Michael Ward (1)Besprekingen

Good collection of essays from a wide range of literary, historical, and theological perspectives, given on the 50th anniversary of CSL's death. I skimmed around a lot; I think most readers will give more attention to the Williams and McGrath essays.

I found this fascinating and reasonably persuasive. The most interesting bit for me was getting an introduction to medieval cosmology.

Excellent scholarly introduction to Lewis the academic.

10/10

9/10 (excellent): This is the first book of literary criticism I've ever read, never mind enjoyed. Normally, I have little interest in other people's opinions on what another is trying to say. The difference here is that Michael Ward uses C.S. Lewis' own works to demonstrate the hidden medieval theme within the Narnia Chronicles. There's no doubt that he has found the key that fits. That key doesn't change the message within the books, but it does enhance one's enjoyment of them. Planet Narnia can be taxing for those (like me) not used to literary criticism. I'd already had an aborted run at it a few years ago. What helped this time was that (a) In the meantime, I'd read the simplified version, [b:The Narnia Code: C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens|8690897|The Narnia Code C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens|Michael Ward|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1406509642s/8690897.jpg|13563383]), and (b) I stopped after each chapter to read the actual Narnia book being discussed. I'd certainly recommend that approach to others.

I purchased this book when I was asked to preach on Trinity Sunday. As I read the book, I realized that every time I attempted to arrive at an understanding of the Trinity, I was stepping into a orthodox "cow patty."

This edited book is a compilation several theologians and clergy's discussion of several ancient heresies with an apology of why each is wrong. The book is divided in two parts, heresies regarding the person of Christ and heresies of the church and Christian living. (I'm especially thankful of the God's grace with Donatism.) If the reader believes that new heretical behavior isn't possible, one of the editors closes the book with contemporary heresies.

This book is an easy to understand and suitable for adult Christian education and useful for all new clergy who find themselves assigned by their elder clergy to preach on Trinity Sunday.

For over half a century, scholars have laboured to show that C. S. Lewis's famed but apparently disorganised Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser's Faerie Queene. None of these explanations has won general acceptance and the structure of Narnia's symbolism has remained a mystery. Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia he demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis's writings (including previously unpublished drafts of the Chronicles), Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets

In The Narnia Code, Michael Ward takes the reader through each of the seven Narnia books and reveals how each story embodies and expresses the characteristics of one of the seven planets of medieval cosmology—Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus and Saturn—planets which Lewis described as “spiritual symbols of permanent value.”
How does medieval cosmology relate to the Christian underpinnings of the series? How did it impact Lewis’s depiction of Aslan, the Christlike character at the heart of the books? And why did Lewis keep this planetary inspiration a secret? Originally a ground-breaking scholarly work called Planet Narnia, this more accessible adaptation will answer all the questions.

Michael Ward takes the reader through each of the seven Narnia books and reveals how each story embodies and expresses the characteristics of one of the seven planets of medieval cosmology—Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus and Saturn—planets which Lewis described as “spiritual symbols of permanent value.”
How does medieval cosmology relate to the Christian underpinnings of the series? How did it impact Lewis’s depiction of Aslan, the Christlike character at the heart of the books? And why did Lewis keep this planetary inspiration a secret? Originally a ground-breaking scholarly work called Planet Narnia, this more accessible adaptation will answer all the questions.

What don't Christians believe? Is Jesus really divine? Is Jesus really human? Can God suffer? Can people be saved by their own efforts?

The early church puzzled over these questions, ruling in some beliefs and ruling out others. Heresies and How to Avoid Them explains the principal ancient heresies and shows why contemporary Christians still need to know about them. These famous detours in Christian believing seemed plausible and attractive to many people in the past, and most can still be found in modern-day guises. By learning what it is that Christians don't believe--and why--believers today can gain a deeper, truer understanding of their faith.

A serious discussion of the Narnia and Perelandria novels in the light of the medieval literature that Lewis was involved with. Sometimes tedious, but full of useful cross references to the cosmology of the Seven planets known to the medieval mind. There is no hard science here, but a good deal of philosophy and reference checking. Only for the serious student, but not a bad example of its genre.

