# The C.S. Lewis Appreciation Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 22, 2005, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816 "2005-09-22T01:27:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/21 "2005-09-24T01:40:20Z")
More on barons in another essay, ‘The humanitarian theory of punishment’. Forgive me if I quote from my thesis: "In an essay called ‘The humanitarian theory of punishment’, C.S. Lewis (1985a) sets out to demonstrate that any theory of punishment that is not based on merit or desert, such as one aimed at curing the criminal or deterring others, is unjust and not in the interests of the criminal. His reason is that any humanitarian theory removes from punishment the concept of desert, and that this in turn is the only connecting link between punishment and justice: ‘it is only as deserved or undeserved that a sentence can be just or unjust’ (Lewis 1985a: 97). For those who support the humanitarian theory, Lewis (1985a: 103) has harsh words: > [@CSL](#): > > Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies…To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will. My contention is that CDA, qua humanitarian theory, adopts a similarly patronizing approach to those it construes as being in a sufficient state of unenlightenment to warrant its protection or its ‘resources’ (Fairclough 1992a: 9)." Compare Karl Popper in _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ (Vol 1) (‘dictatorship’ for ‘tyranny’). Again from my thesis, I’m afraid: “Popper’s (1966a) support for piecemeal social engineering (with its aim of reducing suffering by fighting against the greatest evils of society largely through reforming institutions and laws) is contrasted with his hostility to Utopian social engineering (with its aim of promoting happiness by fighting for the greatest good of society through redesigning society as a whole). Popper (1966a: 159) considered the latter to be dangerous for a number of reasons, foremost of which was that ‘the Utopian attempt to realize an ideal state, using a blueprint of society as a whole, is one which demands a strong centralized rule of a few, and which therefore is likely to lead to a dictatorship’ and to violence.” ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/22 "2005-09-24T01:51:38Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > But what novels do “FriarTed” or “Thudlow Boink” come from? And did any writer ever use as ridiculous a name as “Wendell Wagner” in a novel? “FriarTed” developed from my days as the portly “pet Christian” of a NeoPagan discussion board- combining Friar Tuck & a real-life nickname. ---
**Author:** ![Reepicheep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Reepicheep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reepicheep)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/23 "2005-09-24T14:55:08Z")
I think this is from _Letters to Children_, but I can be (and often am) wrong. “The real Oxford is a close corporation of jolly, untidy, lazy, good-for-nothing humorous old men, who have been electing their own successors ever since the world began and who intend to go on with it. They’ll squeeze under the Revolution or leap over it when the time comes, don’t you worry.” ---
**Author:** ![Orual](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orual](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orual)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/24 "2005-09-24T17:51:36Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Can I just say that I’ve always loved your username. :😊: Thank you. > [@tL](#): > > _Have you ever had a gallop on a horse? Think of that; and then take away the heavy noise of the hoofs and the jingle of the bits and imagine instead the almost noiseless padding of the great paws. Then imagine instead of the black or gray or chestnut back of the horse the soft roughtness of golden fur, and the mane flying back in the wind. And then imagine you are going about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse. But this is a mount that doesn’t need to be guided and never grows tired. He rushes on and on, never missing his footing, never hesitating, threading his way with perfect skill between tree trunks, jumping over bush and briar and the smaller streams, wading the larger, swimming the largest of all. And you are riding not on a road nor in a park nor even on the downs, but right across Narnia, in spring, down solemn avenues of beech and across sunny glades of oak, through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past roaring waterfalls and mossy rocks and echoing caverns, up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes, and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers._ ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/25 "2005-09-25T03:54:18Z")
So Lewisian to bracket gorse and orchids. The need for balance, the glory of all creation, the rough with the smooth. Indeed, the ‘smooth roughness’ of Aslan’s mane. Lewis. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/26 "2005-09-25T15:43:48Z")
