Biography of Clive Lewis: scientist, theologian, visionary. Christian Online Encyclopedia

Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898 in the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland in the family of a solicitor. When the boy was not even 10 years old, he lost his mother. After that, his father gave him to closed school far from home; Lewis recalled her orders with hatred and sarcasm all his life, which was reflected in many of his works.
In 1917, he entered the University of Oxford, but soon decided to become a junior officer in the army. Military training was limited to a few weeks. During this time, Lewis met and became friends with Paddy Moore. They were cared for by Paddy's mother Jane Moore. Parting when leaving for the front, the young men made a promise to each other: if one of them is killed, the survivor will take care of the family of the murdered. Paddy was killed and Lewis was wounded. He was demobilized and in 1919 returned to his studies at Oxford. Fulfilling the promise, he is within for long years lived permanently with Mrs. Moore.
In 1923, Lewis received a bachelor's degree, and a few years later a master's degree. Later he taught English literature at Oxford for more than 30 years and taught excellently, the classrooms were usually crowded. Lewis was known at Oxford as one of the most educated people; he shared his knowledge with students not only in lectures, but also in lively conversations, which formed his books.
In 1929, Lewis becomes a believer, and in 1931 he converts to Christianity largely under the influence of John Ronald Reuen Tolkien. Together with Tolkien and other colleagues at the university, they created a literary and religious circle, whose members called themselves the Inklings. Lewis becomes one of the first readers of Tolkien's nascent epic The Lord of the Rings. This prompted him own creativity. In 1932, The Roundabout, or The Return of the Pilgrim appears, followed by the theological treatise Suffering, the first novels of the Cosmic Trilogy. In 1941, the Balamut Letters were written, which made Lewis famous. He is invited to give lectures, sermons, they provide him with radio air for talks about Christian faith. Conversations Lewis had in 1941-1944 on the BBC, were subsequently published under the title "Mere Christianity".
In 1945, the treatise-parable "Divorce of Marriage" was published in parts in a religious weekly. In 19501955 The Chronicles of Narnia, seven fairy tales for children, are published in an unexpected, original form about Christianity.
In 1954, Lewis went to work in Cambridge, where he received a chair and took the position of professor; in 1955 he became a member of the British Academy of Sciences.
In 1952, Lewis met Joy Davidman, an American writer. In 1956 they got married.
In 1960, Joy died of cancer. Lewis died of the same disease on November 22, 1963. His grave is in the courtyard of the Church of St.. Trinity at Oxford.

Books English writer Clive Lewis are known and loved by both adult readers and children. And there is hardly a person who would not read the world-famous book "The Chronicles of Narnia".

short biography

Clive Lewis was born in Northern Ireland on November 29, 1898. His father was a lawyer, his mother was the daughter of a priest. There were a lot of books in their house; from childhood, Lewis liked to read. Brought up in the Christian faith, the boy after training in private school House of Cherbourg loses faith. As a teenager, Lewis became interested in Scandinavian legends and loves nature very much.

Trying to realize his hobbies, he tries himself in various genres- opera and epic poetry. The private lessons that he took as a child from William Kirpatrick instilled a love for Greek literature and honed thinking and rhetoric in a teenager. In 1916, Clive Staples Lewis received a scholarship at Oxford, but he was soon drafted into the army. Lewis served in France, taking part in the First World War.

After being wounded in 1918, Lewis was demobilized from the army and resumed his studies at Oxford. In 1919 he published his first collection of poems. After receiving his master's degree in 1923, Lewis taught philosophy at Oxford College. From 1925 to 1954 he worked as a teacher English Literature at Magdalen College. In 1926, the second collection of his poems was published.

Return to Faith

One September evening in 1931, Lewis is having a long conversation about Christianity with J. Tolkien. This discussion is becoming important event in Clive's later life. After her in it with new force faith in Jesus Christ, lost at the age of fifteen, flared up.

During World War II, Clive Lewis conducted religious broadcasts on the radio. In 1952 he was awarded the MBE and offered a position as head of the Socrates Club at Oxford. He remained in this position until 1954, when he became chairman of the newly created Chair of Medieval Literature at Cambridge.

But Lewis had a strong attachment to Oxford, where he had a home that he visited every weekend until his death in 1963.

The work of Clive Lewis

Lewis's literary path begins with the writing of books on Christian themes. His first work, written in 1932, a few months after his conversion, is called The Roundabout, or The Return of the Pilgrim. This book is an allusion to John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

In his second book, Suffering, published in 1940, Lewis shares his thoughts on suffering. In it, he raises questions about heaven and hell, about kindness and virtue. He discusses how suffering is possible if the Lord is loving and all-good. Can you be kind? Are you ready to share your happiness with the world? The book will be useful not only for Christians. It provides answers to questions that every person asks himself.

