JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis

[Firawyn]

As many of you know, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis were very good friends. Tolkien led Lewis to christianity and they went to collage together. I'd like to have an open descution here for fans of both great writers. We can talk about pretty much anything about them; before and after they met. I'm not quite sure where to start this off, but I would like to see the topic expand.

[arisen pheonix]

ive only read the Narnia books but im open to discussion

[Firawyn]

I'm an expert on Narnia. I was a Lewis fan long before Tolkien came along. So how deep have you gotten into the Narnia books? Pick one of the books and we can start talking about that. It's up to you. :D

[fat baggins]

Hi, Sabeen!

I'd also really enjoy discussing the relationship of these two literary icons, and how their friendship and careers intersected.

Being largely ignorant of the details of C.S. Lewis' life, I was very surprised to hear in one of the EE DVD's that he was an atheist before his conversion to Christianity. Tolkien was Catholic, IIRC.

Upon Lewis' conversion, did he also adopt Catholicism, or some other flavor of the Christian faith?

[Rhiannon]

CS Lewis joined the Church of England, which annoyed Tolkien excessively. :rolleyes:

[Firawyn]

Yes, that's right. Lewis was born Irish though. In is childhood at Little Lea he was forced to go to the chatholic church by his parents. (Same thing with my dad; no wonder he doesn't go to church now. To bad we don't know any great christian writers!) And then he moved out and went to collage and then went off to war. That had to have had some effect on him.

Hey here is a report I did on CS Lewis a few years ago. Let me know what you all think ;) :D

************************************************** *
CSLewis

It was November 29, 1898, and a baby boy was born in the small
town of Belfast, North Ireland, to Albert and Florence Lewis.
Three year old Warren was now a big brother to Clive Staples
Lewis, more commonly called Jack to his family and friends. To
the literary world, he would become best known as C.S. Lewis.
In 1905, the Lewis family moved to “Little Lea”, their new
home on the outskirts of Belfast. Three years later, the ten
year old boy’s mother died of cancer. In September of 1910,
Jack enrolled as a boarding student at Campell College. He
withdrew in November of the same year upon developing
serious respiratory difficulties. Lewis was then sent to
Malvern, England, which was a famous health resort for those
with lung problems. He soon enrolled into Cherbourg House, a
prep school near Malvern College, where he remained until
June, 1914. It was during this time that he left behind his
childhood Christian faith. In and out of schools, Lewis finally
made the trip to Oxford, in February, 1916, to take the
scholarship examination. He was accepted and remained until
the outbreak of WWI. Lewis was barely nineteen years old
at the time.
When WWI began, Lewis enlisted in the British Army
and attended Keble College in Oxford to complete officer’s
training. It was there that he befriended a man named
“Paddy” Moore. Lewis’ life would be affected by this
relationship even after Paddy’s death. Jack’s former
roommate and friend, Paddy Moore, was killed in battle during
the war and buried in a field just south of Peronne, France.
Lewis, himself was wounded on Mt. Berenchon during
the Battle of Arras. Eventually he was discharged in
December, 1918. After the new year, Jack went back to
college for another five years. By June of 1924 Lewis’
education came to an end. His first publication outside of
a school magazine was a poem called Death in Battle. It was
an insert in the February, 1919 issue of Reveille. That
particular issue also contained inserts from poets such as
Robert Bridges, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and Hilaire
Belloc. When the summer of 1920 came, the mother of Lewis’
late friend Paddy Moore, moved to Oxford, renting a house in
Headington Quarry. A sincere relationship developed between
Mrs. Moore and Jack and Warren Lewis. In 1930, the trio
purchased a property called “The Kilns”, with the title to the
property being only in Mrs. Moore’s name. Jack and Warren
would hold rights of life tenancy in the property, and even
today, “The Kilns” is known as the home of C.S. Lewis.
One night in September of 1931 Lewis had an extensive
discussion on Christianity with J.R.R. Tolken and Hugo Dyson.
The next day something happened that I think would be
better said in Lewis’ words: “ When we ( Warnie and Jack) set
out (by motorcycle to the Whipsnade Zoo) I did not believe
that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached
the Zoo I did.” Lewis’ recommitment to Christianity would
have a profound effect on the rest of his life and career. In
the years to come, he would write such works as The
Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere
Christianity. Although The Screwtape Letters and The
Chronicles of Narnia are fictional fantasy, they represent the
heavenly realm in an interesting fashion. Mere Christianity
was originally seven pre-recorded talk shows know as “Beyond
Personality”. This book continues to be one of C.S. Lewis’
greatest achievements. All of C.S. Lewis’ later works still
challenge readers, young and old, to gain a better
understanding of the Word of God.
C.S. Lewis spent the last twenty-five years of his life in
professional assignments at Cambridge and Oxford
Universities. He earned such honors as Professor of
Philosophy, Doctor of Divinity, Professor of Poetry and many
others titles at these Universities. Lewis also found love in
these later years, and proceeded to marry Joy Davidman, a
poet. During his years at Cambridge, Lewis and his wife spent
many weekends and holidays at “The Kilns” in Oxford, the
home he had purchased many years earlier with the mother of
Paddy Moore, his wartime friend. It was at his beloved
homestead, “The Kilns”, that C.S. Lewis died in November,
1963, one week before his 65th birthday. The stone that
marks his grave bears the Shakespearean quote, ‘ Men must
endure their going hence’.

