Perelandra (Ch.1 Part 2)

In Part 1 we explored the similarities between the “conversions” of author Lewis and character Lewis and noted the important role witnesses played in both of them. Today we look at the world as author Lewis saw it.

A quote from his study The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature summarizes his view:

“Whatever else a modern feels when he looks at the night sky, he certainly feels that he is looking out--like one looking out from the saloon entrance on to the dark Atlantic or from the lighted porch upon dark and lonely moors. But if you accepted the Medieval Model you would feel like one looking in. The Earth is 'outside the city wall'. When the sun is up he dazzles us and we cannot see inside. Darkness, our own darkness, draws the veil and we catch a glimpse of the high pomps within the vast, lighted concavity filled with music and life. And, looking in, we do not see, like Meredith's Lucifer, 'the army of unalterable law', but rather the revelry of insatiable love. We are watching the activity of creatures whose experience we can only lamely compare to that of one in the act of drinking, his thirst delighted yet not quenched. For in them the highest of faculties is always exercised without impediment on the noblest object; without satiety, since they can never completely make His perfection their own, yet never frustrated, since at every moment they approximate to Him in the fullest measure of which their nature is capable.” 

When in That Hideous Strength, the third volume of the trilogy Lewis writes, “For Jules was a simple man to whom the word “medieval” meant only “savage” (12455), we get the idea. Lewis believes that the world, God’s creation, is filled with life and love all to the praise of the Creator and Lover of his handiwork. We live in an ”enchanted” world and concourse with other, “spiritual” realities is expected and routine. This was the case in the West until the 19^th and 20^th centuries whose intellectual temper rationalized life and knowledge to the template of human reason, thus banishing the enchantment that all previous generations of humanity lived under.

The luxurious and sensuous descriptions of the universe in Perelandra and Out of the Silent Planet testifies to CSL’s commitment to this “medieval” worldview. That Hideous Strength is his stringent critique of our “enlightened” world that has freed itself of such enchantments. And it is not a positive comparison.

This does not mean Lewis is a hidebound traditionalist. Indeed, he would argue that the enlightened rationalistic worldview that is constricting and out of touch with reality. To live under the watch care of a loving Creator who has a covenant with the creation and grants its own life which itself testifies to the goodness and loving care of the Creator is what he advocates for. A universe teeming with life beyond that of the human and terrestrial which joins with us and our world is a joyous symphony is what he deems a biblical and honest way to look at and live in our world.

How do you look at and live in your world? A mute complex of organic and inorganic elements interacting according to ineluctable “laws of nature?” Or more like the “medieval” view Lewis describes?

In the next post in this series we will consider the consequences of character Lewis’ conversion and its significance for readers as we conclude reflections on ch.1 of Perelandra.