Ithuriel's Spear: Purity, Danger, and Allegory at the Gates of Eden

The Reception of C. S. Lewis’sA Preface toParadise Lost in Milton Scholarship, 1990‐2015

“…The fact that a rising group of Milton scholars could take Lewis as perhaps the prime antagonist of their collective project implies that he is alive enough in their minds and in those of the Milton studies community more generally to make such an assault worthwhile. The fact that Milton scholars since 1990 continue to cite Lewis at the very beginning of their essays as a well‐known representative of a certain position, even if they drop him afterwards (e.g., Gregory Bredbeck [1991], Catherine Gimelli Martin [1993], John Tanner [1994], Stanley Fish [2005], and John Savoie [2011]), implies that Lewis is still, almost a century after PPL’s publication, one of the most recognizable Miltonists to hold that position. The fact that so many Milton scholars are also aware of Lewis’s other writings (John Reichert [1992], Mere Christianity ; John Tanner [1992], Perelandra and The Four Loves ; Colin Burrow [1993], English Literature in the Sixteenth Century ; William Calin [2007], The Allegory of Love ; Roy Flannagan [2007], The Great Divorce ; John Leonard [2013], The Discarded Image ) ensures that Lewis’s ideas and style in PPL will continue to be more famous and memorable than writers known solely for their articles on Milton.…”