For over half a century, scholars have laboured to show that C. S.
Lewis's famed but apparently disorganised Chronicles of Narnia have
an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible
unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and
the seven books of Spenser's Faerie Queene. None of these
explanations has won general acceptance and the structure of
Narnia's symbolism has remained a mystery.
Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia he
demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated
Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the
seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis's writings
(including previously unpublished drafts of the Chronicles), Ward
reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the
characteristics of the seven medieval planets - - Jupiter, Mars,
Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn - - planets which Lewis
described as "spiritual symbols of permanent value" and "especially
worthwhile in our own generation." Using these seven symbols, Lewis
secretly constructed the Chronicles so that in each book the
plot-line, the ornamental details, and, most important, the
portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate
the governing planetary personality. The cosmological theme of each
Chronicle is what Lewis called 'the kappa element in romance', the
atmospheric essence of a story, everywhere present but nowhere
explicit. The reader inhabits this atmosphere and thus
imaginatively gains connaitre knowledge of the spiritual character
which the tale was created to embody.
Planet Narnia is a ground-breaking study that will provoke a major
revaluation not only of theChronicles, but of Lewis's whole
literary and theological outlook. Ward uncovers a much subtler
writer and thinker than has previously been recognized, whose
central interests were hiddenness, immanence, and knowledge by
acquaintance.
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