrate faith with the rest of what we do. Lewis serves as a model of how to integrate faith into all facets of life. He also challenges secularists to attempt a similar integration by means of whatever worldview they happen to be endorsing at any given time. In books like The Discarded Image he shows that ideologies and worldviews come and go, but the Christian worldview has withstood 2,000 years of distractions and opponents and continues to flourish. It was Lewis’s contention that throughout the ages, the truth of Christianity was able to make sense of the greatest amount of material.
Overview of the Neglected Works
This book examines eight works by Lewis that we have termed “neglected.” Each chapter focuses on one work, and the book is organized chronologically according to their original publication dates. For the student of Lewis who would like to take these studies even further, in an appendix we have also included additional works that we were not able to include here.
The Allegory of Love traces the development of the medieval love allegory as Lewis follows it through the seminal works of an age. He follows the code of chivalry with its emphasis on courage, humility, the religion of love, and adultery. This was the book that established Lewis’s academic reputation.
The Personal Heresy is a debate between Lewis and Elizabethan literary scholar E. M. W. Tillyard over whether or not the personality of the author needs to be known in order to interpret his or her work.
Arthurian Torso examines a cycle of poems telling the story of Camelot from the perspective of the Court Poet, Taliessin, written by Lewis’s friend and fellow Inkling, Charles Williams. The poems are not easily accessible, but the theology and literary point of view is scintillating. As Dante needed a Virgil to guide him through the inferno, so the average reader needs a guide through the thought of Charles Williams.
English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding Drama was Lewis’s magnum opus. It is the ripe fruit of an eighteen-year project that occupied much of his mind and thought. To produce this book, Lewis read every book written in English in the sixteenth century, as well as every book translated into English at that time. It not only reveals the depth of Lewis’s thought, and his brilliant and winsome literary style, but the breadth of his grasp and understanding. Furthermore, this book reveals the background of the full and fertile mind that Lewis brought to all of his other work. It is an important book in the Lewis corpus and one that serious Lewis readers ought to know about.
Studies in Words examines word histories and how their meanings develop over time. Understanding their development is a source of rich treasure. The finding of treasure often requires a map, so Lewis provides that map for all who want to understand the literature beyond their own age. This guidebook helps us better understand old books through knowing the original meanings of words as well as the elements that contribute to change in meaning in language. It also details Lewis’s approach to responsibility with regard to language.
Written toward the end of Lewis’s life, An Experiment in Criticism represents his mature literary critical thought. He analyzes a book based on how it is read rather than simply judging it to be good or bad. He divides readers into two categories: receivers and users. The work examines the difference between books that produce receivers whose lives are enriched forever because of their encounter with these texts and those who remain merely users of literature and miss out on its riches. This book shows how literary experience can widen our views and enrich our understanding of the world.
The Discarded Image is the final edition of a series of lectures Lewis gave at Oxford University titled The Prolegomena to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. One of the last things he wrote before he died, it was published in the year following his death. This work is indispensable to knowing the background of medieval literature and to understanding Lewis’s fascination with that period. Lewis shows that the medieval worldview could not be a last word about reality, and we see in this book a warning that the worldview of any age must equally give way to the demands of new discoveries. All ages will produce what will necessarily become discarded images, interesting in their own right, but insufficient to describe the full complexity of the world in which we find ourselves. This work also provides an essential key to understanding and appreciating Lewis’s fiction.
This brings us to Selected Literary Essays. Throughout the essays in this book that is little read today, we see how, for Lewis, questions lead to answers which lead to discoveries. This promotes awe and wonder and sometimes, in Lewis’s case, worship. The book shows the width of his tastes,
