The characters, plots, and potent language of C. S. Lewis's novels
reveal everywhere the modern writer' admiration for Dante's Divine
Comedy. Throughout his career Lewis drew on the structure, themes, and
narrative details of Dante's medieval epic to present his characters as
spiritual pilgrims growing toward God.
Dante's portrayal of sin and sanctification, of human frailty and divine
revelation, are evident in all of Lewis's best work. Readers will see
how a modern author can make astonishingly creative use of a
predecessor's material - in this case, the way Lewis imitated and
adapted medieval ideas about spiritual life for the benefit of his
modern audience.
Nine chapters cover all of Lewis's novels, from Pilgrim's Regress and
his science-fiction to The Chronicles of Narnia and Till We Have
Faces. Readers will gain new insight into the sources of Lewis's
literary imagination that represented theological and spiritual
principles in his clever, compelling, humorous, and thoroughly human
stories.