> [@C. S. Lewis](#): > > No one ever told me grief felt so much like fear. It is hard for me to read _A Grief Observed_ - I have never read a more honest analysis of a loss. John Cleese did an audio version of _The Screwtape Letters_ which is outstanding. Especially the last chapter. Regards, Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/27 "2005-09-25T21:08:54Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It is hard for me to read _A Grief Observed_ - I have never read a more honest analysis of a loss. > > John Cleese did an audio version of _The Screwtape Letters_ which is outstanding. Especially the last chapter. > > Regards, > Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle, > Shodan Wow. Could that have been better cast (with the possible exception of Rowan Atkinson, whose picture you’ll find next to “sardonic” in the dictionary)? My (series of increasingly affection terms ending in “pigsnie”)… ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/28 "2005-09-25T21:36:05Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Wow. Could that have been better cast (with the possible exception of Rowan Atkinson, whose picture you’ll find next to “sardonic” in the dictionary)? > > My (series of increasingly affection terms ending in “pigsnie”)… It sounded bizarre to me, but it worked. And it’s “my dear, my very dear Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie”. Come to think of it, I have no idea what a “pigsnie” is. Although I can quote most of that last chapter by heart. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Reepicheep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Reepicheep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reepicheep)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/29 "2005-09-26T01:42:24Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It sounded bizarre to me, but it worked. > > And it’s “my dear, my very dear Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie”. Come to think of it, I have no idea what a “pigsnie” is. Although I can quote most of that last chapter by heart. > > Regards, > Shodan From [Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pigsnie) **Pigsney** \Pigs"ney, n. [Perh. a dim. of Dan. pige a girl, or Sw. piga; or from E. pig’s eye.] A word of endearment for a girl or woman. [Obs.] [Written also pigsnie, pigsny, etc.] --Chaucer. ---
**Author:** ![Iacob\_Matthew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Iacob\_Matthew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iacob_Matthew)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/30 "2005-09-26T05:03:48Z")
> [@Orual](#): > > “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scubb, and he almost deserved it.” (_The Voyage of the Dawn Treader_)" Since you thoughtlessly stole my favorite opening line, I’ll have to settle for my favorite bit from _The Silver Chair_ > [@C.S. Lewis](#): > > “One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I own’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we _have_ only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours _is_ the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.” ---
**Author:** ![blackhobyah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blackhobyah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blackhobyah)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/31 "2005-09-26T06:34:37Z")
I read “The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition” years ago, and still remember how transported I was by the wonderful writing and extraordinarily persuasive argument. Later on I decided that it was mostly wrong about the romantic tradition, but that didn’t alter the fact that it’s such a lovely book, you’d rather believe it, than more accurate, but less beautiful accounts. I’m embarrassed to admit to such fondness for a book of literary criticism, but it is a most truly delightful book. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/32 "2005-09-26T08:03:03Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It sounded bizarre to me, but it worked. > > And it’s “my dear, my very dear Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie”. Come to think of it, I have no idea what a “pigsnie” is. Although I can quote most of that last chapter by heart. > > Regards, > Shodan You may have misunderstood me. My rhetorical question was meant to imply that Cleese was a fantastic choice as Screwtape! I’d like to get hold of that some time. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/33 "2005-09-26T08:35:38Z")
blackhobyah, Could you give us the name of a recent book on the romantic tradition that’s more accurate than Lewis’s book? ---
**Author:** ![blackhobyah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blackhobyah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blackhobyah)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/34 "2005-09-26T10:41:49Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > blackhobyah, > > Could you give us the name of a recent book on the romantic tradition that’s more accurate than Lewis’s book? I hasten to add that I don’t mean to suggest that Lewis was historically inaccurate, he’s too good a scholar for that. But the Allegory of Love was written in the thirties, and by the time I read it, some sixty years later, literary criticism had changed quite a lot, and feminism had certainly prompted new readings and considerations. I was particularly interested in what is called “the new historicism”, and cultural theory, so as much as I was totally charmed by the book, there were other ways of seeing the texts he was writing about, which in my view, had more to offer in terms of theoretical perspectives. I’ll look up some specific references for you, but Lee Patterson’s “Negotiating the Past” is a good introduction to new historicism, and I’m fairly sure he has written about courtly love, certainly in the works of Chaucer. I just had a look for my copy so I could be sure about what’s in it, but my books are in chaos as usual … but I did find my copy of “Allegory of Love” by happy chance, so thanks to this thread I think I’ll be re-reading that. