50: The Secret Key to Narnia—Michael Ward
The Patrick Coffin Show | Interviews with influencers | Commentary about culture | Tools for transformation
Patrick Coffin
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2017
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
Get your C.S. Lewis on! Lovers of the works of Clive Staples Lewis (+1963), especially The Chronicles of Narnia septet will not want to miss this interview with Lewis scholar and Catholic convert, Dr. Michael Ward of Oxford and Houston Baptist University.
The Narnia series has been one of the most critically analyzed book series in history since it was penned over 60 years ago. My guest in this episode has discovered a interpretative framework to the seven books that eluded the Lewisphere for decades and now has them abuzz.
It’s all about the seven planets of the medieval cosmos. Even if you’ve re-read the books many times, Dr. Ward’s insights will bring you a whole new depth and wonder to C.S. Lewis’s best known work.
And because he is English (I say, the inventors of the language you’re now reading) his prose will expand your vocabulary as well!
I should note one thing. At the end of the interview, I jokingly asked him about his work for Q under Her Majesty the Queen. This is because he had a walk-on part in the James Bond film The World Is Never Enough. (He’s the bespectacled, white lab-coated assistant to Q in this funny scene, handing 007 his X-ray glasses at 1:20: )
In this episode you will learn:
- What subtle, overarching symbolic framework governs the seven-fold story of the Narnia books (hint: think planets, not sacraments)
- That John Williams’s Star Wars theme, shall we say, borrowed promiscuously from Gustav Holst’s “Mars: Bringer of War”
- The meaning of the words etiolated, valitudinarian, and aestival—handy for use at cocktail parties...
- Some important background on what inspired Lewis
- The importance of atmosphere or “tone” in great works of literature and why it resembles the mystery in music.
Resources recommended in this episode:
Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Michael Ward
Gustav Holst, The Planets (music CD)
S. Lewis: A Complete Guide to His Life & Works by Walter Hooper
The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis ed. By Michael Ward and Robert MacSwain
The World Is Not Enough, James Bond film DVD starring Pierce Brosnan, co-starring….Michael Ward.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to episode number 50 of the Patrick Coffin Show. |
| 0:05.0 | Welcome to the Patrick Coffin Show. |
| 0:06.4 | All you see us Lewis nerds out there get your see us Lewis on. |
| 0:09.6 | We're going to have a lot of fun and we're going to learn a ton about Clif Stapels Lewis who died on the same day as some of you may know as President John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley. |
| 0:19.0 | Peter Kraif wrote a book about this called Between Heaven and Hell. |
| 0:22.0 | Today we're going to range along and |
| 0:26.5 | across the life of Seus Lewis, particularly the Chronicles of Narnia and what I |
| 0:31.8 | think is a magic code that has been cracked that unlocks an entire |
| 0:36.0 | new set of dimensions for the septet written by CS Lewis the Chronicles of Narnia |
| 0:40.6 | right here on the Patrick Coffin show. |
| 0:43.4 | Warning, a following podcast contains ideas and arguments that might challenge your worldview. |
| 0:48.6 | This guy, Patrick Coffin, I've seen him write pop fiction about a deer hunter, catch him if you can, |
| 0:56.8 | and don't even think he wears a watch. |
| 0:59.8 | Wow! True or false! You're tired of secularist bullies. Wow, true for a face. |
| 1:03.0 | You're tired of secularist bullies punching your values in the face. |
| 1:07.0 | You're looking for smart commentary that doesn't sound like NPR, |
| 1:11.0 | with our annoying voices. |
| 1:12.0 | You're wondering where we're going and why we're sound like NPR with our annoying voices. |
| 1:12.6 | You're wondering where we're going and why we're in this hand basket. |
| 1:16.8 | If you answer true to any of these, you've come to the right place. |
| 1:21.1 | You're about to meet the innovators and influencers who are restoring the Judeo-Christian |
| 1:26.0 | foundations of our culture right here on the Patrick Coffin Show. |
... |
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