C.S. Lewis and the Church: Essays in Honour of Walter Hooper
2012; Mythopoeic Society; Volume: 31; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0146-9339
Autores Tópico(s)Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies
ResumoC.S. LEWIS AND THE CHURCH: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF WALTER HOOPER. Ed. Judith Wolfe and B.N. Wolfe. London: T&C Clark International, 2011. xii + 193 pp. ISBN 13: 978-0-5667-04736-9. $110.00. THIS BOOK CONTAINS ELEVEN ESSAYS ON THE TITULAR SUBJECT (plus an introduction that will be considered later). Most of authors have ties to Oxford University, and most of essays are well done. That which will be of most interest to readers of Mythlore is Michael Ward's Church in C.S. Lewis's Fiction. Ward begins from fact that Church seldom appears in Lewis's creative works. Ward notes his omission of poetry (except for a brief comment in a note), Till We Have Faces because of its pagan setting (although it certainly has some pagan priests who suggest Christian parallels, not noted by Ward), short stories, and unfinished pieces. One of Ward's definitions of church is its manifestations in its rituals and buildings. Ward points to Weston's comment about attending church in his youth (Perelandra, ch.13), but also to Tinidril's appearance being like a church's coldness and stillness contrasted to a hot street outside (ch.5). These are his beginning point, but he goes on with other brief references and allusions in Ransom Trilogy and Chronicles of Narnia. He finds no references in The Great Divorce and Proposes a Toast, but extensive discussion of church in this sense in The Screwtape Letters. He points second letter with its discussion of aesthetic poverty of mid-twentieth-century English Anglicanism. He also finds similar material on church in letters 7 and 16. Ward's second definition of church is visible institutions represented by their ordained ministers and their teaching (68). Ward writes: Nearly all of Lewis' clergymen are knaves or fools or weaklings of one kind or another (75). (He ties this to a tradition in English novels.) The exception is Canon Jewel in That Hideous Strength, who is not able to stand up to progressive element, but is pure of heart (76). Amazingly, Ward points to Fr. Spike of The Screwtape Letters as second most positive presentation--after celebrating all havoc in his parish because of Fr. Spike's shifting ideas, Screwtape says that priest does believe. (Ward introduces at this point an interesting contrast with Philip Pullman: Pullman's priests in The Amber Spyglass are completely corrupt. Although Pullman complained that Lewis wrote works with too much simplistic good vs. evil, in this context Pullman is one who is simplistic.) Before his analysis of Lewis's most important portrayals of priests, Ward pauses over Lewis's genres--he is not writing in conventions of realistic novels. The Great Divorce is a series of moral satires couched in form of a dream [...] The Pilgrim's Regress is an avowed allegory [...]. [Their characters] are representatives, ambassadors from realm of clerical error, designed to articulate those fallacies and foibles that Lewis wished to address at particular points in his story. (78n48) Ward discusses Mr. Broad in The Pilgrim's Regress and Liberal Bishop in The Great Divorce, indicating satiric portraits are described with some of same details. He then defends The Great Divorce as generically not needing to balance Liberal Bishop with a satiric portrait of a type of conservative bishop, but points out that The Pilgrim's Regress, having a different purpose, does balance Mr. Broad with Mr. Neo-Angular. (Ward's discussion of various churches' teachings are partly covered in his discussion of ministers and partly by two paragraphs at end of section.) Ward's third definition of church is as mystical body of Christ (the Church Triumphant, in a traditional term, which--as in Dante--is same as Heaven/Paradiso). He mentions some references to it (as in Screwtape's reference to the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, letter 2), but then turns to last chapters of The Last Battle for Lewis's major depiction. …
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