“How a boy of imagination grew up a man of many talented works in many forms as an lecturer, teacher, scholar, writer, and Christian apologetic, and influencer on children’s literature that would let them see a world beyond their own. Clive Staple Lewis would become a teacher to us all, a man who journey through a life of uncertainty and to leave behind lessons for us to follow.”
C.S. Lewis real name (Clive Staple Lewis) born in the outskirts of Belfast, Northern Ireland on Nov. 29, 1898, to the parents of a lawyer, Albert James Lewis and Flora Augusta Hamilton, and his older brother Warren Lewis. The family lived in a home called “Little Tea” a large house. As a child, Lewis would spend most of his time in the library that was filled with books, reading such literature like Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. He even loved Beatrix Potter books that would have the illustrations of animals and that they were anthropomorphic. He would begin writing and illustrating his own works with his brother Warren, creating a world called Boxen, a world of animals. Although, he feared insects and would have nightmares about them.
At the age of four, tragedy would strike for Lewis when a car hit his dog Jacksie. Since then he claimed that his name would now be Jacksie. It was the only name he accepted; later the name would become Jack that was known to friends and family. At age 9, Lewis suffered another tragic lost, his mother Flora had become strictly ill and died of cancer. Albert Lewis grievingly affected had decided to send Lewis and Warren away from home to go to boarding school in England. The Wynyard School in Waterford, Hertfordshire. Lewis disliked school and Warren was enrolled there for three years, the rules were strict and the headmaster was harsh. He longed to go back to Belfast; he returned to Ireland when the school had close with very little students and headmaster Robert Capon was committed to an insane asylum soon after, but after a year, he was sent back to England. Warren was distressed, he wrote a letter to his father, “With this uncanny flair for making the wrong decision, my father had given us helpless children into the hands of a mad man.” Things would change when Lewis reached his pubic years. He learned to love poetry and the works of Greek philosophers Virgil and Homer. He also had a taken of interest with many different languages.
After attending Wynyard, Lewis went to Campbell College in the east of Belfast about a mile from his home. But went on leave after a few months, due to respiratory problems. Lewis was sent to a health-resort in the town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attended the prep school Cherbourg House. At the time he attended the school in his teenage years, Lewis who was raised in the Church of Ireland, decided to abandon his religious beliefs Christianity to become an atheist. Being angry that God had not existed, “Had God designed the world, it would not be A world so frail and faulty as we see.” At Oxford College he had great influences from friends, J.R.R. Tolkein and G.K. Chesterton. Above all reading the book, The Everlasting Man where Lewis would consider Christianity. When writing his first novel The Pilgrim’s Regress that he describes his experience with Christianity.
During 1913, Lewis enrolled at Malvern College and remained there until June and studied under a private tutor William T. Kirkpatrick that was his father’s old tutor and former headmaster. As a teenager, Lewis grew to love nature and it reminded him of stories of the North. Also the art of poetry in Norse mythology and Greek literature and mythology. The writer W.B. Yeats also inspired him. In a letter to a friend Lewis wrote, “I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W.B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology.” Surprised by his English pears, he was surprised by their judgment towards Yeats, a great author in his eyes was not considered as one of the greats. Lewis was not use to the culture or the English country or its people, he could describe his experience as a cultural shock, and he quoted “No Englishman will be able to understand my first impression of England the strange English accents with which I was surrounded seemed like the voices of demons. But what was worst was the English landscape… I have made up the quarrel since, but at that moment I conceived a hatred for England which took many years to heal.” He had been dear to his own Irish culture and wanted to live amongst his Irish people.
In 1914, Lewis meets Arthur Greeves and they become the best of friends. After my brother, my oldest and most intimate friend.” Two years later, wins a scholarship to the University College of Oxford. During the outbreak of WWI, he would enlist into the British Army, and boarded at the Keble College, Oxford for officer’s training, where he met a roommate by the name of Edward Courtney Francis, his real name Paddy Moore. Lewis was commissioned an officer in the 3rd Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. He arrives at the front line in the Somme Valley in France on his nineteenth birthday. April 15, Lewis is wounded in the battle of Arras; he suffers desperation during his convalescence on missing his home in Ireland. On October he recovers and was assigned to duty in Andover. He writes a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves and was later discharged and went back to his studies. His former comrade Paddy Moore had been killed in Battle and buried in Peronne, France. In 1919, he wrote his first publication in the February issue of Reveille, Death in Battle. At the end of the turn of the century, he continued his studies at University College, Oxford.
