why did C.S. Lewis portray Aslan as a lion?

[Guest]

[K_Grape]

a nice post that discusses the very topic. Personally, I tend to like the simple King of the Beasts idea. I was analyzing Aslan a while back and if you think about the personality of the mythical king of the beasts type lion you will find it fits quite well.

Then again, I also like the Lion of Judah idea.

[Carrie]

I have heard both the "King of Beasts" and "Lion of Judah" ideas before, and I think both are great. However, I have recently been rereading Shakespeare (Richard II) and have thought of another possibility. For some of the same reasons mentioned above (as well as probably some reasons I'm unfamiliar with), the symbol for a king in England was the lion. However, the lion was only a symbol. Having Aslan be a real lion again showed his kingly status, but of a far greater status than someone only represented by a lion. I don't know that Lewis was actually thinking about this as he wrote TLWW, but it could have easily been in the back of his mind.
For all you Brits out there, I apologize if anything is factually inaccurate. I used to know a lot more British history than I remember now, so I am basing a lot of this of of what we talked about in my Shakespeare class.

[Aleena]

[Guest]

Hmmm... I thought I remembered that Lewis, when asked, said that details began to come to him, a lion, and a witch, some children, etc., that the Chronicles were not purposive Christian allegory.

?

[Guest]

the lion is the lord of the jungle and they can both be good and nice and gentle, or they can be bad and evil to eat you.

[Bill]

[.Ælfgifu.]

There is a long tradition of associating the Lion with England, and with the English Monarchy - everywhere from football shirts/song ("three lions on a shirt") to the crest (which has a lion on one side and a unicorn on the other) to Victorian cartoons portraying the typical English Gentleman as a lion in a suit. There's a definite underlying sense of divine royalty about the lion, probably derived largely from the various legends that gathered around lions in medieval bestiaries.

is a good page about the lion entries in bestiaries - well worth reading. A lot of our modern concepts of symbology come from this sort of material one way or another. There is a very heraldic feel to the animals of Narnia, and it is interesting to consider (for example) the respect in which leopards are held in the bestiaries in the light of the leopard standard-bearers of Aslan.

[cnarramoore]

The thought that I had when reading MN was that Jesus is considered a lamb and that GOD is considered a Lion. The whole Lion laying down with the lamb thing.

Aslan is roughly more GOD like in MN but Christ like in LWW. Considering the 3 aspects of GOD, father son holy ghost, and that MN chronologically takes place before LWW, GOD created the world (the lion) and then came to us as Jesus and died for our sins (ala the stone table) it makes sense to me in this fashion.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

[carol]

[David]

I just wanted to throw this in. On the radio I heard a review of a book, No God but God: the Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. The author's name is Reza Aslan. Great name.

D. Landrum

[Solomons Song]

[Preacherintraining]

[Áthas]

Unfortunately, I don't have the book with me now, but I think I remember that in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" there is a passage where Lucy asks Mrs. Beaver if Aslan is "safe" because she's afraid of meeting a lion, and she says he isn't safe, but he's good (correct me if I'm wrong). I thought that this portrayed God quite well... He isn't "safe" either.