Tag Archives: William Morris

Panel on C.S. Lewis’ “The Quest of Bleheris” at the C.S. Lewis and Friends Colloquium

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Brenton Dickieson

I am currently working in the Marion E. Wade Center–the premier C.S. Lewis archival research space on the continent and a lovely little spot that houses materials by and about the British authors that are the primary focus on this … Continue reading →

Posted in L.M. Montgomery, News & Links, Original Research | Tagged archival research, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, david downing, Dorothy L. Sayers, g k chesterton, George MacDonald, J.R.R. Tolkien, L.M. Montgomery, Marion E. Wade Center, owen barfield, research, The Quest of Bleheris, William Morris | 16 Comments

A Weekend of Reading to Change Your Literary Life

Posted on May 15, 2018 by Brenton Dickieson

If you are like me, you have spent much of your adult life as a reader catching up on a severe lack of education. It is common that I am out with friends and when the topic of books comes … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged Arthur C. Clarke, Charles Williams, Charlotte Brontë, Goethe, H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut, L.M. Montgomery, Margaret Atwood, Reading, Shakespeare, Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, Virginia Woolf, William Morris | 39 Comments

C.S. Lewis’ Teenage Bookshelf, and Other Lessons on Reading

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Brenton Dickieson

The Beowulf author, Sir Thomas Malory, Jane Austen, William Morris, Charlotte Brontë, and Shakespeare. With the exception of Morris, who is merely an important author of his period, these are all canonical authors. Notably, though, these are all authors that Lewis … Continue reading →

Posted in Fictional Worlds, Letters, On Writing, Original Research | Tagged A Preface to Paradise Lost, An Experiment in Criticism, books, C.S. Lewis, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, literature, Malory, Reader Response Criticism, Reading, Shakespeare, Studies in Words, The Discarded Image, William Morris | 53 Comments

Despite what C.S. Lewis Says, David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus is the Worst Book Ever

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Brenton Dickieson

This may very well be the worst book I have ever read. According to my Goodreads ratings, I have only four other one-star reviews. I can’t remember why I so disliked Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec & Enide, but I remember … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged A Voyage to Arcturus, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Darko Suvin, H.P. Lovecraft, Justin Bieber, News from Nowhere, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, Ransom Trilogy, William Morris, William Shatner, writing | 59 Comments

2017: A Year of Reading

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Brenton Dickieson

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a … Continue reading →

Posted in News & Links | Tagged academic, C.S. Lewis, Discworld, feminism, George MacDonald, Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, L.M. Montgomery, Margaret Atwood, PhD Research, Ransom Trilogy, Reading, Stephen King, The Quest of Bleheris, William Morris | 17 Comments

The Words C.S. Lewis Made Up: Curialisation

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

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 writer about the history of literary movements, and a tinker in other forms of fiction. In that tinkering, … Continue reading →

Posted in Studies in Words | Tagged Arthuriana, C.S. Lewis, Eugène Vinaver, lion the witch and the wardrobe, Morte Darthur, Narnia, Prince Caspian, That Hideous Strength, The Allegory of Love, The Quest of Bleheris, The Silver Chair, Till We Have Faces, William Morris | 13 Comments

William Morris’ Nonsense from Nowhere

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

One of C.S. Lewis’ great literary conversation partners was William Morris. Lewis wrote literary criticism about him beginning in his first collection of essays (Rehabilitations, 1939, now in Selected Literary Essays). In that early literary essay, delivered first to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, C.S. Lewis, g k chesterton, George Orwell, Left Behind, libertarianism, Margaret Atwood, News from Nowhere, philosophical novel, Politics, Socialism, The Hunger Games, The Quest of Bleheris, The Well at the Worlds End, Voltaire, William Morris | 22 Comments

Approaching “The Silmarillion” for the First Time

Posted on April 12, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

As brilliant as lovers of Middle Earth recognize that it is, there are few books as daunting as The Silmarillion. It is a dense and complex text of genealogies, places, and characters, each woven together with multiple names in multiple languages … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged Andrew Lang, Arthuriana, C.S. Lewis, David Lindsay, Douglas A. Anderson, E. Nesbit, George MacDonald, H. Rider Haggard, J.R.R. Tolkien, literature, Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth, Narnia, On Fairy-Stories, The Silmarillion, William Morris | 46 Comments

2016: A Year of Reading

Posted on December 29, 2016 by Brenton Dickieson

This time last year I had a sense of the kind of season that 2016 would be, but I did not know the how deeply the experiences of bereavement, family responsibility, and overwork would impact me. While my work has … Continue reading →

Posted in News & Links | Tagged academic, An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis, feminism, George MacDonald, Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories, PhD Research, Ransom Trilogy, Reading, The Quest of Bleheris, William Morris | 15 Comments

2016: My Year in Books: The Infographic

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Brenton Dickieson

The house elves at Goodreads have produced a little infographic to capture my year in book reading. I love data, and I love when clever people create clever algorithms to capture trends in visual form. I’ll post my full, super … Continue reading →