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Did Lewis enjoy the writings of Lewis Carroll?

The man. The myth.

Did Lewis enjoy the writings of Lewis Carroll?

Postby Solomons Song » January 12th, 2008, 3:45 am

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Postby A#minor » January 12th, 2008, 5:20 am

I found the following in The Great Divorce
:

"... not room for her,' he said. `Hell could not open its mouth wide enough.' `And she couldn't make herself smaller?-like Alice, you know.' `Nothing like small enough. ..."
"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
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Postby Tuke » January 12th, 2008, 8:13 pm

Not one reference in Martindale & Root's Quotable Lewis. I have most of CSL's literary criticism, nothing. I only found one brief allusion to Hunting of the Snark in a letter to Dom Bede Griffiths; four references in They Stand Together (the letters to Arthur Greeves) which consist of three discussions of Alice and one casual quote of the White Knight. Kate Durie, writing in Thomas Martin's Reading the Classics with C.S. Lewis, says Lewis "read Carrol readily", but offers no source for that claim. That's it from me. At least we can confirm that Jack read Carrol.
I don't have time, but you might try a Lewis Carrol/CS Lewis Google.
"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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Postby Solomons Song » January 13th, 2008, 2:48 am

I am sure he read Carroll. I imagine any story that involved talking animals didn't escape Jack's notice. But I wonder if he enjoyed them, and appreciated them comparably to his appreciation of children's stories like Gulliver's Travels and Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Lewis loved the concept of sentient, talking animals. And Carroll's writings afford many opportunities for literary metaphor.

In fact, myself, when I engage in a children's novel, I consider myself sliding, slowly, down the rabbit hole myself.
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Postby Tuke » January 13th, 2008, 10:00 am

... into the wardrobe and through the wood between the worlds.
"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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Postby repectabiggle » January 14th, 2008, 2:59 pm

Last edited by repectabiggle on January 14th, 2008, 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Tuke » January 14th, 2008, 5:38 pm

"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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