C.S. Lewis among the influencers
Jeffrey Barbeau talks about his new book on C.S. Lewis, *The Last Romantic*
Fellow Pilgrims,
Today’s post is an interview with my friend Jeffrey Barbeau about his brand new book, The Last Romantic: C. S. Lewis, English Literature, and Modern Theology. So many of us have been shaped by C.S. Lewis, and I’m excited to share this interview and book with you.
The book releases TOMORROW with Intervarsity Press, and you can grab your preorder today!
Jeffrey W. Barbeau (PhD, Marquette University) is professor of theology at Wheaton College. A theologian, literary critic, and historian, he is the author of numerous monographs, anthologies, and edited books, including The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism and Religion and The Spirit of Methodism: From the Wesleys to a Global Communion.
The interview:
Beth Felker Jones: Congratulations on the new book! The cover is striking. Tell us about it?
Jeffrey Barbeau: It’s fantastic, isn’t it? Honestly authors typically have little control over the design of their books—and for good reason (we’re not graphic designers). I think IVP did a great job on this one. They actually gave me two really nice options to consider, but the alternate cover had a reddish-pink background and I thought it played into the potentially misleading Valentine’s-vibe of the title.
This one captures a number of key ideas through the images. First, it has a subtle background with a plant that you might almost overlook. It’s a poppy plant, which reminds me of the prevalence of opium during the Romantic age. One of the key figures in the book is the poet and theologian S. T. Coleridge, who was himself an addict. The poem “Kubla Khan” was written under its influence, and C. S. Lewis knew the poem well.
Another feature is the fragmented image of Lewis himself. He’s a complicated man, and the British Romantic movement is often associated with efforts to know the whole but ends up only with parts. I think Christians really resonate with this. How often do we find ourselves striving to comprehend the infinite God who made the universe? God makes himself known to us, but God is never exhausted or captured entirely by our finite efforts.
BFJ: Why did you write The Last Romantic?
JB: The book is based on my contribution to the Ken and Jean Hansen Lecture Series at the Marion E. Wade Center. Each year, the Wade Center sponsors a faculty member to engage in research on one of its seven authors (the group of writers we often associate with C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien). The former co-directors David and Crystal Downing approached me several years ago to deliver a series related to C. S. Lewis and British Romanticism. It was a great honor to contribute to what is quickly becoming a well-known series in the field.
BFJ: Give us the short version: what’s the book about?
JB: In one sense it’s about the ways British Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge influenced the writings of C. S. Lewis. But I didn’t want the book to simply capture a few key quotes here or there, because that influence goes a lot deeper. For example, if I say that my grandparents influenced my life, I don’t only mean that you’ll hear me quoting or imitating them from time to time (though you might!). Instead, I’m thinking about something much more subtle about mannerisms or maybe how I see the world, right?
So, in much the same way, I wanted to figure out the ways Romantic poets helped shape the way C. S. Lewis thought. I was a little surprised by the result.
I found over and over again that the influence came back to three themes that are pretty significant in his writings and actually matter to a lot of people still today: religious experience, memory, and nature. In each chapter, I take up a different theme and show not only what Lewis had to say about someone like William Wordsworth (one of his “Top 10” influences, he said), but also how these authors helped him to think about Christianity in fresh ways. Lewis was actually a pretty modern thinker, it turns out.
BFJ: What do people mistakenly assume when they hear about your book?
JB: It’s a romance, of course! Even David Downing quipped as much when he first announced the theme of my lectures. The mistake is not uncommon, of course. People hear “romantic” or “romanticism” and assume all sorts of things!
Interestingly, I think that’s part of the reason—though not the bit about romance novels, specifically—that Lewis became rather cautious about the use of the term himself. He had included it in the subtitle to his early book The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason, and Romanticism. When he penned an afterword to the third edition, he expressed strong misgivings about the word “romanticism” in the subtitle. He thought the term carried too many possible meanings and might have confused potential readers, but what he was picking up on is something profound within the movement: the inward longing, a feeling or sense of something more that he thought we all have within us as humans.
BFJ: Share a detail you’re fond of from the book.
JB: One aspect of the book that readers of Lewis won’t have seen before is photos of actual images from Lewis’s handwritten comments in some of his very own books. Many books about C. S. Lewis do a great job treating the major books we know and love, but The Last Romantic depends on insights we gain from his personal marginalia and little comments that only someone who has spent time in the Wade archives will know.
For example, readers will see actual examples from the handwritten indexes that Lewis made at the back of some of his own books. Sometimes, Lewis wasn’t satisfied with the existing indexes and would add to them with his own categories and page numbers. In others, there was no index at all, so he created his own or made lists of favorite passages for future reference.
The images show a side of Lewis readers probably haven’t seen before. I think they’re going to love it.
BFJ: Did you read Narnia when you were growing up?
JB: It’s funny you ask that! When I was a young Christian, by which I mean about 12 or 13 years old and beginning to take my faith seriously, I began reading The Chronicles of Narnia. But when I finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I paused. The story worried me a bit. I could see traces of Jesus in the character Aslan, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was it idolatry to admire a character that seemed so much like Jesus? I didn’t know the answer, and there was no one I could speak to about such things. So, I stopped reading altogether. In fact, I later sold the boxed set at a garage sale to distance myself from Narnia altogether. Only later did I return to Lewis by way of his nonfiction.
BFJ: Are there difficulties in the spiritual life that your book can help to address?
JB: Lewis helps us to connect with Christian faith not only because it’s true but also because he seems to understand the ways we experience longing and desire. Christianity is about the truth, but Lewis knows that part of how we see that truth has to do with our experience of God’s love.
If I speak at a church or with my students at Wheaton College, again and again I hear the reasons why people believe. Few, if any, tell me that it was exclusively a process of reasoned argument. Most believe because there came a time in their lives when they felt God’s love or presence or a sense of forgiveness.
Maybe it’s surprising, but a professor from Oxford—the most famous apologist of the twentieth century—seems to get it. I think knowing that goes a long way to understanding how we think about faith today and how we tell our stories. Perhaps that’s the reason so many people love reading C. S. Lewis.
BFJ: Besides your book, what are your top reading recommendations for folks who want to think more deeply about these matters? Why do you recommend them?
JB: If people want to learn more about C. S. Lewis, I usually recommend Alan Jacobs’s wonderful biography The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis. Alan is a great writer and has a unique way of sharing Lewis’s story. He also finds the right balance between admiration and criticism.
I should also say that a lot of people feel uncertain when they hear my book is partly about poetry. I like to recommend the YouTube channel of my friend
. He recently completed his PhD at Harvard but his lectures on “How to Read Poetry” over at “Close Reading Poetry” break it down into clear and accessible steps. I highly recommend him to anyone who wishes they read more poetry but doesn’t know where to start.BFJ: What would your 10-year-old self say if he learned you’d grow up to write about this stuff?
JB: “Awesome.” It was the 1980s, after all.
Many thanks to Jeff for sharing with us today. Don’t miss his other books. You can buy The Last Romantic here.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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