A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism In the Cataclysm of 1914–1918
Page 23
Lewis, C.S. (Clive Staples),
29–30. See also titles of
works
as advocate for Tolkien, 179–180
after WWI, 109–110
battle deaths of friends, 99
birth, 7–8
books influencing, xv, 82
in British Expeditionary
Force, xiii–xiv, 89
and choices, 153
and Christianity, xiv, 132–133, 134
critics of, 172
deployment for France, 91–94
enlisting decision, 85
expectation of return to
battle, 217n20
focus on academic
career, 81
friendships of, 175–176
Great War impact on
spiritual quest, xii–xiii
hope for end to war, 84
on human story, xviii
influence on Tolkien, 135
injury, 99
late-night debate with
Tolkien, 129
“Learning in War
Time,” xvi
letter to father, 1914, 79
Narnia stories planned
for children, 167–168
perspective on world, xvi
postwar competing
philosophies, 126
and qualities of Jesus, 194–195
rejection of martial
culture of Malvern
College, 30
relationship with
Moore, 95–96
stories from war front, 41–42
Tolkien’s role in
conversion, 179
understanding of evil, 147
view on war, 31–32, 47
views on myths, 130–131
war impact, 50, 100–
101, 144–145, 173
war writings, 122–126
Lewis, Warren, 81, 83
The Lion, the Witch, and
the Wardrobe, 22, 51
grace in, 189–190
Peter’s combat
experience, 168
Lipmann, Walter, xiv
Loconte, Michele, xi, 95, 199–200
London, German zeppelin
attack, 84
“The Lonely Isle,” 56
The Lord of the Rings, xii, 139, 154, 195
battle scenes, 60
enemies of nature in, 7
historical setting for, 121
hobbits description, 63
Lewis’s support for, 136–137
on moral
responsibility, 150–151
popularity, 144
prospects of final
victory, xv
realism of, 187
scenes of parting, 56–57
slavery in, 17
victories without loss, 167
Lyndsay, David, 145
MacDonald, George, 102
Phantastes, 82–83, 194
Macmillan, Harold, 49–50
MacMillan, Margaret, 104
The Magician’s Nephew, 148, 153–154
Maleldil, 149
Matthews, W.R., 116
McArthur, Kenneth, 19
McFadzean, William, 86–87
McGrath, Alister, 9, 93
McKim, Randolph, 39
medieval literature, motifs
and ideals in, 170
memorials, in Europe, 107
Mere Christianity, 133
Merry, 69, 151, 167, 177, 182
Meyer, F.B., Religion and
Race-Regeneration, 17
Meyer, G.J., 64
A World Undone, 186
Middle-earth, 6–7, 121–122, 164
battles for, 9
evil in, 148
mental outlook, 163–164
militarism, rejection by
Tolkien and Lewis, 173
military planning, prior to
WWI, 22
military recruitment, 57, 79–80
Military Service Act
(Britain), 58
military training, Lewis
on, 91
Miraz, 10
modernization, as threat to
human societies, 8–9
Monchy-Le-Preux, 92
Moore, Edward Francis
“Paddy,” 91, 95, 175
moral clarity, xviii
moral imagination, 138–139
moralistic idealism,
cynicism about, 172
Mordor, 7, 147, 164
Morgoth, 118
Morgul-knife, 156
Mott, John, 46
Murray, Gilbert,
The Ordeal of This
Generation, 115, 125
muscular Christianity, 30
Mussolini, Benito, 114
Myer, G.J., 142
myth
as fact, 129–133, 190
relationship to belief in
God, 130–133
Myth of Progress, 2, 13–14, 20, 24, 35
and Christianity, 14
result, 22
mythology
Christianity as, 88–89
Tolkien on England’s, 119
“Mythopoeia,” 18, 132
Narnia, 101, 147. See
also The Chronicles of
Narnia
battles for, 9
evil in, 148
mental outlook, 163–164
“national” churches, 34
National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments
(N.I.C.E.), 110, 149, 161
National Peace Council
(Britain), 4
nationalism, 34
natural beauty, Lewis
belief in source, 101–102
natural selection, 12–13
Naumann, Gottfried, 40
Nazism, 158
neo-orthodoxy, 124
New English Dictionary, 109
Newman, George, 112
Newton, Joseph Fort, The
Sword of the Spirit, 46
