I'm going to start by making clear that I'm not claiming any special authority to speak about literature or C.S. Lewis.

So my training is in theology, such as my training is, and I'll be speaking about Lewis and literature tonight as an interested amateur.

But that interest for me runs deep. It's only in recent years that I've come to realize just how much I owe to the

Chronicles of Narnia, which I read and reread as a child. I might just get a show of hands.

Hands up if you've read any one of the Chronicles of Narnia. Great. Hands up if you've read them

all. Oh wow. Okay, there's some proper Narnians here.

It's great.

These stories, they shaped my imagination and my worldview in a lasting way.

And my talk tonight is partly an attempt to repay the debt I owe to Lewis

and partly an attempt to understand the power of these simple stories.

I was just reflecting recently, I used to guzzle down the stories

of Roaldal as well, but I don't think they really left any impact on me, any lasting impact,

apart from a liking for horrible creatures and disgusting things in general. Hopefully you have a

handout, just with some quotations

I'll be referring to that but we won't be reading through every single section of the handout

so I'm going to start by saying something about stories in general with the help of Aristotle

this is an event is sponsored by the Thomistic Institute and Thomas Aquinas would certainly approve

of my starting with Aristotle

and then I'll say a little bit about the fit in general between Christianity and storytelling

and then a little bit about the crisis in storytelling experienced by post-Christian high culture

post-Christian the artistic world that regard itself as post-Christian and it's with that background

then that we'll head into Narnia.

...