One of the most eye-opening books I have ever read. At a dark point in my child-hood the Chronicles became my place of refuge, and my love of those books has shaped much of my life since then. Its amazing for me to read this book now and see part of how that happened...

Picked this up at the Hershey library while kind of just snorting and browsing around, more or less on a whim. I have always loved CS Lewis's work (even from a non-theological perspective) and I am currently in the midst of reading the Chronicles [of Narnia] to my daughters (currently working on The Horse and His Boy), so this piqued my interest enough to pick up and read.

While it is interesting, and gives a new perspective on the novels..... I'm not sure it wholly "changed" my viewing of the novels/and his works. It is all very interesting his idea and views and takes on how and (MAYBE why) CS Lewis constructed the Chronicles the way he did, and why he left things in like Father Christmas/Bacchus/Father Time, etc. I...... just don't 100% percent buy into the idea of it all. I take a look at stuff of this sort (the inclusion of all kinds of tropes and mythologies, even modern culturalisms like Father Christmas/Santa) in the same vein that Tolkien did when reading his friends works -- CS Lewis wanted to lean/borrow as heavily as he could from all genres, mythologies, and cultures -- a) because he loved all of these aspects of these various groups, and b) to be as inclusive as he can be. To reach as far of a 'market' (for lack of better term) as he could to try and spread the word of Jesus/Christ and the Bible.

This thesis definitely gives an interesting addendum to ways of looking at Narnia, and as I read The Horse and His Boy to my daughters tonight I will be looking for/at the ways mentioned in this thesis.... I just don't think I fully buy into it all.

(Apparently, at looking at the overall Goodreads reviews on this, it's very heavily loved, and Ward is very loved, especially by the religious and those who really love CS Lewis. So perhaps he is really onto something and I just don't see it, or perhaps I don't have the theological aspect/bent that the rest do. I will say the thesis is written well, though the connections at times are a bit loose, and with CS Lewis dead, and there never being a REAL way of knowing for sure if this is true or not, it has that 'conspiracy' theory it was kind of aiming at - especially after The Da Vinci Code, which I think this was hoping to piggyback on with the title a bit.)

I found this very illuminating. The Chronicles were some of my favourite books as a child and although I was aware of their Christian interpretation, Ward's book brings a whole new level of meaning to them. And it all fits. His argument that each novel represents one of the planets of the mediaeval cosmos is well researched and convincingly argued. He doesn't stop at simply examining the Narniad either, but traces the planetary influence in Lewis's other works, his poetry and apologetics as well as the Ransom Trilogy.

Coming at it from an atheistic point of view I can still have some sympathy with Lewis's contention that, post Copernicus, the Universe was reduced to a mere mechanism, thus stripping it of its ancient wonder as the home of the Gods. As Lewis states, a mediaeval person looking up at the stars had a very different view and understanding of the Heavens than we do today. I can't help thinking that we lost something along the way.

A scholarly yet readable book which I feel is the definitive statement on the reasons behind Lewis's sudden detour into children's literature. Recommended.

Interesting look at the meaning of each of the books in the Narnia series. Fans of Lewis will enjoy the authors interpretations.

This is a mind-blowing book on several levels. It proposes that there is a unifying key to the Narnia septet: that they are each influenced by one of the mediaeval 'planets': Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Luna and Sol (the latter two being respectively the moon and sun).

The author is an academic who has devoted decades to the study of CS Lewis, and his arguments are persuasive. Having said that, they are perhaps too extensive for my tastes, full of detailed references and quotations, some of which went a little over my head. I found that I could not read more than about ten or twelve pages at a time without taking a break, so it has taken me a couple of weeks to finish this book, which isn't a bad thing since it enabled me to ponder the theories in some depth in the meantime.

I believed fairly quickly in the overall argument. Ward coins the useful term 'donegality' to refer to the essence of each book; the overall 'big picture' feel of it which, he claims, is influenced by one of the seven planetary archetypes. Thinking about the Narnia books, I could immediately sense the planetary influence as suggested by Ward in three of them, and was easily convinced by his arguments about another two. I am very dubious about the two remaining ones, however, and have written at some length about the theories on a blog post here: http://suesabstractions.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-intuition-narnia-and-little.html

Anyone wishing to get a feel for the theories without reading this tome could check the author's site at http://www.planetnarnia.com/frequently-asked-questions - but for an in-depth understanding, and (in my view) new light on the entire series, I would recommend the book. Just don't expect to read it in one sitting.

