How I’m Doing with C.S. Lewis’ Canon of Western Civilization

Last updated on: August 8, 2016 at 9:25 am by David Russell Mosley

How I’m Doing with C.S. Lewis’ Canon of Western Civilization 2016-08-08T09:25:35-04:00 David Russell Mosley

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

David Russell Mosley

Raphael (1483–1520) Link back to Creator infobox template wikidata:Q5597
Title
Deutsch: Stanza della Segnatura im Vatikan für Papst Julius II., Wandfresko, Szene: Der Parnaß, Detail: Homer-Gruppe
Date 1510-1511
Medium fresco
Current location
Apostolic Palace, Rome Link back to Institution infobox template wikidata:Q145093
Stanza della Segnatura (Public Domain) Source Wikimedia Commons

Ordinary Time
St. Dominic’s Day
The Edge of Elfland
Hudson, New Hampshire

Dear Readers,

Over at A Pilgrim in Narnia, Brenton Dickieson has gone through Lewis’s An Experiment in Criticism looking for every book referenced. You should certainly read his excellent post, but below is the list of every book or poem referenced in the book and a Yes listed next to those I have read. Take a look for yourself and see how many you have read.

Homer
- Iliad (c. 8th BCE) Yes
- Odyssey (c. 8th BCE) Yes
Unknown, Book of Jonah (8th-4th BCE) Yes
Pindar
- Olympian Odes (early 5th BCE)
- Pythian Odes (early 5th BCE)
- Fragments (early 5th BCE)
Aeschylus, The Eumenides (5th BCE)
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BCE) Yes
Aristotle, Poetics (335 BCE)
Virgil
- The Georgics (29 BCE)
- The Aeneid (29-19 BCE) Yes
Lucian, Vera Historia (2nd)
Apuleius, Metamorphoses/The Golden Ass (late 2nd)
Unknown, Beowulf (8th-11th) Yes
Unknown, The Song of Roland (11th-12th)
Laȝamon, Brut (c. 1190-1215)
Unknown, Huon of Bordeaux (c. 1216-1268)
Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda (early 13th) Yes
Dante, Divine Comedy (1308-20) Yes
Geoffrey Chaucer
- The Canterbury Tales (late 14th) Yes
- Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Unknown, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th) Yes
Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur (1485) Yes
Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (c. 1516)
Arthur Brooke, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562)
Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia (late 16th)
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1590s) Yes
William Shakespeare
- Romeo & Juliet (1591-5) Yes
- Twelfth Night (1601-2) Yes
- The Winter’s Tale (1611) Yes
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1590-7) Yes
- Henry V (c. 1599) Yes
John Donne, “The Apparition” (early 17th)
Michael Drayton, “The Shepherds Sirena” (1627)
Thomas Browne, Urn Burial (1658)
Jean Racine
- Andromaque (1667)
- Phèdre (c. 1677)
John Milton
- Paradise Lost (1667-74) Yes
- Samson Agonistes (1671)
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712-4)
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726, 1735) Yes
Voltaire
- “Micromégas” (1752)
- Candide (1759)
Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)
William Beckford, Vathek, an Arabian Tale (1782)
James Boswell*, Life of Johnson* (1791)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) Yes
William Wordsworth
- “Michael” (1800) Yes
- The Excursion (1814) Yes
Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice (1813) Yes
Walter Scott, Guy Mannering (1815)
Benjamin Constant, Adolphe (1816)
John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819) Yes
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Witch of Atlas (1824)
Elias Lönnrot, The Kalevala (1835-49) Yes
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) Yes
Charles Dickens
- The Pickwick Papers (1836)
- Great Expectations (1861) Yes
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848)
Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859-89)
Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers (1857)
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (1869)
George Eliot, Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life (1871-2)
Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872)
Lewis Carroll, “The Hunting of the Snark” (1874-6)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
Robert Louis Stevenson
- Treasure Island (1883) Yes
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) Yes
Edwin Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884)
John Ruskin, Praeterita (1885)
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898) Yes
H.G. Wells
- First Men in the Moon (1901)
- “The Door in the Wall” (1911)
Beatrix Potter, Tales (1902-1930) Yes
Joseph Conrad, Nostromo (1904)
E.R. Burroughs, Tarzan (1912-1965)
Kenneth Grahame*, The Wind in the Willows* (1908) Yes
Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives’ Tale (1908)
James Stephens, The Crock of Gold (1912)
D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (1913)
Gertrude Stein, “Sacred Emily” (1913)
James Branch Cabell, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice (1919)
Kafka, The Castle (1926)
Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan (1946)
J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings (1954-5) Yes

Of the 86 books listed I have, thus far, read 33 or roughly 39% of Lewis’s canon. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself, especially for someone who has not majored in English or Philosophy. Still, I’ve got a ways to go. How many have you read?

Sincerely,
David

C. S. Lewis

Faeriean Metaphysics

Literature and Poetry

A Pilgrim in Narnia

Brenton Dickieson

Canon of Western Civilization

Previous Post

August 5, 2016

John Milbank on Augustine and Nicholas of Cusa

Next Post

August 9, 2016 The Scene from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that always Makes Me Cry

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Secular Age Advent Apologetics Atheism Beauty Being a Catholic Evangelical Being Catholic Being Deified: Poetry and Fantasy on the Path to God Blogging Book Reviews C. S. Lewis Catholic Imagination Catholic Social Teaching Catholicism Christmas Church Calendar Church Fathers Church Life Community Conferences Cosmology Creation Curdled Words Deification Distributism Easter Economics Education Epiphany Essay Extracts Eucharist Faerie Faeriean Metaphysics Fatherhood Films Folk Liturgy Food and Drink G. K. Chesterton Harry Potter J. R. R. Tolkien Jove King Arthur Language Lent Life Literature and Poetry Liturgy Medieval Theology Music My Publications Mythology On the Edges of Elfland Ordinary Time Ordination Parenthood Parish Patristic Theology Pentecost Politics Prayer Racism Radical Orthodoxy Restoration Movement Sacramental Ontology Saints Science Sex and Sexuality Sophiology Stories The Inklings The Radical Catholic Reimagination of Everything Theologians in the Church Theopoetics Thesis Research Uncategorized University of Nottingham What I'm Reading Writing

Select a Month December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz