C.S. Lewis, Narnia, and the Medieval World
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- Опубліковано 2 вер 2014
- This lecture explores C.S. Lewis, the medieval world, and his use of the 7 planets in ancient cosmology in his Narnia books. This is research by Michael Ward in his book 'Planet Narnia', and we explore these findings by Ward.
Planet Narnia is highly recommended for this lecture: amzn.to/2hyhJx1
Michael Ward's other book is 'The Narnian Code': amzn.to/2gNfqat
On Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship:
Duriez book is great: amzn.to/2hHyPew
For the best books on C.S. Lewis and his background:
George Sayer's biography: amzn.to/2hHlUJQ
Alan Jacob's book 'The Narnian': amzn.to/2gNeFy8
For the best books on Tolkien and his background:
Tom Shippey's biography: amzn.to/2dChoJu
Classic biography: amzn.to/2dCh5hY
The Road to Middle Earth: amzn.to/2dCikOb
Ryan M. Reeves (PhD Cambridge) is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Twitter: / ryanmreeves Instagram: / ryreeves4
Blog: www.gordonconwell.edu/academic...
This is Lecture 2 in the course 'Lewis and Tolkienl'. All material is copyrighted.
For the entire course, see the playlist: • Lewis and Tolkien
The book '7 pillars of wisdom ' by Lawrence of Arabia has a discussion of a similar idea. Lawrence is talking to Auda Abu-tahi, a powerful Arab Chieftan about new telescopes and how they (British people) are learning about more and more stars. Auda complains that this is removing the divinity from the heavens. He tells Lawrence "I see god behind my thousand stars and you don't see him, behind your millions.'
Germanic & Romance languages mark gods in the heavens:
Moon day/Lun-di, Tiu's-day/Mar-di, Odin/Mercre-di... Aristotle's seven 'unmoved movers' (planetoi).
Lest Auda take our linguistic 'furniture' for granted,
Holst's suite also springs to mind.
When did extremist fundamentalist protestants etc. start their campaign against C.S.L.? It's a shame. I expect I would still be a fundamentalist-- but when I was much younger I happened to pick-up, open and begin reading "The Screwtape Letters"…and because I hadn't been pre-conditioned to think of Lewis as a "witch" and/or an "unbeliever", I could read without the jaundiced eye and , well, you know the rest.
Exciting lecture, I didn't know Lewis based his Narnia series on this medieval view of the planets. I will discuss The Chronicles of Narnia and their philosophy on my fantasy channel.
32:00 Edmund turned a spear into gold totally on accident (and the toes of his boots). Caspian turned some heather into gold deliberately. They started arguing, and Lucy told them to stop it and to stop acting like boys. Aslan walked by, shining like he was in direct sunlight. Edmund and Caspian stopped arguing and repented. Reepicheep named the island Deathwater.
38:32 In The Horse and His Boy, chapter 11, Shasta and Aslan have a whole conversation in the foggy mountain pass: Aslan reveals his providence explicitly, explaining how each seemingly unlucky event was actually set up by Aslan to make sure His good purposes were accomplished. Aslan seems happy to reveal all and also encourages Shasta, "Tell me your sorrows."
Shasta feels a good fear and gladness at the end of the conversation. When the fog finally parts, Shasta kneels before Aslan and has a moment of pure communion in which he realizes he doesn't want to or need to say anything, and Aslan kisses his forehead before disappearing and leaving cold water behind for Shasta to drink.
33:54 No, I never struggled through The Horse and His Boy, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Btw, I didn't consider Prince Caspian overly violent either, there are more quiet moments than in Superman or Batman.
And that is what I had read before coming to CSL.
Excellent: the context! Too often, maybe always, people calling themselves scholars forget the context, and therefore draw the wrong conclusions!
Dr. Reeves, I love this series in general. Thanks for helping me to read fantasy to the glory of God!
Thank you for the Narnian Code.
What a brilliant mind he was.
Did Tolkien know about this ?