Sure, I thought, maybe there's some fuzzy little thread of ancient and medieval cosmology stuff running through the Narnia books. Then I read the first chapters of Ward's book and had the rug ripped out from beneath me. I've been reading the Narnia series since I was a kid, over and over - how can it be that there was a whole other level (another galaxy)of meaning there that I'd missed? But it most certainly is there. - Adam

A truly brilliant book (even if the title is less than brilliant). A few years ago Ward authored a dense scholarly work on Narnia that functioned as nothing less than a seismic event in Lewis studies. This is the more accessible, popular edition of that book. But watch out - after just 30 or 40 pages, you'll never look at Narnia or Lewis the same way again! - Adam

This book is a bit dense. Written in the style one would propound to a college class rather than for the general public. If you are interested in learning more about C.S Lewis this is not the book to check out. This is a scholarly analysis of the middle ages spiritual view of the heavens and how it is manifest in the Chronicles of Narnia and Lewis' other writings (the sci-fi trilogy gets plenty of analysis too). The author subsequently published another book called The Narnia Code that is supposed to be more accessible to the general public and I plan on checking that one out.

The author asks why the Chronicles of Narnia have been so beloved? Why did Lewis write them, a childless never married older man, were they a response to the difficulties he encountered in his debate on his book Miracles or was it an escape from the difficulties of apologetics? If there is a tie between the medieval idea of the cosmos and these books why didn't Lewis ever talk about it?

The initial and most of the chapters making up the book are pretty dense as he talks about each individual planet in the medieval cosmos and each of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia. But the closing chapters draws it all together very well.

I purchased my copy used and was happy to note it is autographed by the author.

I have been on the look-out for Michael Ward’s study of Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia ever since his 2009 BBC TV documentary The Narnia Code (also the title of a condensed version of Planet Narnia published in 2010). The seven titles of the so-called Narniad have garnered praise and criticism in almost equal part, frequently fixated on the author’s Christian subtext. Sometimes there have been attempts to ascertain Lewis’ grand design for the Chronicles: why seven? Does each have a distinct theme? Is there a hidden meaning other than that obvious subtext?

Michael Ward has come up with a closely-argued and fully-referenced proposition that Lewis, long enamoured with classical and medieval literary traditions, fashioned his sevenfold book series according to the seven pre-Copernican heavens, each ruled by a ‘planet’. The Narniad (as the sequence is sometimes known) “was a literary equivalent of Holst’s Planet Suite; each one of the seven heavens gave the key to a different Chronicle” (page 251). Above the earth in the pre-Copernican universe were a set of concentric spheres: those of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Above that were the stars, the Primum Mobile and the Abode of God. Each book of the Narniad is based on the mood, atmosphere and characteristics of one of these bodies as personified in pagan mythology and appropriated by medieval Christianity. Lewis, so Ward suggests, wanted to suffuse each book with those planetary aspects that he had assigned to them, such as joviality, saturninity, mercurialness and so on.

For example, in the first and most famous of the series — The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – Ward posits that Lewis “took certain old familiar pictures in his head and threw them into a pot labelled ‘Joviality'; and as they simmered there, marinading and reducing, they began to smell somewhat of the gospel story. But only somewhat…” It would be simplistic also to suggest that Prince Caspian is only about war (Mars is also a god of vegetation) or that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is merely about the Sun (medieval cosmology and astrology were subtle arts on which Lewis apparently tried to model his creative writing); but the fundamental notes of The Silver Chair (the Moon), The Horse and His Boy (Mercury), The Magician’s Nephew (Venus) and The Last Battle (Saturn) do seem to be permeated by and resonate with the characteristics of the traditional heavens.

