Some Statistics

There is a series of books from Cambridge University Press called "Canto", which I think is very nice. There are 46 titles in this series, by 36 authors. 28 of these authors have one book in the series; 7 have two books in the series, and 1 has 4 books in the series. I think it's interesting that the 1 author with 4 books in the series (a full 8.7%) is none other than C. S. Lewis! These four books are all by Lewis the literature professor, rather than Lewis the fiction writer or Lewis the apologist. They are:

• Studies in Words
• An Experiment in Criticism
• The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
• Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature

I have read the first two, and am now beginning the third. They are all very interesting reads (so is Lewis' Preface to Paradise Lost, which is not part of the Canto series) and I am enjoying them immensely - especially Studies in Words. :-) He must have been an excellent professor, because these books make me want to read and study all of the literature that he talks about and loves!

Another reason it's interesting to read these books by Lewis is that it adds some extra perspective to his other writings, particularly in apologetics. He spends a lot of time in his apologetic works dealing with the meanings of words in their context, and in this way his apologetic works are in the same category as Studies in Words. He also spends a good deal of time worrying about what NT or patristic writers meant, and how people at the time would have understood them - and this is in the same category as An Experiment in Criticism, but even more so in A Preface to Paradise Lost and The Discarded Image. I find that understanding Lewis' background and perspective helps me understand his arguments as a whole and appreciate his style of apologetics. So that's kind of neat. :-)

But the point of this entry started out to be that Lewis surprises me - I don't really know anything about literary criticism but apparently Lewis was a very good critic and is still highly regarded in that capacity - enough so that Cambridge University Press has dedicated 4 of his books to their Canto series, when everyone else has only 1 or perhaps 2!