Reflecting the Eternal" Dante's Divine Comedy in the Novels of C S Lewis

Throughout his writing career, C S Lewis drew on the structure, themes, and narrative details of The Divine Comedy, the great work of the medieval poet Dante. Readers will see how Lewis imitated and adapted medieval ideas about spiritual life for the benefit of his modern audience.

Publisher Description

:<p>The characters, plots, and potent language of C. S. Lewis's novels reveal everywhere the modern writer's admiration for Dante's <i>Divine Comedy. </i> Throughout his career Lewis drew on the structure, themes, and narrative details of Dante's medieval epic to present his characters as spiritual pilgrims growing toward God. </p>

<p>Dante's portrayal of sin and sanctification, of human frailty and divine revelation, are evident in all of Lewis's best work. Readers will see how a modern author can make astonishingly creative use of a predecessor's material-in this case, the way Lewis imitated and adapted medieval ideas about spiritual life for the benefit of his modern audience. </p> <p>Nine chapters cover all of Lewis's novels, from<i> Pilgrim's Regress</i> and his science-fiction to <i>The Chronicles of Narnia </i>and <i>Till We Have Faces.</i> Readers will gain new insight into the sources of Lewis's literary imagination that represented theological and spiritual principles in his clever, compelling, humorous, and thoroughly human stories.</p>