51 research outputs found
Review of Dorothy L. Sayers, A Biography: Death, Dante, and Lord Peter Wimsey
No full textGary L. Tandy: Review of Colin Duriez, Dorothy L. Sayers, A Biography: Death, Dante, and Lord Peter Wimsey (Summertown, Oxford: Lion Hudson Limited, 2021). 224 pages. $14.95. ISBN 9780745956923
Review of Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis
No full textReview of Gina Dalfonzo, Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2020). 199 pages. $16.99. ISBN 9780801072949
Books, Theology, and Hens: the Correspondence and Friendship of C. S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers
No full textThat Lewis and Sayers had much in common and that their lives intersected in a number of interesting ways throughout their careers is common knowledge for even the casual follower of either author. What does not seem to have been appreciated or explained sufficiently in the scholarship to date is the nature of the friendship between these two influential Christian authors. Therefore, it is this friendship we wish to shed light on, using as our primary source the correspondence between Lewis and Sayers from 1942-1957. In addition, we look at what the biographers of each author have to say about their relationship
Review of The Rhetoric of Certitude: C. S. Lewis’ Nonfiction Prose
No full textReview of Gary L. Tandy, The Rhetoric of Certitude: C. S. Lewis’ Nonfiction Prose (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009). 135 pages. $39.95. ISBN: 9780873389730
Concurrent Paper Session 2A: The Theological Imagination of Sayers
No full text\u27Christ Walks the World Again\u27: The Image of Christ in Sayers\u27s Catholic Tales - Barbara Prescott
As a Christian apologist, Dorothy L. Sayers is little appreciated as religious poet. Yet in her early years, Sayers considered herself first and foremost a poet, and a large portion of this poetry was an expression of Christian romanticism in myth and legend. In her twenties, Sayers published a collection of poems in sonnet and ballad structure which reflect and interpret the heroic roles of Jesus the Christ. Within this small book, Catholic Tales and Christian Songs (1918), we are given a glimpse of those imaginative, unusual, and unfamiliar images of Jesus Christ. We are given the varied faces of Christ as a legendary folk and mythic Hero. Sources include the published version of the text, earlier manuscript of the book, as well as Dorothy L. Sayers’s notes and unpublished letters from the archives of the Marion E. Wade Center in Wheaton, IL.
The First and Second Wave of Dorothy L. Sayers - Hannah Stumpf
Snyder Reading Lewis Reading Sayers - Alan Snyder
While Dorothy L. Sayers was not an official Inkling, she was of the same spirit, having an Oxford degree, contributing an essay to the volume commemorating Charles Williams, and carrying on a personal correspondence with C. S. Lewis. Although Lewis had no interest in detective stories, in which Sayers made her name as an author, he nevertheless developed a great love of some of her other works: The Man Born to Be King, The Mind of the Maker, and her translation of Dante, in particular. What was it about those writings and Sayers herself that Lewis appreciated? This paper will examine his perspective on Sayers via both their personal correspondence and his writings to others about her and her works. In addition, I will compare my own perspective on Sayers’s writings with Lewis’s.
The Theological Aesthetics of Dorothy L. Sayers as Interpretive Key to the Fantasy Worlds of Lewis and Tolkien - Gary L. Tandy
In The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy L. Sayers suggests that all artistic creations are threefold. Specifically, all creative works contain the Creative Idea (the image of the Father), the Creative Energy (the image of the Word), and the Creative Power (the image of the indwelling Spirit). Throughout her book, Sayers applies her theory to various literary artists and works, demonstrating how a Trinitarian view of the creative or faithful imagination helps explain their artistic successes or failings. I aim to explore how applying Sayers’s theory may open new avenues of understanding and appreciation for Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Among other observations, I will suggest that Sayers’s theories are especially appropriate windows into the works of fantasy writers or world builders like Lewis and Tolkien, for in their efforts to craft worlds outside our earthly experience, we can see clearly how these authors became the gods of their own creations. In the process, I also hope to demonstrate that Sayers provides a useful “theological aesthetic” for Christian readers and literary critics—the kind David Lyle Jeffrey and Gregory Maillet call for in their Christianity and Literature: Philosophical Foundations and Critical Practice (2011)
Book Review: The Lion in the Waste Land: Fearsome Redemption in the Work of C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, and T. S. Eliot by Janice Brown
No full textExcerpt: Readers of scholarship about C. S. Lewis are familiar with studies that discuss his work and life in the context of his fellow Inklings: Tolkien, Williams, and Barfield. Janice Brown’s decision, however, to treat C. S. Lewis alongside two of his contemporary writers, both non-Inklings—Dorothy L. Sayers and T. S. Eliot—does demand an explanation. Brown must have recognized as much since she begins The Lion in the Waste Land by building a case for considering these three authors together, citing British historian Adrian Hastings, who identifies a “re-appropriation of Christian faith” during World War II and attributes this revival to the “Anglican lay literary and theological writers C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, and Dorothy L. Sayers” (2)