"Letters of Balamut" is a kind of novel in letters that the old demon Balamut writes to his nephew. Clive Lewis in this work shows the "wrong side of the world", raises the topic of serious things that deserve attention. The old demon teaches the young the science of temptation. Every reader will learn a lesson from this book.

This work was written by Lewis in 1941, but fame came to the writer after the reprint of the book in 1943 in America. The continuation of the Letters is the story "Troublemaker Proposes a Toast", which was written in 1958 by Clive Lewis.

Christian books

"Dissolution of Marriage" is a story on the eternal themes about the existence of heaven and hell. Here the author shows how faceless and oppressive the city of ghosts, which is the prototype of hell in the book. And Lewis brings the reader to a comparison with a boundless and glorious heaven, which can be entered through repentance.

"Miracle", a work created by Lewis in 1947, tells the reader that there is a miracle, but people, with their disbelief, pride, do not notice it, and it passes them by. "Simply Christianity" is a book that has long become a desktop for many Christians, regardless of denomination. In it, Clive Lewis reveals the essence of Christianity and answers questions related to faith.

In "Reflections on the Psalms" the author reveals the essence and essence of the psalms. The book "Four loves" tells about the types of love and its understanding by Christians. The essay "Exploring Grief" was written when Lewis's wife died. Here he talks about despair, denial of faith, misunderstanding of God's providence, fear, pain.

Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Space Trilogy is a series of novels in which the author combines Christianity and fantasy. Here and communication with other civilizations, and flights to other planets, and unusual higher beings, and A New Look on angels and the fall, the battle of good and evil.

The fantasy novel "Until we found faces" in the fantasy genre retells and interprets in an original way ancient myth about Psyche and Cupid.

And, of course, the famous seven-book fantasy series that brought Lewis world fame, - "The Chronicles of Narnia". The series of books is still very popular today. On the basis of the works are created theatrical performances and radio shows, films and computer games.

Narnia is a magical, amazing country. A world that boggles the imagination. The world that Clive Lewis created. "The Chronicles of Narnia" tells the adventures of four children who find themselves in the country where they live unusual creatures, witches and fairies. Where the birds and beasts speak, and rules magical land lion king.

The adventures of the guys take readers into the world of magic. The author describes the events so vividly and vividly that a feeling of the reality of this world is created. Of course, first of all, "Chronicles" is good fairy tale, a world that can be reached through wardrobe. Lewis so subtly and accurately thought through all the images, invested in amazing fairy tale their feelings and thoughts that the Christian subtext of the story is almost invisible.

Nevertheless, in the "Chronicles" Christian parallels are clearly visible: the conversion of the "daughter of Eve" at the beginning of the book, the resurrection of the lion Aslan. The author himself writes that initially he did not plan anything related to Christianity. But everything worked out by itself. And he decided that this is the most The best way tell children about religion.

Lewis's books teach you to believe in yourself and your ideals, to stand firmly on your feet, to free your thoughts from evil and betrayal. Otherwise, the prison, created from their own thoughts, will not release until death. Clive Lewis created a world to live in.

Clive Staples Lewis(Clive Staples Lewis) - English writer and philologist.

1917 - enters the University College of Oxford University, but soon drops out, deciding to be a junior officer in the army.

1918 - after being wounded, he was demobilized.

1919 - Under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton (Clive Hamilton) publishes a collection of poems "The Oppressed Spirit" (Spirits in Bondage).

Returns to studies at Oxford.

1923 - receives a bachelor's degree, later - a master's degree.

1925-1954 - teaches English language and literature at Magdalen College, Oxford.

1926 - Under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton (Clive Hamilton) publishes a collection of poems "Daymer" (Dymer).

1931 - Lewis becomes a Christian. One September evening, Lewis has a long conversation about Christianity with J. R. R. Tolkien (a zealous Catholic) and Hugo Deason. (The conversation is recounted by Arthur Greaves under the title "They Stand Together"). This evening's discussion was important to the next day's event, which Lewis describes in "Overtaken by Joy": came to the zoo, I believed.”

1933-1949 - A circle of friends gathers around Lewis, called the Inklings. The circle includes J. R. R. Tolkien, Warren Lewis, Hugo Dyson, Charles Williams, Dr. Robert Haward, Owen Barfield, Weville Coghill, and others.

1936 - philological work "The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition" (The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition).

1938 - the novel Out of the Silent Planet is the first part of a kind of "interplanetary" trilogy dedicated to the cosmic struggle between good and evil.

1942 - literary work "Preface to" Paradise lost»» (A Preface to Paradise Lost).

1943 - the novel "Perelandra" (Perelandra), the second part of the "interplanetary" trilogy.

1945 - "Divorce" (Great Divorce) - modern analogue "Divine Comedy" Dante.

The novel "The Hideous Power" (That Hideous Strength) is the third part of the "interplanetary" trilogy.

