As I think I've mentioned before here at MOJ, I loved and was really shaped in my thinking by C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image. And, some of my favorite parts of the new (excellent) biography of "The Inklings" -- The Fellowship, by Philip and Carol Zaleski -- were about that book's theses. Along the way, I encountered for the first time the inaugural lecture that Lewis gave when he was appointed to his chair at Cambridge University. It's called "De Descriptione Temporum" (sometimes also called "The Great Divide"), and it's well worth a read. Among other things, Lewis takes on the labels we use, and the premises those labels reflect, for describing historical periods, ages, and epochs ("The Dark Ages," for example). And, he suggests provocatively that there has been a modern "un-Christianing" that has separated us, sharply, from the literary and other traditions of "the west." Here's the conclusion:
And now for the claim: which sounds arrogant but, I hope, is not really so. I have said that the vast
change which separates you from Old Western has been gradual and is not even now complete. Wide
as the chasm is, those who are native to different sides of it can still meet; are meeting in this room.
This is quite normal at times of great change. The correspondence of Henry More 13 and Descartes is
an amusing example; one would think the two men were writing in different centuries. And here
comes the rub. I myself belong far more to that Old Western order than to yours. I am going to claim
that this, which in one way is a disqualification for my task, is yet in another a qualification. The
disqualification is obvious. You don't want to be lectured on Neanderthal Man by a Neanderthaler, still
less on dinosaurs by a dinosaur. And yet, is that the whole story? If a live dinosaur dragged its slow
length into the laboratory, would we not all look back as we fled? What a chance to know at last how
it really moved and looked and smelled and what noises it made! And if the Neanderthaler could talk,
then, though his lecturing technique might leave much to be desired, should we not almost certainly
learn from him some things about him which the best modem anthropologist could never have told us?
He would tell us without knowing he was telling. One thing I know: I would give a great deal to hear
any ancient Athenian, even a stupid one, talking about Greek tragedy. He would know in his bones so
much that we seek in vain. At any moment some chance phrase might, unknown to him, show us
where modem scholarship had been on the wrong track for years. Ladies and gentlemen, I stand
before you somewhat as that Athenian might stand. I read as a native texts that you must read as
foreigners. You see why I said that the claim was not really arrogant; who can be proud of speaking
fluently his mother tongue or knowing his way about his father's house? It is my settled conviction
that in order to read Old Western literature aright you must suspend most of the responses and unlearn
most of the habits you have acquired in reading modem literature. And because this is the judgement
of a native, I claim that, even if the defence of my conviction is weak, the fact of my conviction is a
historical datum to which you should give full weight. That way, where I fail as a critic, I may yet be
useful as a specimen. I would even dare to go further. Speaking not only for myself but for all other
Old Western men whom you may meet, I would say, use your specimens while you can. There are not
going to be many more dinosaurs.
