A Preface To Paradise Lost (Hardcover-2022)

Since its publication in 1942, C.S. Lewis’s A Preface to Paradise Lost has remained and continues to remain an indispensable introductory book for the study of Paradise Lost. Very briefly, but with remarkable clarity and precision, Lewis touches on all the important aspects of Paradise Lost: form and technique, structure and texture, theological disputes and characterization etc. Lewis believes that a poem is a public activity through which the poet intends to move his readers. It is, therefore, extremely important to know the intention of the poet, to know what the poem is, what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used. Accordingly, Lewis tries to identify the originally intended meaning of the poem in order to help the reader to have an access to Milton’s intentions. In the process, the Elizabethan world order, the contemporary theological issues, the differences between De Doctrina and Paradise Lost, critical opinions on Milton’s style, diction and characterizations—particularly Satan, Eve, the angels and Satan’s followers—, are all brought to bear on his discussions in the Preface.

The book is a must for any student of Paradise Lost.

Clive Staples Lewis was born on 29 November 1898 in Belfast and had his early education at Malvern College and then at University College, Oxford, where he distinguished himself as an Oxford Scholar and received Chancellor’s Essay Prize in 1921. Lewis passed B.A. in 1922 with First Class Honours in Literae Humaniores and English. After having a short stint in the Somerset Light Infantry, he served as Lecturer, University College, Oxford in 1924, then as Fellow in Magdalen College, Oxford from 1925 to 1954, and Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English, Cambridge University from 1954 to 63. Lewis received many awards in his life including Gollancz Prize for Literature and Library Association Carnegie Medal. He became Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1948 and Fellow of the British Academy in 1955. Lewis died on 22 November 1963.

A critic, novelist, poet and essayist, Lewis was a prolific writer, but in every field he left the mark of his original insight and profound scholarship. His outstanding critical writings include The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936), An Experiment in Criticism (1961) and Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1966).