(DOWNLOAD) "World's End Imagery: How William Morris and C.S. Lewis Imagined the Medieval North (Critical Essay)" by Extrapolation # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: World's End Imagery: How William Morris and C.S. Lewis Imagined the Medieval North (Critical Essay)
- Author : Extrapolation
- Release Date : January 22, 2003
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 185 KB
Description
The allure of North European medieval literature was strong in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. Two writers who inherited the Romantic impulse felt the pull of the Norse tradition and wrote their own imaginative works based on much of this material. Although they were both enamored of the North, William Morris and C.S. Lewis saw it differently, in terms of personal exposure to it, as well as its significance. For Morris, the qualities of medieval society he found so admirable could still be visited, not only within his favorite sagas and poems, but also in the country of Iceland itself. His travels there inspired many of his late romances such as The Well at the World's End, regarded by many as his fantasy masterpiece. For Lewis, the North was a place he could visit through the various literary texts he read and reread, including this work of Morris's, which influenced his Narnia book, The Silver Chair. Both of these works exemplify the authors' notions of northernness as a romantic aesthetic of rejuvenation, although Lewis borrows the "world's end" as a metaphor for eternal life in heaven, whereas Morris uses it to initiate an earthly paradise. The intellectual and artistic proclivities of each writer, as seen throughout crucial periods of their aesthetic development, led them to different conclusions both in their beliefs and in their fiction about the North. Both Morris and Lewis were attracted by medieval(ist) literature in their youth. By age seven William Morris had read all of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and was known for haunting Eppington Forest clad in a miniature suit of armor (Henderson 6). He relished Gothic architecture wherever he encountered it, as it evoked the period of his favorite literature. His regular readings while studying at Oxford consisted of medieval romances including Le Morte D'Arthur, Amadis of Gaul, Parzifal, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Silver 158).