C. S. Lewis and Myth 2023

Blog #4 - Vickie Garton-Gundling So far, I've read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and about half of Prince Caspian , as well as Out of the Silent Planet . I've noticed in these texts - especially the latter two - that Lewis repeatedly employs layers of myth - or stories within stories. Prince Caspian is the most layered: we (from our Primary World) are drawn back into the Secondary World of the England in which the kids can go into Narnia, then drawn back into Narnia, then Chapters 4-7 are Trumpkin telling the story of Prince Caspian within the Narnia world, and then within that story, it talks about the myths and stories Prince Caspian and others heard and believed or didn't (which turned out to be true). That's a whole lot of myths within myths!  Likewise, I keep coming back to the end of Out of the Silent Planet, and the different layers of story, fiction vs. nonfiction etc. that Lewis plays with there - in the final chapter and the postscript. (But then, in...

Blog Post #3 - Vickie Garton-Gundling Figuration vs. Alpha-thinking vs. Beta-thinking  I don't fully understand the distinctions between the "three different things we can do with" representations (Barfield, Saving the Appearances, 23). How are alpha-thinking and beta-thinking different? Alpha-thinking is said to be "a thinking about" (24), and beta-thinking is described as "reflection," (25) something that seems close to "analysis" in our modern language. But are you not also still thinking about a thing when you are analyzing it? Is it that beta-thinking moves onward to "their relation to our own minds," and thus restores some of the unity or the relational aspect of the figuration stage? Also, what actually IS figuration? Barfield first calls it "all that" and "something" (24), and later I think he means to compare figuration to "original participation" or "immediate experience" (40-41) - ...

Blog Post #2 Vickie Garton-Gundling  1/20/2023 I'm struggling to understand the "ineffable" aspects of myth that we've been discussing. Here are some questions I still have or quotes that I still don't understand related to the mystical aspects of myth. I would welcome some guidance from the Philosophy majors (or any other students) in our class and/or Dr. Redick. Thanks!  1. Plato's Simile of the Line from The Republic  I get what Shadows and Body are, but I still don't think I really get what Concepts are vs. Forms, nor am I sure what is meant by "the Good." How is a Concept different than a Form? I thought maybe a Concept was akin to the "essence" of an entity or thing. But then what is a Form? The perfect version of that entity or thing? If so, can the Form ever be achieved? And what, then, is "the Good"? Is "Good" here meant in terms of morality? In terms of deity? Something else?  Update: based on our 2nd class...

Blog Post #1 Vickie Garton-Gundling  1/19/23 Conspiracy Theories or Conspiracy Myths?   While reading the philosophical texts that will underpin our future readings of C.S. Lewis’s fiction, I had an unsettling feeling I couldn’t quite name or put into words. Then, last class period (1/18), our brief discussions about conspiracy theories (in general and a la Dan Brown) helped me begin to understand my unease. Thus far, our readings and class discussions have focused pretty exclusively on the positive impacts of myths and faerie stories, such as:  Imparting the “joy” that is a “sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth” (Tolkien, On Faerie Stories, 83) “Present[ing] what the narrow and desperately practical perspectives of real life exclude” (Lewis, On Stories, 10) “Producing us in giving itself to us” (Marion qtd. in Redick, Saturated Meaning…, 2)   Illuminating / producing a “sunny country of common sense” (Chesterton, 87) Helping writers and readers to tr...

The extent of Ben Shneider’s mythopoeia is reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien, who is rightly hailed as one of the most thorough world-makers of the fantasy genre. Middle Earth is no thoughtless backdrop. There is not a shred of arbitrary scenery or dialogue, nothing coincidental about the landscape of Tolkien’s fantasy. This is artful calculation of epic proportion, myth within myth. Layers upon layers of Lord. From the legends of Tom Bombadil to the detailed account prehistoric period spanning the decades before the Lord of the Rings Trilogy takes place, found in Simarillion. Who is Ben Shneider? His name remains shrouded in some degree of anonymity, as he creates under the stage name “Lord Huron.” The Michigan native founded the solo project, and eventually added other musicians to play on tour. He was trained as a painter. His artistic skills are displayed in the drawings featured on album art covers and released on social media under the group’s page. This reminds me of how Tolkien wou...

Make sure to start the blog with your name and the subject of the entry in the post title area. See this blog title as an example. Blog entries will be considered informal writing assignments and as such will be graded more in relation to content than style. Blog entries will contain questions and answers to questions, as well as reflections that relate to daily classroom discussions, completion of exercises, and reading assignments. Any questions you have while reading or completing assignments should be written in your blog. Reflections may relate to connections that you make between discussions in this class and those in other classes, between arguments raised in the readings in this class and those raised in other classes or from informal conversations. You are encouraged to apply the ideas learned in this class to activities that take place outside of the class. These applications make great reflections. You should bring questions from the blog to class and ask those...