1950-1955 - The Chronicles of Narnia is published. Seven volumes, among other things, contain a story about Christianity in a fairy-tale form accessible to children. Most bright works of this cycle - "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe), "The Magician's Nephew" (The Magician "s Nephew) and" last fight» (The Last Battle).

1952 - Lewis first meets Joy Davidman, fifteen years his junior (1915-1960).

1954 - Begins teaching English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, Cambridge.

1955 - English Literature in the Sixteenth Century is published; it becomes a classic and is included in the multi-volume Oxford History of English Literature.

1956 - the novel "Until We Have Faces" (Till We Have Faces) - an arrangement of the story of Cupid and Psyche.

At the hospital, Lewis registers his marriage to Joy Davidman, who is dying of cancer. Joy's death is thought to be inevitable.

1957 - Joy miraculously and unexpectedly recovers.

1960 - Lewis and Joy travel with friends to Greece, visiting Athens, Mycenae, Rhodes, Heracleion and Knossos. Joy died on July 13, shortly after returning from Greece.

November 22, 1963 - Lewis died the same day President Kennedy was assassinated and Aldous Huxley died. Until his death, he remained in his position at Cambridge and was elected an honorary fellow of Magdalen College. Lewis' grave is in the courtyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Oxford.

The religious writings of Lewis are widely known (a number of his works are devoted to special theological and philosophical problems) and radio appearances.

Description: Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898 in Ireland. The first ten years of his life were quite happy. He loved his brother very much, loved his mother very much and received a lot from her - she taught him languages ​​(even Latin) and, more importantly, managed to lay the foundations of his moral rules. When he was not yet ten, she died. His father, a gloomy and unkind man, sent him to a closed school away from home. School, at any rate, the first of his schools, Lewis hated. At the age of sixteen he began to study with Professor Kirkpatrick. In 1917, Lewis entered Oxford, but soon went to the front, to France (after all, there was a war), was wounded and, lying in the hospital, discovered and fell in love with Chesterton, but did not in the least adopt his views then. Returning to the university, he did not leave it until 1954, teaching philological disciplines. Lewis lost his faith as a child, perhaps when he prayed and did not plead with God to heal his sick mother. Faith was vague, weak, not gained by suffering; he could probably say, like Solovyov the father, that he was a believer, he was not a Christian. In any case, she easily disappeared and did not affect him. moral rules. Later, in the treatise "Suffering", he wrote: "When I entered the university, I was as close to complete shamelessness as it is possible for a boy. My highest achievement was a vague dislike of cruelty and monetary dishonesty; about chastity, truthfulness and sacrifice, I knew no more than a monkey about a symphony." Unbelievers helped him then: "I met young people, none of whom was a believer, sufficiently equal in mind to me - otherwise we simply could not communicate - but who knew the laws of ethics and followed them." When Lewis was converted, he did not in the least acquire the terrible but very common contempt for those who did not convert. Let's say right away that this is very important to him: he firmly believed in "natural law" and in human conscience. Another thing is that he did not consider them sufficient when "you have to fly" (so it is said in one of his essays - "A Man or a Rabbit"). Nor did he consider it possible to quench without faith the "longing for the beautiful," which was extremely important to him in his adolescence, in his youth, and in his youth. Like Augustine, one of his most revered theologians, he knew and repeated that "our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." Until the age of thirty, he was more of an atheist than even an agnostic. The history of his conversion is very interesting; the reader will be able to learn about it from the book Overtaken by Joy. It is interesting and very characteristic of his life that the word "joy" - "joy", played very big role in his worldview, turned out many years later to be the name of the woman he married. When he learned something, he shared it. He knew a lot, was known even at Oxford as one of the most educated people and shared his knowledge with students both in lectures and in lively conversations that formed his books. Before his conversion, he spoke about mythology (ancient, Scandinavian, Celtic), literature (mainly medieval and the 16th century). For a long time he was not only a lecturer, but also a tutor - a teacher helping a student, someone like a guardian or consultant. The shock of the conversion prompted him to share his thoughts about everything that turned him upside down inner life. He began to write treatises about it; essays, lectures, and sermons adjoin them, most of collected in books after his death. He also wrote semi-tracts, semi-stories, which are also called parables? "Letters of Balamut", "Dissolution of marriage", "Circular way". In addition, fairy tales are widely known, the so-called "Chronicles of Narnia", a space trilogy ("Beyond the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", "Abominable Power"), which is attributed to science fiction. while it is a "good utopia", or rather, a kind of "fantasy" fusion with a moral treatise. Finally, he has a wonderful sad novel "Until We Have Found Faces", which he wrote for his seriously ill wife, several stories, poems, an unfinished story. Much of this has been translated, much has already been published by us.
On November 22, 1963, C.S. Lewis died of cancer. May love never die or kill.
God is love - that's the theme of the book