About asking God: 'How dare you!?' It reminds me of an old Jewish joke: Why does God live in Heaven rather than on Earth? Because if He lived on Earth, people would break His windows.
Brilliant lecture. I ordered the Ward monograph. It's so refreshing to observe sane students listening raptly to the material being presented. Over the past eight years, I've seen students ravaged by 5G, pharmaceuticals, so-called psycho-therapy, "theory" in the humanities, academic feminism, and the subversion of faculty by "Student Services and Counseling."
Brilliant lecturer. Among the best around in any field. I got the Michael Ward boon on "Narnia" and watched the mind-boggling documentary on his literary scholarship break-through.
Awesome! Spud is a good friend (as I say in the video) and his discovery is amazing....especially given how much those books have been read. You would have thought there was nothing else to discover!
thank you 😊
13:40 Maleldil ... is actually supposed to be ... Christ.
In OotSP as well as in Per, it is mentioned that Maleldil went to Thulcandra (Earth) and redeemed it in a wondrous way. By suffering.
Thank you, I'm hooked. Looking forward to the rest of these lectures, and also your history lecture (Greece and Rome are how I got here). Yes, Sam is Frodo's gardener, however, he is also the one who pulls Frodo's cookies out of the fire, as the English yeomen pulled England's out of their fires.
10:27 Do you think St Paul was prophecying Belloc, Tolkien and C S Lewis when he mentioned one Philologus in Romans 16:15?
14:35 Perelandra is actually not the last but the mid book - you misspoke, right?
He did, as I heard a moment later.
3:51 I think your memory of the Chesterton passage got mangled - or reworked, whichever you prefer. Bible wasn't mentioned in the passage.
46:27 An author and a reader are usually not having a "conversation".
An author usually is providing precisely for the kind of enjoyment which you do describe as "selfish".
And if I was early on thinking of authors (and of becoming one myself), it is because I spent time reading one less good (I think now) than Tolkien and C S Lewis : Karl May.
He was perhaps selfish enough to imagine himself as an adventure hero and of writing of himself as an author ...
When I DO want to know about CSL or JRRT as authors, I go to what they wrote about themselves - or each other.
Planet Narnia is a nice hypothesis ... by the way the seven books of Ring "trilogy" and Prequel could be similarily analysed.
Hobbit as Solar or Lunar book. Book I as the Saturnine book or Solar one ...
But we do not have as a solid fact that this is how CSL planned the series.
B t w, CSL and JRRT were not super enthusiastic about people guessing authors' intentions.
Nor am I:
filolohika.blogspot.fr/2017/03/what-not-to-ask-in-shakespear-studies.html
47:17 You could not have written LotR without being good at math ...
Btw, the math of C14 half life _interacting with_ rising C14 content so as to allow the carbon timeline to shrink when going back to the post-Flood world with very low C14 content, but rising, in a Biblical timeline, that math is revealing stuff.
Take a look at this:
filolohika.blogspot.fr/2017/03/stone-age-poland-from-flood-to-abraham.html
48:35 You somehow have a problem with a lord of the manor having a butler or a gardener ... sth which CSL had by the way, his name was Paxford ... but how about an executive director having thousands of employees who never hear him saying any orders, either friendly or not, but who have to obey directives he wrote down for business reasons and which he wrote down without so much as looking at them?
50:35 Final tirade was not for me.
I am not trying to become a pastor.
I claim to be a writer (with 5000 + articles, including some poetry, including 70+ short chapters of a Susan fiction (like 24 Narnia book chapters or 8 LotR chapters, perhaps?) and some sheet music scores scanned I think the claim is justified over the internet).
I keep wondering why fellow Catholic Christians and even somewhat Catholic friendly or Creationist Protestants (half Christians, in my book, theologically, those who are responsible for their ecclesiastic position) are not helping me by printing and selling or playing and charging concert tickets or selling "records" (general sense, probably no longer vinyl); one answer which time and again seems to suggest itself is someone asking if I shouldn't _"get a pastor's education before being a pastor"_ - which I am no more than Chesterton or Belloc or Tolkien were so.