143 The Discarded Image, or Why Nothing Seems Real

What is the “discarded image” that C.S. Lewis spoke about in his lectures at Oxford University, and why did he think it was necessary for his literature students to know what it was? This week the ladies discussed the first few chapters of the collections of Lewis’ lectures called The Discarded Image. Lewis taught that medieval peoples’ worldview was one where all knowledge was integrated into a unified whole, and that they were obsessed with collecting and cataloging all information previously known and newly discovered. We noted how this love of information collection greatly mirrors the modern world’s obsession with scrolling the Internet.

The ladies also discussed how both Lewis and Tolkien used this medieval view of creation as a “whole” to write their stories; rather than “world building,” they were merely presenting through  ...