How was C. S. Lewis’ life influenced by Romanticism? Dr. Jeffrey Barbeau joins the show to talk about Lewis’ connection to this important literary movement.
Click here to download audio for S9E7: “The Last Romantic”, After Hours with Dr. Jeffrey Barbeau
Show Notes
Introduction
Welcome friends to Pints With Jack! We’re now in the second month of Season 9, so we hope you’ve been enjoying it so far.
It’s halfway through Advent, so I hope you’re ahead of the game with your Christmas shopping…
…and today is an After Hours episode, so I hope you’re ready for a discussion about Romanticism! Today we’re discussing another book which came out of the Hansen Lectureship Series at the Wheaton College. The book is “The Last Romantic” by Dr. Jeffrey W. Barbeau.
Quote-of-the-Week
If I am a romantic my parents bear no responsibility for it. Tennyson, indeed, my father liked, but it was the Tennyson of In Memoriam and Locksley Hall. I never heard from him of the Lotus Eaters or the Morte d’Arthur. My mother, I have been told, cared for no poetry at all.
C. S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy, Chapter One
Biography
Dr. Barbeau received his PhD at Marquette University and is a professor of theology at Wheaton College . A theologian, literary critic, and historian, he is the author or editor of numerous books, including “The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism and Religion”, “The Spirit of Methodism”, “Religion in Romantic England”, and the book we’ll be discussing today, “The Last Romantic: C. S. Lewis, English Literature, and Modern Theology”.
Chit Chat
Q. I had been letting my facial hair grow out for the past couple of months, but at the start of this week I shaved it all off… and I think it’s probably a good thing because I would otherwise be feeling beard envy right now! I’m curious, are you a devotee of John Calvin’s theology or just of his facial hair?
- Facial hair seems very biblical, and the Church Fathers agree.
The beard signifies the courageous; the beard distinguishes the grown men, the earnest, the vigorous. So that when we describe such, we say, he is a bearded man.
St. Augustine
Toast
- David drank a Newcastle Brown Ale.
- Dr. Barbeau was sipping a peach-flavored sparkling water.
Discussion
01. “The Longest Way Around”
Q. Would you mind starting at the beginning and telling us about your unique journey with C. S. Lewis?
- Dr. Barbeau picked up Narnia as a tween, and had a sneaking suspicion that this Aslan character was like Jesus. This actually caused him to stop reading it because he was worried that this work of fiction was a form of idolatry, and he sold the boxed set in a garage sale.
- Fast forward, towards the tail end of high school, he encountered some of Lewis’ nonfiction apologetic works, and discovered a side to Lewis he didn’t know when he was younger.
Q. And how did you come to write The Last Romantic and what did you do for research?
- Dr. Barbeau found that reading Lewis helped him to interpret scriptural texts and theological topics in a different light, finding his insight gave religion a living quality. But eventually, he set him aside again to move on to “the next best thing”.
- After graduation, the Mariam E. Wade Center asked Dr. Barbeau to bring a British Romantic perspective to the Hansen Lectureship Series. That’s how he began reading Lewis in a romantic light.
02. “Romanticism”
Q. We’ve spoken a little bit about Romanticism on Pints With Jack. We had an episode on Wordsworth last season with Dr. Carolyn Weber, and she’ll be returning this season to talk to us about Coleridge. But for the sake of this episode, would you mind sketching out what Romanticism actually is?
- Romanticism can be approached from two directions. The first is chronologically, capturing the time period. British Romanticism was a cultural (particularly literary) movement that spanned from the time of the French Revolution in the 1780s to the political reform of the 1830s.
- The second way to understand Romanticism is as a series of patterns, styles, and common themes of writing. Authors in this movement often contemplated the imagination, individual experiences, and nature.
03. “CSL & Romanticism”
Q. Lewis wrote several autobiographies in his life (and we’ll get onto the subject of autobiography later), but I opened this episode with a quotation from the start of “Surprised By Joy” where Lewis speaks about the impact of romanticism on his life. Would you mind briefly filling out that story?
