 | | | Michael Ward | |
A closer look at Michael Ward
His favorite Narnia character: Jewel the unicorn (The Last Battle)
His favorite Narnia book: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Narnia character he’d like to be: “I think the character I’d like to play in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is that sleeping lord who says, ‘Pass the mustard,’ before falling back to sleep!”
Upcoming projects: writing a popular version of Planet Narnia aimed at a younger audience, co-editing The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis, due out in 2010
Favorite movies: The Crucible with Daniel Day Lewis, The Shawshank Redemption, Kenneth Branagh’s Love’s Labors Lost
Favorite composer: Elgar
Favorite food: “Really good sausages and mash”
Favorite prayer: the Anglican Collect of the Feast of the Epiphany from the Book of Common
Prayer, 1662: “O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten
Son to the Gentiles: Mercifully grant, that we, which know Thee now by faith, may after
this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.”
His heroes: William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill
Best advice he’s ever received: “Don’t be in a hurry. Don’t rush.” |
“I regard [this discovery] very much as a godsend and a gift which has been given to me in order for me just to share it with other people”Re-reading one of C.S. Lewis’ poems one night in 2003 as he was nearing the end of his ordination training, British scholar Michael Ward had an epiphany: He had just discovered a clue to understanding
The Chronicles of Narnia that had remained hidden for more than 50 years. Ward recently spoke with
Catholic Digest about his discovery, which he wrote about in
Planet Narnia, a scholarly work released this year by Oxford University Press.
CD: You’ve been teaching and studying C.S. Lewis’ work for more than a decade. What initially sparked your interest in Narnia, and what has held your interest for such a long time?WARD: I initially got into Lewis and Narnia the same way that most people do, I suspect — by having the books read to me as a child. My parents would read chapters aloud to me and my two brothers each Saturday or Sunday morning. And then I read them again for myself and then got into Lewis’s other fiction and his Christian apologetics, and then I did my English degree at Oxford and started reading his academic books. So it’s been a long process of steadily deepening my familiarity with his work and his way of thinking.
CD: How have the Chronicles have influenced your faith as a Christian both before and after your discovery?WARD: Before the discovery, I loved the books for their presentation of a world in which faith was part and parcel of the whole experience. The Christianity embedded in the stories wasn’t just a compartment of the experience of the children: It kind of comprised their whole world. It was a little bit like heaven, because our whole experience (there) will be one of worship.
What the Narnia books have done for me has been a little bit like a scientific breakthrough or a religious revelation. The world that you thought you understood on one level suddenly turns out to have been created at a wholly higher level. I can sometimes now think that way with respect to the real world: When I see the chaos and conundrums of the real world I can say to myself,
This may just be evidence of artistry and creativity and divine purpose on a higher level. CD: For those who are unfamiliar with your discovery, can you provide a brief summary of the main arguments of your work?WARD: In essence the thing is this: Lewis, as a medieval scholar, was deeply acquainted with the old view of the Earth as the center surrounded by the seven heavens, each with its own planet, and each planet with its own set of characteristics and qualities and influences. [Lewis] described these planets as spiritual symbols of permanent value. He took these qualities and characteristics of the seven planets and basically turned them into plots (i.e., the plots of the seven
Chronicles).
The imagery associated with each planet provides him with the basic narrative arc of each story and countless points of ornamental detail. It also controls the way he portrays the Christ figure (Aslan) in each story. From a theological point of view, this imaginative technique is extremely ingenious and I think unprecedented; I can’t think of other writers who have done this.
