Lewis and Tolkien Friendship Response
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Liberty University *
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Apr 3, 2024
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Jillian Stevens
ENGL465 (D01)
Professor Mead
March 25, 2024
Communal Literary Interests of Lewis and Tolkien
The friendship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien has made literary history since its inception. The writings of these men exemplify the mutual literary tastes that formed their friendship. When Lewis and Tolkien met at Oxford University, their friendship seemed highly unlikely because of their differences. There are two unparalleled distinctions between the two. Firstly, Tolkien was a Christian theologian, and Lewis was an atheist. Secondly, Lewis was happy being a public figure, while Tolkien was a linguistic scholar. These factors did not stop an unbeatable friendship. Lewis and Tolkien bonded over their love of language, storytelling, and desire to identify the meaning of life. Their bond transpired from mutual literary tastes in romanticism and ancient mythology. Romanticism is a staple in the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien as a way to emphasize the spiritual realm and a higher power. This literary genre has always been a way to entice children into worlds they have only dreamed about. Yet, Tolkien and Lewis dreamed of romanticism to mean more than that. The writings of these authors reflect a connection between romanticism and reality. Both authors believed that faith and theology of fantasy are equals. According to Duriez, “they both shared a theology of romanticism, a movement which stressed the poetic imagination, instinct, emotion and the subjective over against what it saw as a cold
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rationalism” (2024). They longed for something more than what reality presented or a sense of otherness. Lewis’s and Tolkien’s literature shows another side to romantic theology. They sought out a way to explore the battle between good and evil. Both authors dove into the world of fantasy to accomplish this mission. By doing this, their creativity was influenced by Charles Williams. Lewis claimed it “does not mean one who is romantic about theology but one who is theological about romance, one who considers the theological implications of those experiences which are called romantic” (Duriez p. 185). This can be seen in
the reworking of Milton’s Paradise Lost
in Lewis’s Till We Have Faces,
where “the death of Maledil (Christ) on our Silent Planet means that the fall of humankind cannot simply repeat itself” (Duriez p. 185). Lewis is exhibiting the sacrifice that Christ made. J.R.R. Tolkien also provides a look into romantic theology. He was fascinated by the idea of spiritual art. He believed spiritual art was “verified by the greatest story of all—the Gospel. Tolkien argued ‘God is the Lord, of angels, and of man—and of Elves. Legend and history have met and fused’” (Duriez p. 185). Tolkien and Lewis provide a window into romantic literature while adding a theological component. While this added to their friendship, it was not the only form of literature
that brought the two together. Mythology is just as meaningful as romanticism to the friendship of Lewis and Tolkien. Consequently, one plays off of the other. For example, their love of stories, myths, and languages
erupted in the construction of romantic theology in their stories. The two talked about religion and myth and how they could incorporate them into their writing. For example, they analyzed works like Beowulf and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Lewis read Beowulf to Tolkien, and though they did not share the same taste for allegory, Tolkien liked the story (Duriez p. 93).
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Even though they had different preferences for literature, Lewis and Tolkien shared the same approach toward mythology, which contributed to their inventive worlds. Mythology in the perspective worlds of Lewis and Tolkien plays a monumental role in their stories. Combining old mythology and Christian values aided the development of a different
fantasy genre. They utilized the ideas of mythic stories in The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia
. For example, The Lord of the Rings
utilizes “the scale of his great mythology of the earlier ages of Middle-earth” (Duriez p. 92). Tolkien’s creation of Middle-
earth, elves, and hobbits, and his use of Old English illustrate his passion for mythology. Similarly, Lewis plunged into mythology when he created Aslan, the creator of Narnia. A talking
lion, like hobbits and elves, is fiction. However, Lewis uses Aslan to portray a Christ-like figure. According to Duriez, “the Narnian stories complete a developing process of an imaginative communication of Christian and older, premodern values—what Lewis and Tolkien thought of as Old Western values—that began with The Pilgrim’s Regress
” (p. 134). Lewis and Tolkien preferred to live like the pre-modernists, and that morphed into their writing and formed a strong bond between the two.
Overall, the lives of Lewis and Tolkien were extremely similar. Yet, it was their love of literature, storytelling, and developing a Christ-like state in fantasy. Their desire to help others convert to Christianity is apparent in everything they published. Were it not for their love and dedication to the pre-modern world and its values and morals, the literature they produced would
be generic fantasy. By sharing a love of romanticism and mythology, Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship blossomed into a historical epic, just like The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.
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Works Cited:
Duriez, Colin. “The Theology of Fantasy in Lewis and Tolkien*.” The Gospel Coalition
, www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-theology-of-fantasy-in-lewis-and-
tolkien/.
Duriez, Colin. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship
. Hiddenspring, 2003.