Planet Narnia, Michael Ward
Planet Narnia, Michael Ward
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Planet Narnia
The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis

Author: Michael Ward

Narrator: Nigel Patterson

Unabridged: 13 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/18/2019


Synopsis

For over half a century, scholars have labored to show that C. S. Lewis's famed but apparently disorganized Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser's Faerie Queene. None of these explanations has won general acceptance and the structure of Narnia's symbolism has remained a mystery.

Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia he demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis's writings, Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets—Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn—planets which Lewis described as "spiritual symbols of permanent value." Using these seven symbols, Lewis secretly constructed the Chronicles so that in each book the plot-line, the ornamental details, and, most important, the portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate the governing planetary personality.

Planet Narnia is a groundbreaking study that will provoke a major revaluation not only of the Chronicles, but of Lewis's whole literary and theological outlook.

About Michael Ward

Michael Ward is Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall in the University of Oxford and Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, Texas. On the fiftieth anniversary of C. S. Lewis's death, Ward unveiled a permanent national memorial to him in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. Ward read English at Oxford, Theology at Cambridge, and has a PhD in Divinity from the University of St. Andrews. He lectures widely on theology and imagination, and presented the BBC television documentary The Narnia Code.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sarah on August 14, 2010

There is a verse in Proverbs that says it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to search it out. Well, since all creators of books are made in the image of a creative God, I think its safe to say that sometimes it is the glory of an author to weave a mystery in the symbols......more

Goodreads review by Douglas on February 13, 2020

This one is right at the top.......more

Goodreads review by Doug on December 07, 2019

This is a fascinating, essential read for any fans of Narnia. Michael Ward makes for a convincing argument that the Narnia series was not just a random collection of fantasy stories and fairy tales that suddenly popped into the head of a childless academic, but rather they were a calculated series d......more

Goodreads review by Anne on March 01, 2023

I had avoided this book because it sounded too Dan-Brown-ish, but Tammy Glaser's chapter-by-chapter enthusiastic notes here convinced me to try it. I found the connections between Lewis's academic work and poetry, the Space Trilogy, and the Narnia books almost as interesting as the central argument......more

Goodreads review by Ben on August 02, 2015

Planet Narnia is quite an interesting failure, but a failure nonetheless. Michael Ward makes the fatal error of becoming far too enamored with his conclusions and, as a result, misses the far more interesting things his research points to. The premise of the book is that C.S. Lewis wrote the Chronic......more