In an age when technology has caught up with our literary imaginations, film makers are faced with many decisions about how to adapt works of fantasy for the silver screen. Since the beginning of story-telling, the quest for something greater than self has permeated our stories, infusing them with elements of the supernatural and the divine. As we seek a greater Other, we are also seeking ourselves and a deeper understanding of what...
Chronicles of Narnia
“Something Understood”: Sacramental Imagination and the Communion of Saints in the Fantasy of Chesterton, Lewis, and Rowling
All paths seemingly lead to despair as Harry Potter and his two closest friends sit in the drab tent they have been living in for several weeks, continually on the run from servants of the evil Lord Voldemort. Harry's primary mission-to destroy Voldemort and his power over the wizarding world-seems impossible as he, Ron, and Hermione feel more alone than ever. Suddenly, they hear familiar voices on the radio, voices that belong...
Love and Knowledge: The Keys to Being All That We Are Intended to Be
A number of years ago a musician named George Benson wrote a beautiful song entitled, "The Greatest Love of All," and these lyrics captured my attention. A few selected lines from the lyrics read as follows: Because the greatest love of all is happening to me I found the greatest love of all inside of me The greatest love of all is easy to achieve Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all. At first...
Beauty Will Save the World – But Which Beauty?
There are some quotations so arresting, so perfect in simplicity, that they never leave the memory. They are honeyed phrases for the mind: "Beauty will save the world," says a prince in Dostoevsky's unfortunately-titled The Idiot. The prince speaks as one having authority: beauty will save the world. Or there is Keats in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn": " ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty'-that is all / Ye know on earth, and all...
The Enclosed Garden in C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia
A garden enclosed is my sister my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. -Canticles 4:12 I. Introduction To Christian writers, landscape and its seasons are not merely backdrops for plots and characters. As places of destination they are integral elements of quest narratives or pilgrimages. More importantly, nature's cyclical patterns often function as maps of the human soul: "o the Christian, the seasons' round, often represented by a contrast between spring...
Inspired by the life and legacy of C.S. Lewis, the C.S. Lewis Foundation is dedicated to advancing the renewal of Christian scholarship and artistic expression throughout the mainstream of our colleges and universities, and by extension, the culture at large.
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