This forum was closed on October 1st, 2010. However, the archives are open to the public and filled with vast amounts of good reading and information for you to enjoy. If you wish to meet some Wardrobians, please visit the Into the Wardrobe Facebook group.

Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy...&

Open the pod bay doors, Hnau!

Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy...&

Postby a_hnau » April 16th, 2005, 7:09 pm

... as many will know, this comes from That Hideous Strength, and a lot of head-scratching has gone on among Lewis enthusiasts as to where (if anywhere) Lewis was quoting from. But I've recently come across a site which cites this quotation as appearing in A.S. Byatt's Possession. I wonder if;

a) this could just be the site's author misremembering
b) if correct, is Byatt quoting Lewis, or
c) has Byatt read it in another, or its original, source, and attributed the source?

Has anybody read this book, and if so, can they comment on the context and attribution of the quote?
Urendi Maleldil
User avatar
a_hnau
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 204
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England

Re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby Sven » April 16th, 2005, 7:25 pm

Rat! he found breath to whisper, shaking. Are you afraid?
Afraid? murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.
Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet -- and yet -- O, Mole, I am afraid!
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.
User avatar
Sven
 
Posts: 2883
Joined: Aug 1996
Location: Greenbelt, MD, near Washington DC

Re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby a_hnau » April 16th, 2005, 7:29 pm

Urendi Maleldil
User avatar
a_hnau
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 204
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England

Re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby Steve » April 17th, 2005, 12:43 pm

User avatar
Steve
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 730
Joined: Aug 1999
Location: Waxhaw, North Carolina, USA

Re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby .Ælfgifu. » April 20th, 2005, 2:03 pm

I've just borrowed the Letters of C.S Lewis from some friends and was reading it - for the first time - this morning. In a letter (addressed 'to a lady' I think) Lewis brought up the issue about 'the beauty of the female' - without making any quotations, but his own words were fairly close to those quoted in That Hideous Strength. Unfortunately, I now can't find the letter in question. I haven't finished the collection yet, but I'm fairly close to the end - it can't be right at the beginning (I read that yesterday). I have the impression in my mind that it was earlier than the writing of the Cosmic Trilogy (because when I read it I noticed the connection and it struck me as interesting that it was so early). My quick efforts at scanning the pages back this up, though I might have missed it somewhere.

Personally (speaking as a 'female') I think it is a good point and quite probably a true one. I've just run it past my Mum briefly and she agrees. If you look at advertisements you'll see that beautiful (and semi-naked) women are often used to sell something that only a woman might buy - not just clothes (for which you would obviously choose a good-looking model) but things like shavers for legs. Women in general find the idea of beauty in women attractive, and cultivate it in themselves. A girl will notice if her sister has brought a new top of had a haircut far more quickly than their brother will notice the same thing. Besides, if a woman's beauty is a gift, then it is naturally given to be shared - her instinct to do so just as naturally involves love of what she is sharing.
User avatar
.Ælfgifu.
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 51
Joined: Mar 2005
Location: The Little House at the Bottom of the Garden

Re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby Áthas » April 21st, 2005, 4:49 pm

Somehow the thought of beauty being only linked to male responses on females and female responses on males seems very reduced and insufficient to me. Beauty is so much more, things that men and women know in the same way. I don't have a brother, but I know that my father and I find the same kind of beauty in music or a sunset. It's probably something that our society has made up, that beauty is just linked with the females one can see on the covers of magazines, but it is so much more!
User avatar
Áthas
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 359
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: Bremen, Northern Germany

Re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby Adam Linton » May 18th, 2005, 2:31 pm

Steve,

Your post made me think of Lewis' Abolition of Man, especially the first section, "Men without Chests."

Here Lewis challenges the idea that predications of value are statements merely about the one making the statement.

In line with this, I suspect that Lewis' notion of Beauty is much more in line with classical, specifically Platonic, thinking.

Regards,

Adam Linton
we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream
User avatar
Adam Linton
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 981
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: Columbia Falls, MT

Re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby Adam Linton » May 18th, 2005, 2:52 pm

As a follow-up to my post of a few minutes ago, I think that Lewis would say that the perception of Beauty (however impefectly) involves a participation/connection greater than our reaction to the one perceived.

Rather, our capacity to so perceive is itself an important clue to the nature of reality.

My copy of THS is at my other office, so I can't check right now, but I suspect that this may be an issue at hand in Jane's conversation with Ransom.
we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream
User avatar
Adam Linton
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 981
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: Columbia Falls, MT

re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby Dale Nelson » December 24th, 2005, 1:50 am

Dale Nelson
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 57
Joined: Dec 2005

re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby Marcus_P_Hagen » January 21st, 2006, 6:20 am

User avatar
Marcus_P_Hagen
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 240
Joined: Mar 1999
Location: Bloomington, MN [USA]

re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of joy

Postby *~Diamond in the Rough~* » January 21st, 2006, 8:56 am

I was talking with a friend about beauty not too long ago and I asked him if we were to see what Adam and Eve looked like, would we today think that they were the epitome of beauty?? or have we been so tainted by society that we would think they were other than beautiful?

God made all things beautiful...and for our enjoyment. He created within us all a desire and passion for beauty...attraction is a response to human emotion...beauty is an essence...would a flower be as beautiful if it didn't smell as such?
Today I went to IKEA and hid in the wardrobes, and every time someone opened the doors I welcomed them to Narnia!!
User avatar
*~Diamond in the Rough~*
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 2616
Joined: Dec 2005
Location: The corner of 'No and where' (WA) The REAL Washington

Re: re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of

Postby Sylvia Lee » February 23rd, 2006, 6:17 pm

Take my voice and let me sing always only for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from thee.
Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee.
Sylvia Lee
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 121
Joined: Jul 2004

Re: re: Quote: "The beauty of the female is the root of

Postby Stanley Anderson » February 23rd, 2006, 6:59 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
User avatar
Stanley Anderson
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 3251
Joined: Aug 1996
Location: Southern California


Return to The Space Trilogy

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered members and 14 guests

cron