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Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

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Re: re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby A#minor » March 7th, 2006, 5:16 pm

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby Lirenel » April 6th, 2009, 9:38 pm

I know this topic's been dead awhile, but I came across another point of view and was wondering what people think about it. It's an article by Eric Seddon titled "Letters to Malcolm And the Trouble With Narnia: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their 1949 Crisis" in the journal...Mythopeia, I think. Anyway, Seddon pondered the question on why Tolkien disliked Narnia with quite a few points, only some of which I'll mention here. He also tried to disprove some of the assumptions behind the disagreement.

* Assumption 1: That Tolkien was jealous of Lewis's fast writing - Seddon basically says that Tolkien knew Lewis could write fast, and that he'd been doing it forever and there wasn't a hint that Tolkien was jealous of this.

* Assumption 2: Tolkien disliked the eclectic mythologies that Lewis used - Seddon points out that Tolkien had no problem with the Space Trilogy's mix of "Plato, Arthurian legend, direct parallels to Christian theology, and a multitude of stylistic and philosophical sources...". Basically, he says that Tolkien already knew that the mixing was just Lewis's style and had seen, and approved of, it before.

Seddon then goes on to examine Letters to Malcolm and tries to establish that Lewis became more outspoken about his disagreements with Catholic theology later in his life. I've never read Letters to Malcolm, so I can't comment on this, though the quotes he used seem to help his argument (of course, I know that quotes without complete context can be taken pretty much any way you want).

Then Seddon turns to Narnia and gives his opinions about what some of Tolkien's objections to LWW and Narnia might have been. One was the lack of a Eucharist element in LWW, since the Eucharist was very important to Tolkien and a key element of Catholicism. He quotes Mr. Beaver talking about how Aslan is here one day and gone the next as specifically implying that Christ is not always 'present', which is impossible in a Catholic context. Seddon admits, though, that the quote could be talking about cycles of spiritual dryness or something else more allegorical.

Anyway, the point I thought most intriguing was Seddon's thoughts on the nature of Aslan. He says "Simply put, if Aslan is supposed to be Christ himself, operating in a parallel universe, than Lewis has presented Christ with an illusory body, appearing here as human, there as lion," which objects to the orthodox Christian theology that Christ is fully God and fully human and his "body is not arbitrary, nor illusory, but real." Basically, that Christ can't be a Lion in another universe, because the definition of Christ is the man-who-is-God who was born of the Virgin Mary in Palestine during the reign of Augustus. Seddon thought that Tolkien would find this "profoundly disturbing", even if he couldn't articulate why he didn't like it, and that is one of the reasons he just disliked LWW and Narnia in general.

Not sure what I think of the argument. Most of the time, I don't take literary criticism of fiction seriously because it's just a story and sometimes an apple is an apple. But since Lewis did make Narnia semi-allegorical, or supposal, I thought it deserved some thought.
The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby archenland_knight » March 5th, 2010, 8:45 pm

Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby Michael » March 7th, 2010, 11:54 pm

OT: Were they still good friends after Tolkien's criticism? Just wondering?
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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby Tumnus's Books » March 8th, 2010, 1:28 am

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby teomiriam » March 17th, 2010, 6:55 pm

I always thought C.S. Lewis made the perfect choice in representing God as a lion, it's a beautiful image of the almighty God. And Jesus is called "The Lion of Judah" several times in the Bible (I am too lazy now to look for an instance), but I'm almost sure this is what Lewis hinted at when he made Aslan a lion. In the last story of Narnia, The Last Battle Aslan appears in the form of a lamb, which also tied perfectly with the image of Jesus as the Lamb of God. And then the lion is just symbol for God, it shouldn't be taken so literally, methinks :smile:
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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby Adam Linton » March 18th, 2010, 10:49 am

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby Lirenel » March 19th, 2010, 2:30 am

See, I actually heard that Tolkien liked the Space Trilogy, despite the mixture of mythology. Actually, it might have been the Seddon article...
The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby galion » March 19th, 2010, 5:58 pm

Well, he certainly didn't dislike OOTSP. In Perelandra I think he was irritated by the names Tor and Tinidril, which he thought had been lifted from his (at that time unpublished) tale of Gondolin, with Tuor and Idril. The Williams comment I'm pretty sure referred to THS only.
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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby Adam Linton » March 19th, 2010, 7:44 pm

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby galion » March 19th, 2010, 9:02 pm

And to make the tuning even finer, since posting I have actually checked, and find that in a letter of 1944 to his son Christopher Tolkien remarks of his daughter Priscilla: "She's just read Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra; and with good taste prefers the latter." So despite the presumed name ripoff Tolkien was keen on Perelandra as well.

Interestingly the letter goes on to say that Priscilla (aged 15 at the time) has difficulty in believing that Ransom is not meant to be a portrait of her father!
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Re: re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby moordarjeeling » June 7th, 2010, 6:52 am

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby moordarjeeling » June 7th, 2010, 6:56 am

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby moordarjeeling » June 7th, 2010, 7:10 am

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Re: Tolkien's Criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia

Postby cyranorox » June 9th, 2010, 3:49 pm

iirc, Aslan is a docetic lion- at the end, the lion-form is shown to have been to some extent an appearance, and the Person is revealed in His true [undescribed] form. This would seem to solve the true-body problem in Lewis's favor. I don't mean to say that his sacrifice was unreal, though, but that it mystically participated in the original sacrifice before the worlds.

Moreover, "the Body of Christ" is more than His resurrected form- it is the body of the membership, the Eucharist, and possibly more. While He is a man, He has appeared as a child to numerous saints, which is odd and paradoxical - where is the form of the child now? - but not contested by the Church. Ransom is said to be an extension of the Body of Christ. With all this variety, I don't think the form of a lion is very much of a problem.
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