One of the many interesting facets about C.S. Lewis is his love and knowledge of literature. It is commonly known that by the end of his career Mr. Lewis had aligned himself with Cambridge as their new Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English where he maintained that literature during the renaissance was the fruition of high medieval culture, an argument hardly more persuasive than historical. There can be no doubt that few have achieved such a complete and comprehensive understanding of English literature as C.S. Lewis. Yet, when you compare his obvious mastery of literary criticism with his more celebrated writings of fiction you find that the two synergistically uphold a literary theory more philosophic than artistic. It is interesting then, to try and understand how Mr. Lewis viewed art, specifically in literature, and how such principles compare to other theories of art such as those maintained by R. G. Collingwood and A. J. Ayer.
Taking into consideration Mr. Lewis’ critical mastery of English literature, including both the subtle uses of various literary images and the effectual importance those images often presuppose, the question of art as it differs from technique must certainly be raised. It is no secret that Mr. Lewis loved allegory even to the chagrin of his most esteemed literary companions. His understanding of the symbolic nature of the world coupled with his almost limitless ability to simplify an argument into its most basic premises and consequences seems to allow him to most easily transition from that role of a writer to that of a teacher. Works such as Pilgrims Regress explain in easily understood terms his critique on such various topics as Rationalism, Idealism, etc. His aim, however, is clearly not literary; or if it is literary it is a sort of philosophic literature much like when mon. Albert Camus says, “... It is the outcome of an often unexpressed philosophy†” except that its expression is particularly philosophic. Mon. Camus, however, seems to presuppose that the goal of the literature in question is art, something quite uncertain in Mr. Lewis’ case. Is it fair to say that when Mr. Lewis writes allegorically he does so to be artistic? Perhaps a more simple way to understand the distinction is to look more closely at the material which is treated allegorically. The goal of art, as it is commonly understood even by diverse definitions such as Sartre and Collingwood, is an attempt to render some truth about the world. The means by which such truth is rendered may differ, but the assertion that it something actual should not be under stressed. Mr. Lewis in works such as Pilgrims Regress, however, speaks allegorically about ideas which themselves are not real; they are not abstractions of reality, they are systems by which we still attempt to understand the real. Because of this the allegory is not one which can be properly artistic. Even should the allegory uphold the correct way in which reality should be understood, it still is (if you can bear platonic language) an image of an image. There is no actual reality that must be understood in Pilgrims Regress. What we are to take from Mr. Lewis’ critiques is a correct method for interpretation and not an interpretation itself.
This of course is far from useless, and even significantly effects us. It is precisely its philosophic and not literary intent that gives it value. When one uses philosophy to better understand how one should understand and approach the world it is always through instruction and examples. The attempt to render philosophy into allegorical terms is as old as philosophy itself. Plato tells us of his cave just as Descartes tells us of his wax. To presuppose that the book is allegorical fiction is not to nullify its philosophic instruction. Just as we can accept instruction from the fictions of Aesop so we treasure instruction from Mr. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress.
† Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sysiphus” pg. 134
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