Nietzshe, Friedrich, 125
Nikabrik, 157–158
No Man’s Land, 67, 70
vs. Pelennor Fields, 166–167
“Ode for New Year’s Eve,”
122–123
oppression, 17
Osborne, Roger, 6, 25
Ott, Nancy Marie, 73
Out of the Silent Planet, 134, 148–149
Overy, Richard, 108
Ovillers campaign, 66
Owen, Wilfred, 119–120, 182
Oxford University, Tolkien
and Lewis at, xiv
pacifism, xviii, 117
rejection by Tolkien
and Lewis, 173
paganism, 133
patriotism, 49, 57
Payton, Ralph Stuart, 72
Peace Yearbook (1914), 4
Pelennor Fields, vs. No
Man’s Land, 166–167
Peloponnesian War, 141–142
Perelandra, 18, 149
perpetual peace, 4
Perrett, Frank Winter, 96
perseverance, 156
personal moral guilt, 162
Pevensie children, 147
Phantastes (MacDonald), 82–83, 102, 194
Pico della Mirandola,
Giovanni, Oration on the
Dignity of Man, 2
The Pilgrim’s Regress
(Lewis), 220n101
Pippin, xix, 151, 167, 177
Plowden-Wardlaw, James, 43
Plowman, Max, 93
Poggin, 190
pride, 160
Prince Caspian, 10, 157–158, 169
progress, 8, 25
loss of, 123
Protestant Reformation,
sectarian violence from, 27–28
Providence, 36
psychoanalysis, 116
Puddleglum, 174–175
Queen Mary (battle cruiser), 53–54
racial purity, 16
Railton, David, 48
Ransom, Elwin, 149
realism of fantasy, 165–170
Reepicheep, 50–51, 169, 171
refugees, in WWI, 165–166
Regina Trench, British
attack on, 69–71
religion
abuse for perverse
ends, 150
academic view, 131
and eugenics, 16–17
political/military
objectives and, 29, 33–35
vs. science, 14–15
Remarque, Erich, 193
All Quiet on the
Western Front, 107–108
resilience, of British
Expeditionary Force, 75
The Return of the King, 61, 166, 182
Riez du Vinage, 98–99, 168
Ring, 145–147
Council decision to
destroy, 156
destroying, 146–147
Frodo’s use of, 155–156
power of, 159, 160
as weapon, 21–22
Rivendell, 173
romantic myth, xv
Roonwit the Centaur, 187
Root, Elihu, 44
Rosebury, Brian, 167
Rosen, Christine, Preaching
Eugenics, 20
Rossi, Lee, 172
Russia, 94, 163
sacrifice, in The Lord of the
Rings, 119
Sale, Roger, xi, 144
Saruman the Wizard, 7, 157
Sassoon, Siegfried, 120, 193
Sauron, 7, 146
Sayer, George, 30, 83, 126
Schweitzer, Richard, The
Cross and the Trenches, 49
science
abuse of, 100
vs. religion, 14–15
science fiction, 134
The Screwtape Letters, 133, 161
Seige of Gondor, 73–74
Shasta, 154–155, 168, 175, 181
Sheffield, Gary, Forgotten
Victory, xii
shell shock, 115, 142
Shippey, Tom, 159
Shire, 6. See also Middle-earth
Siege of Gondor, 60
The Silmarillion, 118, 121
The Silver Chair, 171, 174, 194
slavery, 17, 146
Smaug, 166
Smith, G.B., 68, 71
Spring Harvest, 71–72
Smith, Geoffrey, 66
Smythe, Oswald, 80
social gospel, 45
soldiers, religious faith of, 210n69
Somerset Light Infantry, 96, 97
Somme, Battle of, xiii, 10, 61–63, 74
soul, 21, 145
The Space Trilogy, 143
Spacks, Patricia Meyer, xv, 182
Spanish influenza, (1918), 112, 114
Spellman, W.M., 24
Spencer, Herbert, 12–13, 20
Spengler, Oswald, 108
Spirits in Bondage (Lewis), 89, 122
spiritual crisis, in 1920s
and 1930s, xiv, 124
spirituality, 18
sportsmanship, 30
Spurr, John, 36
Stable, 190
Star Wars, 188
Steiner, Rudolf, 126
sterilization, 19
Stiles, Ezra, 38
Straik, Mr., 50–51
Studdert Kennedy, G.A., 43
Studdock, Mark and Jane, 149, 161
Sunday, Billy, 41
Superb (HSS), 55
Tarnas, Richard, The
Passion of the Western
Mind, 12
Tash, 190
Tea Club and Barrovian
Society (TCBS), 54–55
technology, 7, 23
That Hideous Strength
(Lewis), 100, 149, 158, 161
Théoden, 119
Thirty Years War, 27
Thomas, C.F., 39
Thucydides, 141
Tirian (king), 190
Tisroc, 163
Todman, Dan, The Great
War, 42
Tolkien, Christopher, 160
correspondence with
father, 182–183
Tolkien, J.R.R. (John
Ronald Reuel), 117–122.
