Don W. King – författare

A collection of essays by a career C . S . Lewis scholar on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis''s death.C. S. Lewis scholar Don W. King has kept a critical eye on the work by and about Lewis for four decades. Now, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis''s death, King has put together a collection of his essays and critical reviews organized around four areas. The first deals mainly with what will perhaps be Lewis''s longest lasting legacy--his Chronicles of Narnia. The second deals with Lewis''s poetry, a neglected area of his work. The third focuses on Lewis and the two women poets with whom he had lasting relationships: ruth Pitter and Joy Davidman. (Lewis and Davidman eventually fell in love and later married, twice.) The fourth offers a critical perspective on the way in which critical interest in Lewis has developed over the last thirty years.Essays and reviews include:Narnia and the Seven Deadly SinsThe Wardrobe as Christian MetaphorThe Childlike in George MacDonald and C. S. LewisMaking the Poor Best of Dull Things: C. S. Lewis as PoetC. S. Lewis''s The Quest of Bleheris as Poetic ProseThe Poetry of Prose: C. S. Lewis, Ruth Pitter, and PerelandraFire and Ice: C. S. Lewis and the Love Poetry of Joy Davidman and Ruth PitterReview of Shadowlands (film), directed by Richard AttenboroughReview of C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide by Walter HooperReview of C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters (3 vols.), by Walter HooperReview of The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan JacobsA Review Essay on Recent Books on C. S. Lewis

The intracarotid amobarbital (or Amytal) procedure is commonly referred to as the Wada test in tribute to Juhn Wada, the physician who devised the technique and performed the fIrst basic animal research and clinical studies with this method. Wada testing has become an integral part of the pre­ operative evaluation for epilepsy surgery. Interestingly, however, Wada initially developed this method as a technique to assess language dominance in psychiatric patients in order that electroconvulsant therapy could be applied unilaterally to the non-dominant hemisphere. Epilepsy surgery has matured as a viable treatment for intractable seizures and is no longer confmed to a few major universities and medical institutes. Yet, as is increasingly clear by examining the surveys of approaches used by epilepsy surgery centers (e.g., Rausch, 1987; Snyder, Novelly, & Harris, 1990), there is not only great heterogeneity in the methods used during Wada testing to assess language and memory functions, but there also seems to be a lack of consensus regarding the theoretical assumptions, and perhaps, even the goals of this procedure.

The intracarotid amobarbital (or Amytal) procedure is commonly referred to as the Wada test in tribute to Juhn Wada, the physician who devised the technique and performed the fIrst basic animal research and clinical studies with this method. Wada testing has become an integral part of the pre­ operative evaluation for epilepsy surgery. Interestingly, however, Wada initially developed this method as a technique to assess language dominance in psychiatric patients in order that electroconvulsant therapy could be applied unilaterally to the non-dominant hemisphere. Epilepsy surgery has matured as a viable treatment for intractable seizures and is no longer confmed to a few major universities and medical institutes. Yet, as is increasingly clear by examining the surveys of approaches used by epilepsy surgery centers (e.g., Rausch, 1987; Snyder, Novelly, & Harris, 1990), there is not only great heterogeneity in the methods used during Wada testing to assess language and memory functions, but there also seems to be a lack of consensus regarding the theoretical assumptions, and perhaps, even the goals of this procedure.

Ruth Pitter (1897–1992) may not be widely known, but her credentials as a poet are extensive; in England from the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s she maintained a loyal readership. In total she produced 17 volumes of new and collected verse. Her A Trophy of Arms (1936) won the Hawthornden Prize for Poetry in 1937, and in 1954 she was awarded the William E. Heinemann Award for The Ermine (1953). Most notably, perhaps, she became the first woman to receive the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1955; this unprecedented event merited a personal audience with the queen.In addition, from 1946 to 1972 she was often a guest on BBC radio programs, and from 1956 to 1960 she appeared regularly on the BBC’s The Brains Trust, one of the first television talk shows; her thoughtful comments on the wide range of issues discussed by the panelists were a favorite among viewers. In 1974 the Royal Society of Literature elected her to its highest honor, a Companion of Literature, and in 1979 she received her last national award when she was appointed a Commander of the British Empire.Pitter’s many admirers included Owen Barfield, Hilaire Belloc, Lord David Cecil, Philip Larkin, C. S. Lewis, Kathleen Raine, May Sarton, and Siegfried Sassoon. At her death in 1992, one writer claimed, “She came to enjoy perhaps the highest reputation of any living English woman poet of her century.”Pitter’s best poems focus on nature and the human condition, taking us to hidden or secret places, just beyond the material, to the meaning of life. Her poems are often the result of a heightened sense of felt experience—intuitive and evocative. If human life is lived behind a veil faintly obscuring reality, Pitter’s poems often lift the edge of the veil.Sudden Heaven arranges Pitter’s poems in chronological order, allowing readers to follow her maturation as a poet, and it features a number of poems that have never before appeared in print.