- Lewis begins “Surprised by Joy” with imagination, selecting key events and things that he’s reading (or “dialogue partners”) . He claims that these are part of a broader world of imagination in his early childhood.
- The young Jack begins to loose this imagination and become more “rational” in the worse sense of the word with the death of his mother, his experiences at school, and WWI. In many ways, SBJ is about the rediscovery of his childhood innocence and creativity, and finding his way again.
- This is a common theme for many of us. We have a childhood interest, and set it aside for more “adult” things in our maturing years, then end up returning to the things that we liked all along.
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Dedication
Q. You call your book “The Last Romantic”. Is Lewis commonly regarded as the last of the romantics?
- Though he lived well outside of the established time period and he speaks on different cultural matters, Lewis does fit in very nicely with the Romantics.
Q. I didn’t want to leave this section without first asking you to say a few words about your book’s appendix, where you include some previously-unpublished work by Lewis. Would you mind telling us about it?
- As we’ve talked about on the show before, the Wade Center contains several thousand of Lewis’ writings, many of which remain unpublished. As they dove deep into research, Dr. Barbeau’s assistant discovered unpublished poetry that Lewis had written in a copy of a Wordsworth book. He was probably reading one of his favorite authors, and then trying to imitate him.
Death has called to heal all sound,
C. S. Lewis, Unpublished poem.
Cut short the thunder in mid peal,
Laid dumbness upon every tongue.
The should of millions like a puffed flame is gone out,
Follows the darkness, closing like a chest.
No light, no sound, no thought.
Impartial rest for each frayed sense.
04. “The Trial of C. S. Lewis”
Q. In the first chapter of your book, you speak about something which I first heard about only a couple of years ago – the trial of C. S. Lewis at Wheaton! For those who have never heard of this before, what was this trial and what were the charges?!
- The founder of the Wade Center, Clyde Kilby, wanted students at Wheaton College to better recognize beauty, imagination, and the power of stories. He presented this view in a paper for other faculty to read, and a respondent claimed that integrating these Romantic notions would take the college in a liberal direction. This suspicion led to a debate over whether Lewis was a trustworthy voice to follow.
Q. In that chapter, you speak about Mere Christianity and the book we’re discussing this season, “The Abolition of Man”. In both works Lewis appeals to experience and argues for objective value. You also talk about the British Romantics and theologians such as St. Augustine, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Hegel. How do all these pieces connect?
- Because Lewis writes for the every man, it’s easy to overlook the fact that Lewis was very in touch with philosophical and intellectual heavyweights.
- Lewis often makes arguments that appeal to experience. Romantics do this too, discussing the “interior self”, and how God reveals truth through it. At first glance, it appears very subjectivist. But while this can go too far into relativism, Romanticism reminds us that there is something beyond cold and sterile Rationalism, which rejects the heart. God gave us brains, but he also gave us the gifts of feeling and intuition. To understand him and the world around us, we need to cultivate both sides within ourselves.
Q. I would argue that, while Lewis does appeal to experience and emotion, he doesn’t appeal to them alone. He doesn’t just argue for imagination, but also reason. Given that this season we’re looking at The Abolition of Man, I’ve been thinking about that book a lot and I think I would go so far as to say that in Abolition, Lewis is giving us a vision of a fully-integrated human – not just belly and not just head, but a rightly-ordered chest. What do you think about that?
- Sometimes we neglect to acknowledge our heart, and instead try to explain away our feelings. But rational arguments only take a person so far. If you want to have a convincing argument, or if you want to truly think clearly, you need to be both logical and in tune with your emotions.
[Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Matthew 22:37
- All this being said, we know that while Lewis did think the heart was important, as a man raised in England, he would certainly have been uncomfortable talking profusely about feelings!
05. “The Anxiety of Memory”
Earlier in the episode I mentioned that Lewis wrote several autobiographical works: “The Pilgrims Regress”, “Early Prose Joy”, “Surprised By Joy”, “A Grief Observed” and “Till We Have Faces”.