See alsotitles of works
on “animal horror” of
war, 67–72
attachment to nature, 6
as battalion signals
officer, 63–64
in BEF, xiii, 29–30, 56, 65, 70
at college, 31
critics of, 172
discussion on
Christianity, 132–133
early writings, 1915–
1918, 60
eugenics as assault on
human dignity, 17
“The Fall of Gondolin,”
118
friendship with Lewis, 129, 179–180
Great War impact
on spiritual quest, xii–xiii
on myths, 131
perspective on world, xvi
praise of Lewis’s work, 134–135
religious framework
absent in writing, 164
resentment of
technology in rural
life, 6
respect for ordinary
soldier, xvi–xvii
view on war, 31–32, 47
war impact, 50, 108–
109, 144–145, 173
on waste of war, 121
writing of The Hobbit, 135
Tolkien, Michael, 160
tragedy, and hope, 143
Treaty of Versailles (1919), 104
Treaty of Westphalia
(1648), 28–29
Treebeard, 9
trees, spirits of, 10
trench fever
Lewis ill with, 93
Tolkien ill with, 71, 72
trenches, 59–61, 115, 142
bodies of dead soldiers, 67
casualties in, 85
faith in, 47–49
Lewis description, 92
Troeltsch, Ernst, 40
Trotsky, Leon, 113
Trufflehunter, 10
Tsarist Russia, collapse, 123
Tuchman, Barbara, xii
The Guns of August, 105
Turner, James, 14
Ulster Volunteer Force, 86–87
United States, clergy
against Germany, 43
University College, Oxford,
Lewis scholarship to, 89–90
Verdun, Battle of, 55–56
Victoria (Queen of
England), 208n7
violence, Tolkien coping
with, 118
Virgil, Aeneid, xv
Volksgeist, vs. Holy Spirit, 40
The Voyage of the Dawn
Treader (Lewis), 8
war
as cleansing, 45
cruelty and
senselessness of, 105
destructiveness of, 124
early 20th century view
of, 3–4
expectation of benefits
from, 47
Great War vs. ancient, 192
human costs of, 22–23
inspiration from, xiv
literature on, 105
machinery of, 21–25
as necessity, 168–169, 181
Tolkien on “animal
horror” of, 67–72
war novels, 120
War of the Ring, struggle
for freedom, 17
Wedgwood, C.V., 27
Wells, H.G., 4, 104
Wenzl, Josef, x
West Midlands, 6
Weston, Dr., 18, 149
White Witch, 161–162, 169, 189–190
Will to Power, 159
Wilson, Peter, The Thirty
Years War: Europe’s
Tragedy, 28
Wilson, Woodrow, 38–39, 95
Fourteen Points, 45–46, 103–104
Winnington-Ingram, Arthur, 29, 37, 57–58
Wiseman, Christopher, 54–55, 71
Woolf, Virginia, 125
World War I. See Great
War
&nb
sp; World War II, 182
World’s Fair (London, 1851), 5
Wright, Joseph, Primer of
the Gothic Language, 31
Ypres, first Battle of, xi
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Loconte is an Associate Professor of History at the King’s College in New York City, where he teaches courses on Western Civilization and American Foreign Policy. His commentary on international human rights and religious freedom has appeared in the nation’s leading media outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Weekly Standard, and National Public Radio. He is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and the London-based Standpoint magazine. He serves as a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum and as an affiliated scholar at the John Jay Institute. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he divides his time between New York City and Washington DC.
PHOTOS
Douglas R. Gilbert photograph © 1973.
Even before arriving at Oxford, Tolkien had discovered his gift for languages and a love for old English myths. Intending to give the English people a new epic tradition, he produced The Hobbit and, after many years of toil, The Lord of the Rings. His famous hobbits, he explained, reflected the grit and courage of the British soldiers he knew during the First World War.
Used by permission of The Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.
Soon after his conversion to Christianity, Lewis embraced a new calling on his life. “Any amount of theology,” he said, “can be smuggled into people’s minds under cover of romance without their knowing it.” During his long career at Oxford, Lewis became one of the twentieth century’s most formidable defenders of the Christian faith, writing more than thirty books, including The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, and The Chronicles of Narnia.
The Master and Fellows of University College, Oxford.
Enrollment at Oxford plummeted during the war years. In 1917, C. S. Lewis (standing in the back row, far right) was among the small cohort of undergraduates at University College. After joining the Officer’s Training Corps, Lewis was sent to Keble College, where he got minimal training before being shipped to the front later that year. “I remember five of us at Keble,” he wrote later, “and I am the only survivor.”
Second Lieutenant J. R. R. Tolkien arrived on the Western Front in June 1916 and was soon caught up in the Battle of the Somme, one of the fiercest concentrations of killing in the history of warfare. The fight raged on for nearly five months, claiming more than 1.2 million dead and wounded. Trench fever took Tolkien out of the war—and probably saved his life. “By 1918,” he wrote, “all but one of my close friends were dead.”
When the Germans launched their massive spring offensive in March 1918, Second Lieutenant C. S. Lewis was part of the British Expeditionary Force that staged a counteroffensive at the French town of Riez du Vinage, near Arras. A shell exploded close by, killing Lewis’s sergeant and wounding him in three places. His injuries kept him off the front lines for the remainder of the war.