Has Ward found the key to the Narniad? I’m convinced by his hypothesis, more than other attempts to link the books to the seven deadly sins, the Catholic sacraments or Spencer’s Faerie Queene. Ward shows how his other work — poetry (in particular, the alliterative poem The Planets), his scholarship (such as his introduction to medieval thought The Discarded Image) and fiction (especially the so-called Ransom Trilogy, which concluded with That Hideous Strength) — prefigured or paralleled the Chronicles in the use of ideas, themes, symbolism and phraseology related to the astrological planets and their attributes. Reading the extracts and quotes from these other writings illuminates not only the seven novels but also strengthens Ward’s arguments.

Ward also tackles head on the question of why Lewis wasn’t more explicit about the way he structured his heptalogy. First he establishes Lewis’s love of secrecy, which is encapsulated in the writer’s concept of the ‘kappa’ element in literature, from the initial Greek letter of κρυπτóν (“krypton”, meaning hidden or cryptic); Lewis chose not to signpost his approach except in the most allusive of ways. Secondly Ward shows how Lewis was impressed by the essential difference between looking at a shaft of sunlight and looking along it to its source, and how it underpinned his personal philosophy and illustrated the move along a continuum from allegory to symbolism. The contrast between explicit and implicit perception which Lewis held and which Ward draws attention to can be tabulated, but I can personally appreciate it by recalling a childhood worry: that by analysing musical compositions I would lose my instinctive emotional response when listening to pieces. Of course such intellectual dissection (“contemplation” as Lewis calls it) in the longer term can deepen one’s understanding without necessarily destroying the enjoyment of the innocent ear. Ward sensibly structures his own analysis by referencing each book’s logos (explicitness) and then its poiema) (implicitness).

Planet Narnia is extremely detailed and very dense, and it’s almost impossible to do justice to it in a short review, but its very complexity echoes that of the Narniad. For example, The Horse and His Boy (a portrait of the mercurial essence) is rich in allusions to Mercury’s attributes: speed, language, twins (drops of quicksilver regularly combine and separate, reflecting the closeness of such siblings) and the trinity — Hermes Trismegistrus (“Thrice-Great”) was seen as a prefiguration of the Christian Trinity — are all adduced as evidence of Lewis’ purposes in this novel. The Magician’s Nephew, the literary embodiment of Venus, caused Lewis much grief. Though begun after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe it was the last to be completed (and the penultimate Chronicle to be published) because, Ward argues, the story of a boy trying to save his mother’s life with an apple was intimately bound up with the death of Lewis’ mother when he was only nine years old. And I can scarcely begin to summarise the several motifs that underscore the difficult Saturn-inspired final novel, The Last Battle.

This study has certainly illumined my understanding of the Chronicles, and allowed me to appreciate intellectually what makes the series tick as a whole and in its individual parts. But has it changed my personal response to the Narniad? My criticisms, quite divorced from my rejection of Lewis’ Christian ideology, were principally in three areas: characterisation, plotting and sense of place. I find that understanding has not increased my liking of the Chronicles. The characterisation remains weak: ideology cannot affect that. As for plotting, a remark by Lewis is revealing: for him, “understanding a story” is not just about comprehending a linear chain of events (explains Ward) but having the ability to discern a story’s hidden meaning, “something that has no sequence in it” (149). The linear chain of events seem to me to be subservient to each story’s kappa element, its secret or cryptic intent. Lewis draws on myriad seasonal, astrological and pagan themes to reinforce his grand design of Christian salvation, but this doesn’t seem to me enough to craft a satisfyingly plotted novel: this is the tail wagging the dog.

That leaves a ‘sense of place’, which was the most positive aspect of the series that I initially identified but an area that Ward scarcely touches on, if at all. For example, he doesn’t seem to need to explore the sort of real geography that may have inspired Lewis as much as his mental maps, places such as Dunluce Castle in Country Antrim which the child Lewis would have known and no doubt explored and which may have been a model for Cair Paravel. But this was clearly not Ward’s intention in this book, which — as a Anglican priest — he largely only directs along a fixed theological path.

