The discarded image: An introduction to medieval and renaissance literature [Hardcover]

Preface

I The Medieval Situation

II Reservations

III Selected Materials: the Classical Period

A The "Somnium Scipionis"

B Lucan

C Statius, Claudian, and the Lady "Natura"

D Apuleius, "De Deo Socratis"

IV Selected Materials: the Seminal Period

A Chalcidius

B Macrobius

C Pseudo-Dionysius

D Boethius

V The Heavens

A The Parts of the Universe

B Their Operations

C Their Inhabitants

VI The Logaevi

VII Earth and Her Inhabitants

A The Earth

B Beasts

C The Human Soul

D Rational Soul

E Sensitive and Vegetable Soul

F Soul and Body

G The Human Body

H The Human Past

I The Seven Liberal Arts

VIII The Influence of the Model

Epilogue

Index

In his "An Experiment in Criticism", Lewis suggests that the heart of literary experience is the surrender by the reader to the work being read; that good reading is the entering into the views of others and going out of ourselves.

With regard to medieval literature, this requires two things: the facts behind a host of unfamiliar references, and even more importantly, a remake of how to think of reality. Readers who insist on reading works of the period with their modernism intact are "as travellers who carry their resolute Englishry with them all over the continent, mixing only with other English tourists, enjoying all they see for its 'quaintness', and having no wish to realise what those ways of life, those churches, those vineyards, mean to the natives." While Lewis says "I have no quarrel with people who approach the past in that spirit", he also says of them, in a somewhat chilling echo of the Sermon on the Mount: "They have their reward."

It is to those who want a much greater reward that Lewis directs "The Discarded Image." While he provides the reader with hard information concerning medieval philosophy, cosmology, biology, education and literature, imparting the individual facts is the lesser part of his purpose. What he really aims at is to completely detach the reader from all of the unconscious beliefs and attitudes that a lifetime spent in modern culture brings, and substitute for them those of the educated medieval man.

What the description I've just given you of this book does not do is to describe what the experience of having that done to you is like. I found it compelling and disorienting. One by one, the familiar intellectual landmarks were stripped away from my mental image of the world, and strange new ones put into their place. Vertigo is the word that comes closest to describing the feeling; I found I had to stop reading every couple dozen pages to give myself time to recover. This was so even though my familiarity with the philosophy, theology, and cosmology of the period was, by any non-specialist standard, quite high. The reason, I think was not so much that my knowledge was inferior to Lewis' (although of course it certainly was) as that I had only thought of these matters from an external "objective" point of view - I had never before tried to actually enter into that view of the world before. The result of Lewis' instruction on the matter was a combination of delight at the new insights so gained and humiliation at the revelation of the deep limitations of the "knowledge" I had possessed before.

In sum, I found reading "the Discarded Image" to be an extraordinary experience, and its value in no way depends on my using the information gained to identify some off-hand reference of Chaucer's. What Lewis describes in "An Experiment in Criticism", he demonstrates here - how completely different reading is when it is done well compared to when it is merely done.

Here is Lewis the common teacher, not the religious writer. You will find no polemic here. But, paradoxically, Lewis may be more persuasive and display more passion when he is neither trying to persuade nor be passionate. This book originated in a series of lectures, and it shows. There is love for both subject and reader on every page. Lewis writes simply and beautifully, so those of you interested in fine prose will find much here.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is the comparison Lewis draws between ancient and Medieval thought and the modern. Sometimes these comparisons are direct, but more often they are subtle, implicit. But, by continually pairing the two worldviews, whether directly or not, Lewis leads us, like the master teacher he was, to reflect on our own way of thinking.

For example, Lewis highlights good and bad aspects of Medieval writing. For one, Medieval writing revels in detail. This can be rich or boring, depending. But, the reason for such detail, Lewis suggests, is that Medieval writers were contemplating a world they loved and felt part of. Thus, to a lover, details about one's beloved are never overdone. In contrast, most of us feel somewhat alienated in today's society, don't we?

Lewis also suggests that Medieval writers copied earlier writers. Early writings are, like Cathedrals, products of many craftsmen. The need to be original or creative was subsumed by humility. Medieval writers did not want focus, like so many of today's artists, on themselves. Instead, they wanted to direct attention to contemplation of the figures and subjects of their writing. Pride in craft may have been present, but is was subordinate to love of subje

That C.S.Lewis was a fine writer is not open to dispute. It is also no secret that he was a master of discursive, analytical, sympathetic literary criticism. (The collection of articles published posthumously as "On Literature" by Walter Hooper contains some fine examples.)

We are also only too well acquainted with Lewis the bully, abusing his prodigious gifts as a debater and marshaller of arguments in the service of his religion. "Mere Christianity" is an overwhelming argument for God - but it leaves the bitter aftertaste of intellectual coercion.

In "The Discarded Image", he does not wish to convince us of anything. He only wishes to explain. We are invited along on a tour of the beliefs and opinions about the world held in the Middle Ages. (The travel-guide metaphor is Lewis's own, from the Introduction.) The effect is of an immensely well-informed and articulate man discursing on his favourite subject.

Mere knowledge and enthusiasm on the part of the author would not be enough to make this unusual book interesting. It is Lewis's combination of strengths as writer that bring Medieval cosmology, religion and science to life. But such is his skill that we almost don't notice what has gone into the presentation. Only when we reflect on what must have been required to organise facts, determine what is essential, leave out what isn't, use analogies, draw distinctions, make comparisons and follow lines of thought does the achievement really sink in.

For example, his description of Arisotlean astronomy and its legacy to the Middle Ages is a masterpiece of brevity. It tells us everything we need to know for what follows, and nothing more; yet simutaneously we experience a sense of the vastness of the subject-matter. Our curiosity is awakened, our immediate needs satisfied and our imagination stimulated. THIS is writing!

The section on Mother Nature shows Lewis the philologist to great effect. He first has to disengage our minds from the modern conception of Nature, which he does by investigating what we actually do mean by the word nowadays and how that has evolved over three hundred years. At that point, we are ready to understand the entirely different relationship to the world that was conveyed by the same word in the Middle Ages.

Throughout, there is not a wasted word or an unnecessary turn of phrase.

Enjoy!