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/35 "2005-09-26T13:04:15Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > You may have misunderstood me. My rhetorical question was meant to imply that Cleese was a fantastic choice as Screwtape! I’d like to get hold of that some time. So I understood you to say, and I agreed - the reading had almost the same effect on me that Jim Dale’s readings of Harry Potter did - now every time I reread the book, I hear that voice in my head. I believe Lewis’ most famous piece of literary criticism was on Paradise Lost. Was that the piece published in the Oxford History of the English Language (OHEL, as he and Tolkien referred to it)? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/36 "2005-09-26T14:40:32Z")
I heard that Puddleglum was based on Lewis’ gardener. Does anyone know it’s it’s true? ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/37 "2005-09-26T14:57:53Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I believe Lewis’ most famous piece of literary criticism was on Paradise Lost. Was that the piece published in the Oxford History of the English Language (OHEL, as he and Tolkien referred to it)? Lewis’ _A Preface to Paradise Lost_ is, now anyway, a stand-alone book–I don’t know if it has been published elsewise. Paradise Lost cirticism took a funny path in the 20th century. Remember that, since publication, people (romanticists like Shelley) have been saying that Satan is the hero of the poem, and that its hell is more interesting than its heaven. In the early 20th century, TSEliot (who has his own funny path in regards to works that have religious content) proclaimed that Paradise Lost’s “grand style” was wrong for modern writers–minimalism and imagism were true, and epic style, simile, metaphor and overblown verbiage were unaesthetic. (Eliot subsequently declined to defend his postion on this point when challenged by Lewis and others–said that he wasn’t interested enough in PL to bother.) Lewis was reacting to both of these critical positions in his Preface. Subsequent critics read Lewis as an old-school defender of Milton from romatic and modernist criticism, divding the critical world into 2 camps. Stanley Fish, a really big gun of modern lit crit, then did _Surprised by Sin,_ which in true pomo style asks what the role of the reader is in PL. Note, however, that Preface anticipates in some important respects the post-modern emphasis on the “narrator,” who he is and whether or not he is reliable. Lewis believes that the narrator himself is first seduced by the devil and his rhetoric, but then learns better, and that this is the source of the “devil is hero” position–those who take this position look at the early parts of the book but not the narrator’s progress. Whether or not you agree with Lewis’ position in Preface, it is much clearer and better written than a lot of the Milton stuff that has come down the pike. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/38 "2005-09-26T14:59:52Z")
Shodan writes: \> Was that the piece published in the Oxford History of the English Language \> (OHEL, as he and Tolkien referred to it)? No, his volume in the OHEL was something different: _English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding Drama_. Lissla Lislar writes: \> I heard that Puddleglum was based on Lewis’ gardener. Does anyone know it’s it’s true? That’s the claim in all the biographies I’ve read. blackhobyah, I was indeed under the impression that the only problem with Lewis’s take on the medieval romance was that research has continued since his day and there are more recent books that are better places to start. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/39 "2005-09-26T20:52:26Z")
Lewis once said that any book worth reading only as a child is not worth reading even then. Quite true… I picked up on a lot in the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, but reading them as an adult, I realized I only caught a small fraction of it. Since re-reading, I think one of my favorite passages now is the scene in _The Horse and his Boy_, where the protagonist (I don’t remember his name) is fleeing through the fog, and he hears a Voice beside him. “Who are you?” “Myself.” “Myself.” “Myself.” ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816/40 "2005-09-27T02:54:30Z")
**HS** , interesting and informative post. I’ve bought _The Discarded Image_ and intend reading it soon. Will then see if I’m up to the _Preface_ and _Allegory of Love_! > [@Humble Servant](#): > > Subsequent critics read Lewis as an old-school defender of Milton from romantic and modernist criticism, dividing the critical world into 2 camps. Genuine question: does ‘dividing’ refer to the critics or to Lewis? > [@](#): > > Stanley Fish, a really big gun of modern lit crit, then did _Surprised by Sin,_ which in true pomo style asks what the role of the reader is in PL. Nicely put. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-c-s-lewis-appreciation-thread/322816.md?page=3)