Review article
https://doi.org/10.38003/zrffs.16.10
C. S. Lewis on the Imagination: The Influence of Owen Barfield and G. K. Chesterton
Ema Botica
orcid.org/0009-0009-3267-2761
; University of Split, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Abstract
C. S. Lewis (November 29, 1898 – November 22, 1963) is well-known for his literary, scholarly, and apologetic contributions. The majority of his literary work was produced following his conversion to Christianity, marking a significant shift in his worldview. Lewis’s autobiography, Surprised by Joy (1955), serves as a testimony to his internal transformations. This work aims to highlight two influential figures who played a crucial role in Lewis’s conversion and his understanding of the imagination: Owen Barfield and G. K. Chesterton. Although these two figures are prominently featured, it is essential to acknowledge that they represent just a fraction of the broader spectrum of influences on Lewis. In his engagement with Owen Barfield, Lewis’s philosophical understanding of the imagination underwent significant development. Barfield approached this discussion from an anthroposophical perspective, attempting to persuade his friend to adopt this worldview. While Barfield did not succeed in this endeavor, he did manage to shake Lewis’s materialistic worldview. Consequently, Lewis had to distance himself from the realistic (materialistic) approach to reality, which he had long found unsatisfactory. The imagination held profound significance for him, but he struggled to reconcile it with reason, which he regarded as the means to attain truth. Through his readings of G. K. Chesterton, and particularly the chapter “The Maniac” from Orthodoxy (1908), Lewis succeeded in harmonizing reason and the imagination as equally valuable foundations for comprehending the world and its interpretation. This work, drawing upon a comparison between Lewis’s ideas and Chesterton’s text, highlights the motivating influence of Chesterton’s writings on Lewis in order to reevaluate his convictions, embrace Christianity, and accord the imagination its rightful place.
Keywords
C. S. Lewis; G. K. Chesterton; Owen Barfield; the imagination; reason; conversion; Christianity
Hrčak ID:
311880
URI
Publication date:
21.12.2023.
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