Q. You turn to the subject of memory and autobiography in the second chapter of your book, you begin by drawing on your study of Methodism by looking at The Journal of Sarah Eliza Congdon. Who was she and how does she connect with the theme of Romanticism and Lewis?
- Congdon was a mid-19th century woman from the Hudson Valley, who moved to New York City as the Evangelical revivals were spreading. Her journal is kept at the Wade Center, and in it, she speaks about what she is hearing at these events and what she is taking away from them. She, like Lewis in his own autobiographies, is trying to use her life experiences and internal monologue as a witness for Christ, or an expression of faith.
- Autobiographies are fruits of the romantic movement. The idea was that personal experiences can be used to stir the spirits of others.
Q. In this chapter you then explore Lewis’ friendships with Owen Barfield and a lesser-known Inkling, Dom Bede Griffith, and how they were impacted by Coleridge. What was that impact?
- As listeners of Jack’s Bookshelf would know, Lewis is not just an author in isolation. He’s part of a network of others who bounce ideas off one another and critique each other, and he was in regular communication with students and other colleagues about his works. In addition, Lewis was also deeply influenced by authors of the past.
- In this same way, Lewis did not come to faith on his own either. We all know about Tolkien helping his conversion, but he also shared that faith journey with Owen Barfield and Dom Bede Griffith. Griffith, a former student of Lewis’, frequently asked him for book recommendations in his letters, which Jack was happily obliged to offer.
- One of those suggestions was Samuel Coleridge, an English poet and literary critic. Known for things like “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, in his time, Coleridge was probably better known for his apologetics.
- Griffith placed a heavy emphasis on Coleridge’s influence in his faith journey, and credited Lewis with stressing the importance of reading his works.
- On the flip side, Barfield was so enthused with Coleridge that in comparison, it would seem that Lewis didn’t care much for him! Lewis had some criticisms of Coleridge throughout his life, primarily because of the Great War, and comparing his own experiences with Coleridge’s writings. Think of Barfield’s and Lewis’ takes on the poet like Andrew and David’s opinions on TWHF.
06. “The Sacramental Imagination”
Q. I was excited as soon as I read the title of your final chapter: “C. S. Lewis and the Sacramental Imagination”. What do you mean by “sacramental” and what does it mean to have a sacramental imagination?
- A sacrament is a visible and material sign of the grace and glory of God. For example, in baptism, through the sprinkling, pouring, or immersion of water, there is a spiritual transformation as a person is adopted as a child of God. There are also sacramentals, in which God works through things that are sacrament-adjacent. When Lewis uses the term, he’s thinking about something with a material element that God works through for his spiritual purposes.
- A “sacramental imagination” is, in Dr. Barbeau’s mind, one of the most important things to have in this world, especially in a digital age, where everyone is connected through online networks, but aren’t present in their real lives. Sacramental imagination calls us to reintegrate, and recognize God working through ordinary, material things.
- Viewing life through this lens deepens your connection with God significantly. You could even do something as simple as going on a walk, and it can become a deeply present, spiritual encounter.
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
Q. It’s a little self-indulgent, but “The Great Divorce” is my favorite work by Lewis, so would you mind explaining how it draws on Romanticism?
- Lewis begins with a reference to William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, a piece of Romantic literature. Throughout the book, Lewis is trying to sort out the relationship between the two, and also between spirituality and reality.
- Towards the end of the novel, Lewis draws out a mysterious illusion, calling it “a vision and a dream”, reminiscent of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan, Or, A Vision in a Dream”, a work that is a realization of how all things fit together. An often forgotten part of TGD is the subtitle that goes with it. The full title of the book is “The Great Divorce: A Dream”.
Wrap Up
Concluding Thoughts
Q. What’s the one thing you hope readers will take away from your book?
- If you want to grow closer to Lewis and understand him more, read the authors that he loved (especially the Romantics), and the true depth of his works will be revealed.
More Information
- To learn more about Dr. Jeffrey Barbeau, visit his page on the Wheaton College website.
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