L'Heresy of the Dawn Treader

A book written by two, in the form of a courteous debate: should one read a poem to encounter the personality of the poet? Lewis says no, with a vigour that foreshadows his distrust of biography.

Lewis and his colleague E.M.W. Tillyard exchange six essays. Lewis argues that a poem is not a confession: when reading, one does not look at the poet, one looks with him at what he shows us. Tillyard defends the value of the author's personality. The debate, very civilised, ends without a winner.

• Original title — The Personal Heresy: A Controversy (with E.M.W. Tillyard)
• First published — 1939
• Genre — Critical debate
• First English edition — Oxford University Press, 1939
• Availability in bookstores — Not translated into French.
• Reading level — Challenging
• For whom — For students of literary theory.
• Year — 1939

Themes

• The work rather than the author.
• Reading as a shared gaze.
• The art of friendly controversy.

Family

Literary critic

Other names

• The Personal Heresy: A Controversy (with E.M.W. Tillyard)
• Critical debate
• Literary critic

A book written by two, in the form of a courteous debate: should one read a poem to encounter the personality of the poet? Lewis says no, with a vigour that foreshadows his distrust of biography.

Quick facts

Where to start

Level: Challenging. For students of literary theory.

In a few words

Lewis and his colleague E.M.W. Tillyard exchange six essays. Lewis argues that a poem is not a confession: when reading, one does not look at the poet, one looks with him at what he shows us. Tillyard defends the value of the author's personality. The debate, very civilised, ends without a winner.

In Lewis's workshop

The debate arose from an article by Lewis in 1934. Lewis was all his life a formidable but loyal polemicist.

What announces Narnia

Lewis often repeated that one should not look for his life in his books, which does not prevent biographers from doing so.

What a modern reader retains

The debate between Lewis and Tillyard is not closed: our current readings often seek the author, his life and his wounds, behind the work. Lewis reminds us that we read first to look at what the author shows us. A good antidote, also, to overly biographical readings of Narnia.

His legacy

A minor classic of literary theory, which anticipates certain debates of the 20th century on the "death of the author".

Key ideas

• The work rather than the author.
• Reading as a shared gaze.
• The art of friendly controversy.

See also

• The last of the dinosaurs: a medievalist at Oxford and Cambridge, and what Narnia owes to his library
• Experience of literary criticism

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Personal_Heresy