As a study Planet Narnia makes its points exceptionally well. But it doesn’t make me like the Narniad any more than I did before.

http://wp.me/s2oNj1-narniad

This book makes me want to reread the Narniad and The Space Trilogy again and pick up the stuff I missed. A excellent, engaging and enveloping read that improved my awareness of the richness of the medieval view of the cosmos.½

Ward's insights into the Chronicles of Narnia are considerable. As Ward tells us, the roots of the word "consider" mean "with stars," and the stars are at the heart of THE NARNIA CODE. The Chronicles of Narnia have always been a favorite of mine from childhood, and I enjoyed Ward's examination of the books and their meaning.

This is an excellent companion book to The Chronicles of Narnia. Michael Ward describes his theory of the parallelism between the seven pre-Copernium heavenly bodies and the seven books in C. S. Lewis's fantasy series. He has put forth a credible argument that Lewis structured each Chronicle along the spiritual qualities of these heavenly bodies, beginning with his favorite planet Jupiter whose kingship and joviality is woven throughout the beloved tale of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe which opened the door to Narnia.

C. S. Lewis was an acclaimed Middle Ages scholar at Oxford who believed in the goodness of old things which included the validity of the material world being more than just matter. He didn't discredit ideas because they were outdated. The old model of the planets had spritiual meanings attached to them in a "more complete kind of science than modern astronomy." Lewis made the connection in his books between Aslan and the stars in a mystical way best explained by this exchange in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."

"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of."

In his collection of the classic stories of Narnia, Lewis subtly portrayed the planets and stars as messengers of divine creativity and symbols of the music of the spheres. This book is the follow-up book to Ward's more scholarly Planet Narnia and is designed as a more accessible companion to Narnia for a Christian audience.

Do you remember when you first read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis? Many people, like me, trace their love of fantasy fiction back to that moment. As I gobbled up each of the seven books of the Chronicles of Narnia series, I entered a world of knights, chivalry, valor, magic and wonder — that awakened in me a fresh wonder at the divine influence in all of life.

As I went on to other fantasy tales, largely by Christian authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Stephen Lawhead, I encountered more intricate worlds and elaborate tales than what I found in Narnia. But the overt symbolism in the first Narnian tale, hinted at so much more beneath the surface of the Narnia tales. Reading Lewis’ space trilogy I once again encountered symbolism that I couldn’t quite grasp, but that was alluring and powerful nonetheless.

So a few years ago, when I learned of a new book by Michael Ward entitled Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, I was captivated and just had to get it. That scholarly tome, whose hardback edition boasted 347 pages and almost 60 pages of endnotes, was a delight to work through. Bit by bit, Ward shared the thrill of his discovery — the long sought after, unifying key to the Narnia stories. It was a bit of a chore to go through all the scholarly citations, but along the way I learned a great deal about all of Lewis’ works, not just the Narnian chronicles.

Now, however, the fruit of Ward’s scholarly research is available for a wider, general market audience. Based on an earlier documentary/DVD, Tyndale House has published an accessible paperback entitled The Narnia Code: C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens.

I was able to pick up this smaller book from Tyndale. It’s only 191 pages with an easy to read font. To be sure, some of the finer points from Planet Narnia don’t find their way into the condensed edition. Still, one will find all the joy (and significance) of Ward’s discovery, a fascinating explanation of the pre-Copernican planetary model, and a detailed exposition of each Narnian chronicle according to the new insights gained from Ward’s study. The interested reader could certainly move on from The Narnia Code to Planet Narnia if he or she so chose, but most will be satisfied by the tale as told in the smaller work.

I don’t want to ruin the book by explaining in detail all of Ward’s discoveries. I will just note that he finds a planetary connection between Lewis the scholar’s appreciation for the pre-Copernican view of the planets as influencing mankind in various ways, and Lewis the author’s intricate method of creating a unique atmosphere that permeates each of his seven Narnian tales.

I can say this, however, you will be convinced by Ward’s discovery. And it will give new life to the Chronicles of Narnia. You’ll never read them the same way again. And Christ’s glory will be seen anew in all its wonder, illuminated in many small yet wonderful ways by Lewis’ intricate crafting of these wildly popular stories.

An expanded version of this review, with additional content and resources, is available at CrossFocusedReviews.com.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Tyndale House Publishers for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.