Tuesday, October 5, 2021

The Personal Heresy

Despite the title, this is not one of Lewis's theological works, but literary criticism. I first read it back in college in a sort of bound mimeographed copy; at the time, it seems, actual hard-back copies of this fairly obscure volume were hard to come by, and remained so for some time. It has long been lacking in my own library. Good Heavens! Does this complete another collection? It may be summed up thus:

"The Personal Heresy is a series of articles, three each by C.S. Lewis and E. M. W. (Eustace Mandeville Wetenhall) Tillyard, first published on 27 April 1939  ... The central issue of the essays is whether a piece of imaginative writing, particularly poetry, is primarily a reflection of the author's personality (Tillyard's position) or is about something external to the author (Lewis's position). The two positions may be summarized briefly as the subjective position (Tillyard) and the objective position (Lewis). In general, Lewis attempts to keep poetry within the reach of the common person, while Tillyard thinks of the poet as a person who is "a cut above the common person." -- Wikipedia.



 

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