Although C. S. Lewis is best known for his prose and for his clear, lucid literary criticism, Christian apologetics, and imaginative Ransom and Narnia stories, he considered himself a poet for the first two and a half decades of his life. Owen Barfield recalls that anyone who met Lewis as a young man in the early 1920s at Oxford University quickly learned he was one ""whose ruling passion was to become a great poet. At that time if you thought of Lewis you automatically thought of poetry."" The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis offers readers, for the first time, a one-volume collection of Lewis's poetry, including many poems that have never appeared in print. With the poems arranged in chronological order, this volume allows readers the opportunity to compare the poetry Lewis was writing while he was also writing his fiction and nonfiction prose.Beginning with his earliest lyric poems from 1907, The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis follows Lewis's efforts to write long, narrative poems, which were particularly influenced by Norse mythology. His outburst of lyric poetry as a young man in the trenches during World War I culminates in his first published work, Spirits in Bondage (1919), followed by his most ambitious narrative poem, Dymer (1926). Both volumes afford unique insights into Lewis the atheist.After his conversion to Christianity in 1930, Lewis wrote a collection of sixteen religious lyrics that he included in The Pilgrim's Regress (1933); as a group, these are considered among his best poems. Until his death in 1963, Lewis continued writing and publishing poetry, often appearing in journals and magazines under his pseudonym N. W., shorthand for the Anglo-Saxon nat whilk, ""[I know] not whom."" As a whole, these latter poems are either occasional verses, burlesques, and erudite satires or they are contemplative poems musing upon the human condition and its pain, joy, suffering, pride, love, doubt, and faith.The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis demonstrates a dedicated, determined, and passionate poet at work and illustrates the degree and depth to which poetry shaped Lewis's literary, intellectual, ?áemotional, and spiritual life.

The first full biography of Warren Lewis, brother and secretary of C. S. LewisDetailing the life of Warren Hamilton Lewis, author Don W. King gives us new insights into the life and mind of Warren's famous brother, C. S. Lewis, and also demonstrates how Warren's experiences provide an illuminating window into the events, personalities, and culture of 20th-century England. Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother will appeal to those interested in C. S. Lewis and British social and cultural history.As a career soldier, Warren served in France during the nightmare of World War I and was later posted to Sierra Leone and Shanghai. On his retirement from the army, he became an active member of the household at the Kilns, the residence outside Oxford that he co-owned with his brother and Mrs. Janie Moore, and he played an important role in the relationship between his brother and Joy Davidman, the woman who became C. S. Lewis's wife. A talented writer and accomplished amateur historian, Warren also researched and wrote seven books on 17th-century French history.Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother examines Warren Lewis's role as an original member of the Oxford Inklings—that now famous group of novelists, thinkers, clergy, poets, essayists, medical men, scholars, and friends who met regularly to drink beer; discuss books, ideas, history, and writers; and share pieces of their own writing for feedback from the group. Drawing from Warren Lewis's unpublished diaries, his letters, the memoir he wrote about his family, and other primary materials, this biography is an engaging story of a fascinating life, period of history, and of the warm and loving relationship between Warren and his brother, which lasted throughout their lives.

Although Ruth Pitter (1897–1992) is not well known, her credentials as a poet are extensive, and in England from the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s she maintained a modest yet loyal readership. In total she produced eighteen volumes of new and collected verse. Her A Trophy of Arms (1936) won the Hawthornden Prize for Poetry in 1937, and in 1954 she was awarded the William E. Heinemann Award for The Ermine (1953). Most notably, perhaps, she became the first woman to receive the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1955. Furthermore, from 1946 to 1972 she was often a guest on BBC radio and television programs, In 1974 The Royal Society of Literature elected her to its highest honor, a Companion of Literature, and in 1979 she received her last national award when she was appointed a Commander of the British Empire.Pitter was a voluminous letter writer. Her friends and correspondents read like a “Who’s Who” of twentieth-century British literary luminaries, including AE (George Russell), A. R. Orage, Hiliare Belloc, Walter de la Mare, Julian Huxley, John Masefield, Phillip and Ottoline Morrell, George Orwell, Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, James Stephens, Dorothy L. Sayers, Siegfried Sassoon, Virginia Sackville-West, Dorothy Wellesley, Lord David Cecil,John Betjeman, Evelyn Waugh, John Wain, Kathleen Raine, and May Sarton. Stylistically Pitter’s letters are marked by crisp prose, precise imagery, and elegant simplicity reflecting a well-read and vigorous mind—lithe, curious, penetrating, analytical, and perceptive. Of her more than one thousand letters covering the years 1908–1988, published here is a generous selection. These selected letters go a long way toward illustrating Pitter’s desire to reach a public interested in her as both a poet and personal commentator. These letters offer an understanding of “the silent music, the dance in stillness, the hints and echoes and messages of which everything is full” reflected in her life and poetry. In total they provide an essential introduction to the work of this neglected twentieth-century poet.