Today, an Oxford don gives us a powerful lesson in
good teaching. The University of Houston's College
of Engineering presents this series about the
machines that make our civilization run, and the
people whose ingenuity created them.
Two great medievalists
taught at Oxford in the '30s and '40s -- their work
defined our view of the Middle Ages. Their
friendship was strong but flawed by competitive
combat. Both wrote science fiction and fantasy on
the side and used it to express strongly-held
Christian beliefs. They were Ronald Tolkien and
C.S. Lewis. Norman Cantor tells us that Tolkien and
Lewis were
good for each other. They emboldened,
criticized, and reinforced each other. They
[legitimized] each other's careers in which, while
conscientiously teaching, they took time from their
scholarly work to transmute medieval learning into
[mythical and poetic] fiction for a mass
audience.
The shy Tolkien withdrew more and more
into writing his masterwork, The Lord of the
Rings. Future readers may well decide that he
made the greater literary contribution.
But the writings of the affable, outgoing Lewis --
his Chronicles of Narnia and
Screwtape Letters -- touched a
generation of postwar readers. We forget Lewis's
greatness in interpreting medieval history against
his legacy as a popular writer.
In a world demoralized by the horrors of WW-II,
Lewis summoned up the three cultural forces that'd
energized Medieval Europe. He offered us those
forces as transforming agents in our own lives.
They were the Romantic idea of courtly love, the
force of ordered and systematic learning, and
combat -- but combat restrained by the other two
forces.
The Medieval mind liked to be specific. In Cantor's
words, It liked the close-up shot, the humanizing
details of life. The Medieval imagination liked to
move toward outcomes. It led, not to science, but
to the invention of real things -- cathedrals,
eyeglasses, clocks, and the printing press. It also
led to the creation of systems -- law, commerce,
theology.
C.S. Lewis used his knowledge of the Medieval world
to tell us we can fullfil ourselves when we tap
into those three forces: systematic learning,
mental fight, and finally the transforming power of
courtly love -- love leavened by restraint.
Both Tolkien and Lewis insulated themselves from
the specific world around them. Of the two, it was
Lewis who finally learned to hear his own words. At
57 he'd touched the world more powerfully than he'd
let the world touch him. Then he let his
theoretical belief in courtly love become specific.
He married his Lady Dulcinea, the feisty and
combative Joy Davidman. When she died of cancer, he
put that love to the care of her two sons.
Any good teaching needs a dimension of good
theatre. C.S. Lewis was a superb teacher because,
in the end, he found ways to dramatize his immense
knowledge. He let his learning come down off the
mountain -- and he let it touch life at every
point.
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds
work.
(Theme music)