In the 1920’s, Lewis had been introduced to Paddy’s mother, Jane King Moore. A friendship had sprung between them, he was eighteen years of age and she was only forty-five years old. While he read about the great philosophers and Ancient History, he received his first Honor Moderations in Greek and Latin literature. 1925 was a remarkable achievement, Lewis graduates with first-class honors in Greek and Latin literature, philosophy, and ancient history, and English literature and was elected fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford serving as a tutor in English language and literature. He spent most of his years teaching and serving as a professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature and also at Oxford University. Although, in 1929 his father Albert Lewis passed away. In the 1930’s, Lewis, Moore, and Warren moved into “The Klins” a house in Risinghurst, Headington, a suburb of Oxford. Lewis writes a 16th century English literature book for the Oxford History of English Literature series. He published The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. His first important work of literacy criticism and a medieval love story. The friendship with Mrs. Moore was particularly important to Lewis while he was recovering from his wounds in the hospital. His father refused to visit him, Lewis then referred to Jane as his mother. Lewis for most of his life introduced Jane as his mother to all his acquaintances. Like the mother that he lost before, he yet would lose another, Jane Moore suffered from dementia and was moved into a nursing home, and Lewis had made everyday visits until her death. She had been admired and loved by everyone, Lewis once remarked, “She was generous and taught me to be generous too.” She was buried in the yard of the Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford.
On a long walk with fellow friends J.R.R. Tolkein who was a devoted Roman Catholic and Hugo Dyson about Christianity, however he denounced the thought of Roman Catholicism, Which Tolkein had hoped he would convert to.
Lewis converted to Christianity; it would have a profound effect on his work, as he would then broadcast Christian lectures on the radio of the subject on Christianity. He become a member of the Church of England, he argued his beliefs about the Roman Catholic Church. Lewis believed like many Christians would believe. He was an active participant in the Church of England and believed its doctrines. 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.” He believed Jesus Christ to be of a virgin, lived on the earth, and was crucified on a cross, and that God resurrected Jesus on the third day. Also, Lewis makes a point in his writings that Jesus was Lord God. He professed in many of his books that Christ is Lord and was resurrected from the dead in several essays and books. He did however, did not believe in Satan, “There is no unrelated being meaning the devil except God and God has no opposite power.” He took many of his beliefs seriously and when praying every night he would ask himself, “Are you sure you were really thinking about what you were saying?” Leaving himself doubtful, constant praying lead him to insomnia.
“You must picture me alone in a room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, wherever my mind has lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last came upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929, I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”
One of Lewis’s publications Screwtape Letters had been published by the publication The Guardian. Lewis is paid 2 pounds for each letter and donated it to charity. He made an appearance on BBC radio on Wednesday evenings, a 15-minute session where he answered questions. He had given five live radio sessions during Sunday evenings that were based on Christian subjects What Christians Believe and Christian Behavior. Lewis gives the pre-recorded talk Beyond Personality. Lewis’s recordings are taken and are published under the title Mere Christianity.
In the book Mere Christianity, Lewis famously criticized the idea that Jesus was a great moral teacher whose claims to divinity were false. “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who merely a man and said sorts of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something curse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to use. He did not intend to.” His books on Christianity examine common difficulties in accepting Christianity. Lewis says in his autobiography Surprised by Joy, “With my mother’s death all settled happiness... disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasure, many stabs of joy, but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.
His works contain a suave, witty, colorful style that characterizes his fiction and his literary criticism. In 1938, he wrote his first science fiction novel Out of Silent Planet, a tale of three scientist journey to Mars and happens to encounter strange creatures. It was apparently written by a conversation that he had with Tolkein. Lewis agreed to write about science fiction that dealt with space travel. Tolkein wrote a story called the “Lost Road” a tale of middle-earth mythology and the modern world. In the 1950’s era, Lewis had an interest in writing children’s books, his publisher and friends did not persuade him and that the idea wouldn’t suit his reputation. Amongst all the others was Tolkein who criticized Lewis for writing the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The story had a combination of myth, fantasy, and moral principles. It was viewed as too seemingly unreal with a mixture of a Santa figure, an evil witch, talking animals, and children. The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children. The story contains many Christian themes and describes the adventures of a group of children who visit a magical land called Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia borrows from Greek, Roman, and Celtic mythology as well as from traditional English and Irish fairy tales. The geography and scenery was inspired by the Moune Mountains in Northern Ireland. Lewis wrote six more Narnia books that were not taken upon interest from critics and reviewers, but only gained popularity through word of mouth. The Last Battle, one of the seventh and final books of Narnia was published and receives Carnegie Medal in recognition. All six of the books have sold more than 100 million copies. Lewis visions Aslan as a figure of Christ in the land of Narnia. The Chronicles meanings included God, mankind, nature, heaven, hell, and joy.
The Inklings met in Lewis’s room on Thursday nights and then the meeting place had moved to the Eagle and the Child” pub. The regular members were Lewis, Warren, Tolkein, Dr. R.E. Havard, Charles Williams, Nevil Coghill, Hugo Dyson, Owen Barfield, and Adam Fox. The focus of each meeting was a reading from one of the group’s work in progress of their famous published works. None of the group’s members were shy to criticize, and lively discussions followed along with laughter.
For most of his life he was a remained bachelor and had many close friendships with males. He wrote about headship of man over woman in the chapter of Four Loves that was in relation in a biblical doctrine. Wives, subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the church, He himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:22-25). Male headship being a common tradition in those days, Lewis did have love for the female being, his mother, Mrs. Moore, and female writer Dorothy L. Sayers, his strongest female characters and would meet his intellectual counterpart.
When he had met Joy, she was probably the best arrival that has come into his life. She’s an 45-year-old American writer of Jewish background that separated from her husband, due to his desertion, and she comes to England with her two sons, David and Douglas. Lewis thought of her as an accepting and intellectual person and took a like to her and wanted to marry her in a civil marriage. However, her being a divorced woman was not agreeable to the Church of England at this time. Lewis marries Joy in secret civil ceremony at the Oxford Registry Office for the purpose of conferring won her the status of British citizenship in order to prevent deportation by British Migration authorities, the British Home Office denied continuance of her residency permit. Joy had converted to Christianity from Judaism that influenced her by one of his books. A bedside marriage was performed in accordance with the rites of the Church of England at the Wingfield Hospital. Joy experienced a recovery from her neat terminal bout with cancer. Lewis, Joy, and her sons, and Warren lived as a family, until Joy had passed away from cancer.
The Great Divorce, a short novella about two residents of Hell take a bus ride to Heaven, where they are met by people they had known on Earth. The Screwtape Letters, a short novel consisting of letters of advice from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, on the best ways to tempt a particular human and secure his damnation. Til We Have Faces is his last novel that he writes of maturity and mastery work of fiction, it concerns itself with religious outlook and paganism. The Discarded Image had been his last academic work of medieval and renaissance literature is a summary of the medieval world. Mere Christianity had been voted best book of the twentieth century by Christianity Today magazine in 2000. He said one of the lessons of people’s morals, ” No one lives up to their own moral standards. Almost every person has a conscience that concerns his or her own actions” Lewis was a man who certainly loved books and found a whole another world to them, as it took him out of himself and out of reality. “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should read one old one to every there new ones.” he quoted.
Early June of 1962, Lewis is beginning to face serious medical problems and had been diagnosed with inflammation of the kidneys that resulted in blood poisoning. By 1963, George Sayer his friend concurred that he was fully recovering to his normal state. On July 15, he fell ill and was admitted to the hospital. July 16, at approximately 5:00 p.m., Lewis suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma, unexpectingly on the following day. He was discharged from the hospital and returned to The Klins but too ill to return to work. As his condition continued to decline, he had been diagnosed with renal failure and by November 22; Lewis had collapsed in his bedroom and died a few minutes later, one week before his 65th birthday. He’s buried at the Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford. Just 11 years had passed when he died; Warren Lewis died on April 9, 1973, buried in the yard of the Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford. The Klins had been passed onto Moore’s daughter Lady Dunbar of Hempriggs.
The famous known English professor and author of fiction who wrote more than 30 books in four different genres, children stories, science fiction, literacy, and religious works. Also popular lecturer and broadcaster, which his works were adapted into radio scripts or lectures is his recording in his own voice. Numerous stage and screen adaptations of Lewis works were produced. In 2005, Disney would make a film adaptation, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that grossed US $745,000,000 worldwide. Lewis’s works have been translated in over 30 languages. Critical arguments towards Lewis targeted his moral and Christian beliefs based upon; he was an alcoholic, marrying a divorcee, and adulterous relationship he had with Mrs. Moore. He was a man of skepticism when it came to religion, although he had converted into Christianity, or, as some would refer to him as an atheist, or based on reading his books on Christianity, a defender and teaches on Christian moral lessons. He was very much interested in presenting the truth for Christianity.
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