[arisen pheonix]

lets theorize o9n marsh wiggles...if puddleglum was to full of bobbins and bounce how bad was a normal marshwiggle???

[Firawyn]

Good point! I can imagine Puddleglum being related to Ben Stien! It's the dry humor. But the other marshwiggles- eek! Talk about a boring existance. I'm not sure why Lewis gave the wiggles that type of personality. And why Puddleglum was the only one ever written about. All the other Narnians were at least two of a kind; even going way back to the Magician's Nephew. By the way, so we don't have to write the titles all the time(I'm lazy :D ), here's the code:

MN: The Migician's Nephew
LWW: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
HB: The Horse and his Boy
PC: Prince Caspian
VDT: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
SC: The Silver Chair
LB: The Last Battle

PG: Puddleglum
MW: Marshwiggle/s
A: Aslan
JP: Jill Pole
ES: Eustace Scrubb
QJ: Queen Jadis
WW: The White Witch
QU: The Queen of the Underworld
(I'll have to go back on the character list and edit this later)

CSL: CSLewis
WL: Waren Lewis(his brother)
JRRT: JRR Tolkien

There's some. You can write the names out if you want but if you're lazy(like me) you can just use these. :D

[arisen pheonix]

another question..in the SC they show a picture of MW in the cookbook...theres only one wiggle but for man pie theres a guy and a girl?...are there no mrs. MWs?

[Illuvatar]

One thing that interested me about Narnia and the Silmarillion is that they both had the same world creation thing...the world (or Arda) was created by music, as was Narnia.

[Inderjit S]

Tolkien claims that Lewis would often critisize his work when he was reading the drafts of LoTR. "You can do better then this Tolkien!".

Tolkien also dedicated LoTR (partly) to the Inklings. He claimed they had 'hobbit-blood' in them.

[arisen pheonix]

cool...they have more incommon than i thought

[Inderjit S]

Sometime in 1936, the two also agreed to write stories on what they found interesting. They agreed that Tolkien should write one about time travel and Lewis should write one about space travel.

Lewis's effort turned out to be a success, but Tolkien gave up after a few chapters. But from his abandoned story came the first gleanings of Númenór and the Second Age in Middle-Earth, the downfall of Númenór, the Last Alliance , the realms of Arnor and Gondor etc. which became important in his novel 'The Lord of The Rings' when he was explaining Aragorn's ancestry.

These abandoned tales can be found in 'HoME 5' 'The Lost Road' and 'The Fall of Númenór'.

Also see Letters 294 and 257 'Letters of Tolkien'.

[Beleg]

On 18 December 1944, when The Lord of the Rings had reached the end of what would become The Two Towers (and a few pages had been written of ‘Minas Tirith’ and The Muster of Rohan’ at the beginning of Book V), my father wrote to me (Letter no. 92) that he had seen C. S. Lewis that day: ‘His fourth (or fifth?) novel is brewing, and seems likely to clash with mine (my dimly projected third). I have been getting a lot of new ideas about Prehistory lately (via Beowulf and other sources of which I may have written) and want to work them into the long shelved time-travel story I began. C. S. L. is planning a story about the descendants of Seth and Cain.’ His words are tantalizingly difficult to interpret; but by ‘clash with mine’ he surely meant that the themes of their books ran rather close...

