In this episode, we discuss C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, chapters one to five.

Welcome to Stars and Swords: Footnoting Genre Fiction! In this episode, we delve into the history of C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece, introduce Foucault’s author-function, and contrast Tumnus and the White Witch, the classic and the modern, three kinds of toast and Turkish delight.

Unanswered Questions:

• What is the role of the parenthetical author-function in the novel? (This, as you know, is the kind of question a good child asks.)
  
  
• What does the implied moral schema of the novel have to say about Edmund? We observe greed and cowardice and Peter recounts wrath — does he demonstrate other sins?
  
  
• Do you agree that the White Witch’s crime is not the winter itself, but the forestalling of the natural order, and the passage of time?
  

Footnotes:

• The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Lewis)
  
  
• The Death of the Author (Barthes)
  
  
• What Is An Author? (Foucault)
  
  
• Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (Lewis)
  
  
• An Experiment In Criticism (Lewis)
  
  
• C.S. Lewis: A Biography, Revised (Green)
  
  
• The Hobbit, Or, There And Back Again (Tolkien)
  
  
• Mere Christianity (Lewis)
  
  
• The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis (Jacobs)
  

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Stars & Swords: Footnoting Genre Fiction is a part of Next Word. It is written and produced by Alastair Stephens.

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