C.S. Lewis, the Pope, and Me
Door Jam: August 10, 2024
The Door Jam is a place to squeeze in relevant articles written about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, their work, adaptations of their fantasy worlds, and other potentially interesting news, information, and articles. Unless otherwise stated, I’m not necessarily endorsing (or criticizing) any of these, merely sharing them with you.
The Pope quotes C.S. Lewis, and it’s a book you should be familiar with if you’ve been reading my articles in the past few months. Other links include top fantasy stories, ranking Narnia, more news on The Rings of Power, Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney updates from D23, and a great story about astronauts practicing their faith in space and the churches they leave behind on Earth.
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Apparently, I’m not the only one that’s been reading C.S. Lewis’ An Experiment in Criticism recently. Pope Francis quotes from the book in a letter encouraging those training to be Catholic priests and all Christians to read great literature and poetry.
In his letter, Pope Francis directly quotes this portion:
In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.
He then references Lewis’ work again:
In terms of the use of language, reading a literary text places us in the position of “seeing through the eyes of others,” thus gaining a breadth of perspective that broadens our humanity. We develop an imaginative empathy that enables us to identify with how others see, experience and respond to reality. Without such empathy, there can be no solidarity, sharing, compassion, mercy. In reading we discover that our feelings are not simply our own, they are universal, and so even the most destitute person does not feel alone.
I am as low-church Protestant as you can get, so if you have both myself and the Pope referencing a lesser-known C.S. Lewis book, that should be an indication the book should be more widely read.
Pope Francis uses An Experiment in Criticism to demonstrate why we should read more literature. I agree with him (and Lewis), but you can also take the principles from the book and apply them to other art forms like TV shows, which is what I did recently.