The Stylistic Achievement of Mere Christianity
No full textThis essay will not attempt to explain the cultural, sociological, and theological reasons for the ongoing relevance of Lewis’s Mere Christianity. It will, however, look closely at several aspects of the work in order to assess its rhetorical and literary achievement. It will also suggest that, while Lewis’ understanding of Christian doctrine and his mastery of logical argument are important (and have received the bulk of critical attention), the success of Mere Christianity has more to do with the style through which the author communicated its content. Specifically, Lewis’ rhetorical or apologetic theory led him to focus on the core truths of Christianity and to describe them in an appropriate style, given the nature of his readership (including his audience for the original broadcast talks). In short, Lewis was successful in creating a knowledgeable, familiar, and trustworthy persona through his use of multiple tones, and he blended rational argument with imagination to create memorable metaphors and analogies that not only supported his assertions, but also captivated both his reader’s imaginations and intellects
A Difference of Degree: Sayers and Lewis on the Creative Imagination (Chapter in The Faithful Imagination)
No full textExcerpt: Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis were writers who thought deeply about the creative imagination, the creative process, and the relation of these to their Christian faith. Both were practitioners, as well as theorists, producing multiple works of fiction, drama, apologetics, and poetry. Both wrote for a variety of audiences including scholarly and popular and believed that literary works could be entertaining as well as edifying, could both delight and teach, as the classical and renaissance writers put it. Finally, both authors addressed the creative imagination in their essays, books, and letters. While a comprehensive treatment of their respective theories of the creative imagination would require a book-length study, my aim is to describe each writer\u27s theoretical view and to explore one particular disagreement that arose between the two in response to Sayers\u27s book, The Mind of the Make1: 1 Finally, I hope to provide some explanation for the different views by looking at two addresses, one by Lewis and one by Sayers, in which each author attempts to formulate a Christian aesthetic
The Stance of a Last Survivor : C. S. Lewis and the Modern World (Chapter One of The Rhetoric of Certitude)
No full textExcerpt: As professor and scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature, C. S. Lewis wrote and published well-respected and influential literary criticism. At the same time, following his conversion to Christianity around 1930, he felt a duty to apply his argumentative and philosophical skills to the writing of Christian apologetics-defenses of traditional Christian principles against the attacks of skeptics and religious liberals. More important, Lewis lived in an age largely hostile to his attitudes and thought, both in literature and Christianity. In a period that s.aw such startling literary productions as The Waste Land and Ulysses, Lewis chose to defend traditional literary forms such as epic poetry and allegory. And in a century enamored with the theories of Darwin, Freud, Nietzsche, and Jung, Lewis offered a standard of mere Christianity, accepting, without apology, the sinfulness of man and God\u27s supernatural involvement in human affairs. Thus, Lewis was faced with an extremely difficult rhetorical problem: how does a writer communicate his ideas to his audience when every social, cultural, and intellectual force is at work to undermine the very concepts he presents? A study of Lewis\u27s nonfiction prose reveals clearly the rhetorical interplay of author, subject, and audience and the ways in which these elements manifest themselves in the style of the prose works
The Matter and (mostly) Manner of Mere Christianity
No full textPresented to a meeting of the Inkling Folk Fellowship (IFF), July 23rd, 2021.
Zoom Session Link: https://youtu.be/F2ZKEPD0YFg
Research Question•Why does Lewis’s work of popular apologetics continue to find a wide readership while other excellent books in the same genre—e.g., Sayers’s Creed or Chaos—do not?
Christianity Today Survey (2000): Most influential Christian books
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1942-44; 1952) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (1932-67) J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (1968) G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908) Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (1978) Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (1927) Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
Hypothesis
•While Lewis’s understanding of Christian doctrine and his mastery of logical argument are important, the success of Mere Christianity has more to do with the style through which the author communicated its content. •Lewis’s apologetic theory led him to focus on the core truths of Christianity and to describe them in an appropriate style, given the nature of his audience (including that of the original BBC broadcast talks). •Lewis was successful in creating a knowledgeable, familiar, and trustworthy persona through his use of multiple tones, and he blended rational argument with imagination to create memorable metaphors and analogies that captivated both his audience’s imagination and intellect
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