C.S. Lewis, Critic and Author

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In our day C.S. Lewis is chiefly remembered as an apologist and writer of fiction for children, but in his own day he was a celebrated literary critic and scholar of the medieval imagination, who packed out auditoriums for his lectures on pre-modern literature. This course uses his lesser-known scholarly and critical writings to understand the enduring, hypnotic appeal of his fictional literature. We will read some of the works of literature he admired most (such as poems by Spenser, Dante); selections from Lewis's essays, sermons, critical writings, and lectures; as well as select poems, letters, and passages from his science fiction and "myths" for children.