Charlie W. Starr – författare

While visiting with Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy Pevensie notices a bookshelf filled with such titles as Nymphs and Their Ways and Is Man a Myth? Beginning with these imaginary texts, Charlie W. Starr offers a comprehensive study of C. S. Lewis’s theory of myth, including his views on Greek and Norse mythology, the origins of myth, and the implications of myth on thought, art, gender, theology, and literary and linguistic theory. For Lewis, myth represents an ancient mode of thought focused in the imagination—a mode that became the key that ultimately brought Lewis to his belief in Jesus Christ as the myth become fact.Beginning with a foreword by Lewis scholar Devin Brown, The Faun’s Bookshelf goes on to discuss the many books Lewis imagined throughout his writings—books whose titles he made up but never wrote. It also presents the sylvan myths central to the first two book titles in Mr. Tumnus’s library, including explorations of the relationshipbetween myth and reality, the spiritual significance of natural conservation, and the spiritual and incarnational qualities of gender.Starr then turns to the definition of myth, the literaryqualities of myth, the mythic nature inherent in divine glory, humanity’s destiny to embrace (or reject) that glory, and a deeper exploration of the epistemological ramifications of myth in relation to meaning, imagination, reason, and truth.

Using a philosophical lens to more deeply examine, appreciate, and understand C. S. Lewis's writingsDrawing on C. S. Lewis's essays, sermons, and fiction, The Lion's Country offers a comprehensive exploration of Lewis's understanding of reality—important, Charlie W. Starr argues, to more fully understand Lewis's writing but also to challenge and inform our own thought about what constitutes the Real.For Lewis, reality is not simply a matter of what we can ascertain with our senses; the Real includes but also transcends the physical. Indeed, for Lewis, who is perhaps the most influential Christian writer of the 20th century, God is the most Real thing there is. Yet during the modernist era when Lewis lived, taught, and wrote, the prevailing view was that the only legitimate knowledge was that which could be derived from empirically provable facts. Lewis's rejection of such a narrow belief prompted him to ask, "What are facts without interpretation?" and led to his lifelong pursuit of experiencing and understanding the Real. Much of his fiction, including The Chronicles of Narnia, is fundamentally about how we can encounter reality and be certain of what we know.Starr's unique look at Lewis's philosophical and theological underpinnings extends even to a discussion of heaven and what it would be like to see the face of God. Including a never-before-released passage from Lewis's unpublished Prayer Manuscript, The Lion's Country is an essential contribution to Lewis studies.