A footnote based on 'Humphrey Carpenter's' comments in Letter's reads,

In a note to this passage in my father's letter Humphrey Carpenter remarks: ‘Lewis's next published novel after That Hideous Strength and The Great Divorce was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Tolkien is, however, almost certainly referring to some other book of Lewis's that was never completed.’ The Great Divorce was published in 1946; Lewis was reading it aloud in April and May 1944 (Letters no. 60, 69, 72).

C.T comments on this,

It may be mentioned here that my father had evidently discussed with Lewis the matter of ‘true dreams': an important element in the plot of That Hideous Strength is Jane Studdock's ‘tendency to dream real things', in the words of Miss Ironwood (Chapter 3, §iii), and this can hardly be a mere coincidence. It is presumably not coincidental either that there should be so many references to ‘Numinor’ in That Hideous Strength (published in 1945); see p. 303 and note 15.

The reference to true dreams, later an important elements in the saga of The Notion Club Papers makes it clear how the idea for the 'Notion Club' was concieved.

[Firawyn]

Here's a question. Were Tolkien and/or Lewis left of right handed? :confused: ;)

[arisen pheonix]

Here's a question. Were Tolkien and/or Lewis left of right handed? :confused: ;)


i dont now :confused: ...one would think they were left handed from their many written creations...

[Rhiannon]

This is very curious.

Some very minor changes were made to The Lion... and The Voyage... for their American publication. For example, the name of the witch's agent is changed from 'Maugrim' to 'Fenris Ulf' and Peter's title from 'Sir Peter Wolfs-Bane' to 'Sir Peter Fenris-Bane.' In the English edition, Aslan says that the Emperor's magic is written 'in letters as deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones of the Secret Hill'. In the American he says 'in letters as deep as a spear is long on the trunk of the world ash-tree.'

I wasn't aware of these changes. They look like very strange changes to make, to me- why change 'fire-stones of the Secret Hill' to 'on the trunk of the world ash-tree'? I have no idea what the first is, I guess the second is a reference to Norse mythology, but does anyone expect a child to know either? (well, I might have, come to think of it, but I probably wouldn't have made the connection. Someone had to tell me Aslan represented Jesus before I noticed).

[Hammersmith]

According to a documentary I saw, Tolkien based Treebeard's character largely on Lewis, who he recollected had a deep and resonant booming voice.

I found this website (http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/homemake/cslewis.htm) on Lewis and his Christianity. WARNING: I found the website incredibly inflammatory and largely inaccurate in places, not to mention being grossly unfair and completely biased against the poor man. Nevertheless, it is an extremely interesting read, but I beg nobody to take any part of the site seriously.

[Narsil]

I found this website (http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/homemake/cslewis.htm) on Lewis and his Christianity. WARNING: I found the website incredibly inflammatory and largely inaccurate in places, not to mention being grossly unfair and completely biased against the poor man. Nevertheless, it is an extremely interesting read, but I beg nobody to take any part of the site seriously.

:eek: Wow! Amazing! Definitely written by one heck of a wackjob. :( It wasn't exactly complimentary of Tolkien either.

[Firawyn]

Holy ****! No exactly complamentery? There's the understament of the melenium! wow baby! And JK Rowling aint go NOTHIN' on Tolkien or Lewis!! *grin* WOW *shocked* Yikes!

[Corvis]

Here’s a review from C.S. Lewis about the Two Towers on the back of my 1973 edition of the Two Towers:

The Two Towers is the second volume of "The Lord of the Rings": "Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart… good beyond hope."

Very noble of Mr. Lewis to say such nice things about his friend’s incredible piece of literature, but I wonder why we never see any kind words from Tolkien on any of Lewis’s books.

[Narsil]

Very noble of Mr. Lewis to say such nice things about his friend’s incredible piece of literature, but I wonder why we never see any kind words from Tolkien on any of Lewis’s books.

While Lewis did write complimentary reviews of Tolkien's literature he criticized it plenty face to face when Tolkien showed him his writing and it was read at Inkling's gatherings. Seems Lewis didn't like the poems in LOTR very much.

I don't think Tolkien thought much of Lewis's books. In 1964 he wrote "It is sad that 'Narnia' and all that part of C.S.L.'s work should remain outside the range of my sympathy, as much my work was outside his.' Tolkien also felt that the Narnia novels were hastily written. All seven of them were written in half the time it took for him to write the LOTR.

It seems Tolkien wasn't impressed with the fact that when Lewis once again embraced religion he chose to embrace his old Anglican faith rather than become a Catholic so as a result Tolkien wasn't very taken with Lewis's Christian writings, The Problem of Pain and The Screwtape letters. He referred to Lewis as "Everyman's Theologian."

