What are some of the ways that C.S. Lewis played with and thought about words?
C.S. Lewis was warned as a young scholar “never to trust a philologist.” At its root, a “philologist” is a lover of words. On that score, at least, Lewis was one of the great popular figures of the 20th century. He also wrote Studies in Words, and had a knack for naming characters in evocative way or choosing the right word to capture the moment. This page captures some of Lewis’ thoughts about words, including the limited series, “The Words that C.S. Lewis Made Up,” and includes some concepts unique to Lewis as a writer and scholar.
“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it”
~ C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory“
Featured Articles
C.S. Lewis, Sexology, and the OED
I came across the word “sexology” in my recent teaching of The Four Loves. I was curious about the history of the word…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Part 1: Bulverism
As far as I know, Lewis never used the phrase, “wordsmith.” When it comes to writing, he preferred images of stone, greenery,…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Charientocracy
C.S. Lewis was an acclaimed children’s writer, setting the stage for generations of children’s books that speak in a new way to kids…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Rebunker
C.S. Lewis was an acclaimed children’s writer, setting the stage for generations of children’s books that speak in a new way to kids…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Jollification, Uglification, and the Miserific Vision
We all know C.S. Lewis as the Narnian, but behind the children’s work was his experience as a teacher of English literature, a…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Grailologist
We all know C.S. Lewis as the Narnian, but behind the children’s work was his experience as a teacher of English literature, a…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Curialisation
We all know C.S. Lewis as the Narnian, but behind the children’s work was his experience as a teacher of English literature, a…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Viricidal
We all know C.S. Lewis as the Narnian, but behind the children’s work was his experience as a teacher of English literature, a…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Disredemption
Behind C.S. Lewis’ famous Narnian chronicles was his experience as a teacher of English literature, a writer about the history of literary…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Re/Anti/Un/Ness
Behind C.S. Lewis’ famous Narnian chronicles was his experience as a teacher of English literature, a writer about the history of literary…
The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Aristocratophobia and Lowerarchy
This is the 10th in the series on words that C.S. Lewis made up. In his tinkering with ideas, and in his letters…
Five Words We Should Banish from our Vocabulary, Or Preventing Verbicide with C.S. Lewis
As a voracious reader and great lover of language, C.S. Lewis was concerned about “verbicide,” what he called the “murder of words.” As…
“The Personal Heresy” and C.S. Lewis’ Autoethnographic Instinct: An Invitation to Intimacy in Literature and Theology
Canada’s annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Congress2021) is now winding down. I missed being live on the ground, stumbling…
“A Sense of the Season”: C.S. Lewis’ Birthday Pivot and the Cambridge Inaugural Address (Updated)
In the autumn of 1954 at the age of 56, C.S. Lewis was at the height of his academic career. After nearly…
C.S. Lewis’ Teenage Bookshelf, and Other Lessons on Reading
The Beowulf author, Sir Thomas Malory, Jane Austen, William Morris, Charlotte Brontë, and Shakespeare. With the exception of Morris, who is merely an…
George Orwell’s 1984 and C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength: A Conversation about Influence and Pride of Place
This post is a celebration of the 70th anniversary of the publication of C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength and George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Why…
There is No Such Thing As Space
There is no such thing as Space. I don’t just mean physically. I suppose, in the physical sense, there is no such…
George Watson’s Provocative Comments on C.S. Lewis as Literary Critic
One of the advantages of finding new libraries is that the librarian’s skill of book-buying is more art than science. The librarians…
A Toy Left on the Lawn: C.S. Lewis and the Controversy of The Four Loves
Tonight I am teaching on C.S. Lewis’ classic treatment, The Four Loves. I read this early in my adult encounter with Lewis (see…
“Small” and “Little”, a Literary Experiment on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit with Sparrow Alden
I have talked about Sparrow Alden’s work before, the creative Digital Humanities project to stage all of the words in J.R.R. Tolkien’s…
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A Pilgrim in Narnia 