C.S. Lewis was not only the author of beloved classics, including The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and his science-fiction Space Trilogy; he was also a scholar of Medieval and Renaissance Literature.

Our text for this class is Lewis’s final masterpiece, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. In this book, Lewis shares his detailed knowledge of the medieval and renaissance worldview, editing and expanding the lectures he gave at Oxford and Cambridge universities. As such, it is an excellent overview of both a) The medieval and renaissance mind, and b) How Lewis himself thought about the period.

We will read through The Discarded Image week by week, taking our time to discuss and understand the ideas Lewis is describing and the places those ideas also appear in his own work.