Tolkien also felt that Lewis was influenced too much by fellow Inkling Charles Williams. Tolkien declared that William's books were "wholly alien, and sometimes very distasteful, occasionally ridiculous". However Lewis admired Williams and his writings. Tolkien spoke of the "dominant influence" that Williams had over Lewis' third novel That Hideous Strength and in his opinion that wasn't a good thing.

So perhaps Tolken really couldn't think of anything nice to say. ;)

[Corvis]

While Lewis did write complimentary reviews of Tolkien's literature he criticized it plenty face to face when Tolkien showed him his writing and it was read at Inkling's gatherings. Seems Lewis didn't like the poems in LOTR very much.

Yet, he still said nice things to the public about the LOTR. How come Tolkien didn't even cut Lewis some slack and give a nice review on Narnia like his friend Lewis did?

[Narsil]

Yet, he still said nice things to the public about the LOTR. How come Tolkien didn't even cut Lewis some slack and give a nice review on Narnia like his friend Lewis did?

Can't say. I only can assume it's because he didn't like the Narnia stories and couldn't think of anything nice to say. Maybe there was no need for it? :confused:

I like the Narnia stories as well so can't relate to whatever dislike Tolkien may have had for them.

[Alatar]

I have just read the link and i could not stop laughing!!!
Lewis a satanist, his books proclaming witchcraft to childern(obviously written by someone with to much time on there hands)?????????

However the modern day davinci code could ring some bells with tolkien this may need another theard but Melian the maia and all the elves marring humans....
Just a thought.

[Alcuin]

Were Tolkien and/or Lewis left of right handed?I have seen BBC documentary film in which JRR Tolkien writes some Elvish (Tengwar) script. Tolkien was right-handed.

[Hammersmith]

I have seen BBC documentary film in which JRR Tolkien writes some Elvish (Tengwar) script. Tolkien was right-handed.
Or ambidextrous[/stirs]

[Alcuin]

Or ambidextrous[/stirs]Perhaps. In Letter 308 to his son Christopher, Tolkien wrote,I have horrible arthritis in the left hand, which cannot excuse this scrawl, since, mercifully, my right hand is not yet affected! …That sounds like a comment from a right-handed man. (Italics in the original.)

[kygreylady]

Having read both Lewis and Tolkien, I think there is NO comparison. Lewis simply didn't get it. Tolkien's work is much more to the heart, while Lewis is steeped in theology. Tolkien spent a great deal of time making his work historical, beautiful, terrifying, and emotional, while Lewis simply went to the right and wrong of things. (No Luthien Tinuviel here to bring a bit of lovliness to weathertop.) Certainly creatures that were already known to the world in Lewis' composition, but nothing really new. Just a fairy tale. Tolkien had a work of art.

[geordie]

Sorry to pick up a very old thread (I'm new here)...

Just a couple of points - Lewis was not a Catholic - he was born into an Ulster Protestant family. (see Hooper and Lancelyn Green's biography of Lewis, and Carpenter's biography of Tolkien; and also Carpenter's 'The Inklings).

- Tolkien and Lewis didn't go to college together - Tolkien was older than Lewis. They met in 1926, at a 'tea' given by the Oxford English faculty. Lewis had just been elected a fellow of Magdalen College, and Tolkien was a very new Professor. They struck up a friendship (eventually). Lewis had rejected Christianity as a young man, but by the time he met Tolkien, he was drifting back towards religion. It was a midnight talk with Tolkien and their mutual friend Hugo Dyson, in the grounds of Magdalen, which helped seal Lewis' faith - but he returned to his Protestantism, and did not embrace Catholicism, as Tolkien had hoped.

[Firawyn]

Quite correct. I was just having this discussion with a friend the other day - she was under the impression that Lewis convert Tolkien to the Christian father...I corrected her. lol

Hey Geordie! Welcome! you arn't by chance a Star Trek TNG fan, are you? ;)

Firawyn

[geordie]

Firawyn - thanks or the welcome! No, I'm not so much a fan of TNG (though I do enjoy the show). The reason I nicknamed myself geordie is because I come from the North-East of England. Tynesders are called geordies (like Londoners are called Cockneys - or at least, some Londoners). But unlike Cockneys, we geordies don't speak with an accent; 'geordie' is an actual dialect of English, and goes back a long way in history.

:)

[Firawyn]

That is very facinating. Thanks for the trivia!