Restoring Beauty: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C.S. Lewis, By Louis Markos

Restoring Beauty

The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C.S. Lewis

by Louis Markos

Restoring Beauty
paperback
  • Length: 215 pages
  • Published: October 10, 2010
  • Imprint: IVP
  • Item Code: 5745
  • ISBN: 9780830857456

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More and more in our modern and postmodern culture the twin concepts of beauty and truth have been separated both from each other and from their individual connection to the divine source of Beauty and Truth. Even as our public schools move further and further away from their connection to the universal moral code, the world of art (both high and low) embraces an aesthetic that privileges ugliness over beauty, nihilism over form, and radical self-expression over the pursuit of higher truth.

As both an effective apologist for truth-based education and as a sub-creator of his own beauty-enhancing fiction, C.S. Lewis is the ideal guide for those who would seek to restore truth and beauty to their proper place and role in our modern world.

Sections one and two analyze Lewis' eleven novels, showing how Lewis counters the growing cult of the ugly and helps restore a clearer understanding of the nature of good and evil. Sections three and four turn to Lewis' nonfiction works to assess what advice Lewis can give educators at all levels who would steer their students away from chronological snobbery and values-free education toward a true re-engagement with the past.

The book concludes with a commentary on Screwtape Letters that exposes what Satan's main temptation tactics have been since the 1960s and a detailed bibliographical essay of books by and about Lewis.

CONTENTS

Preface 1

Part I: Restoring Beauty
Chapter 1: Fractured Fairy Tales and the Cult of the Ugly
Chapter 2: The Space Trilogy I: The Beauty of Hierarchy
Chapter 3: The Space Trilogy II: The Beauty of the Normal
Chapter 4: Narnia I: The Beauty of Complementarity
Chapter 5: Narnia II: The Beauty of Clarity
Chapter 6: Narnia III: The Beauty of Light and Truth
Chapter 7: Till We Have Faces: The Beauty of Beauty

Part II: The Good Guys and the Bad Guys
Chapter 8: The Nature of Good and Evil
Chapter 9: Further Up and Further Down
Chapter 10: Heroes and Villains
Chapter 11: Courage along the Road
Chapter 12: The Heirs of Nietzsche

Part III: Men without Chests
Chapter 13: Losing the Tao
Chapter 14: The Dangers of a Values-Free Education
Chapter 15: From Tao-less Students to Tao-less Citizens
Chapter 16: The Scientist and the Magician
Chapter 17: The Chest-less Tyrant
Chapter 18: The Death of Language

Part IV: Aslan in the Academy
Chapter 19: Restoring the Past
Chapter 20: The Renaissance Never Happened
Chapter 21: Dinosaurs in the Classroom
Chapter 22: Genial Criticism
Chapter 23: The Historical Point of View
Chapter 24: The Professor as Public Educator
Chapter 25: Restoring Virtue

Epilogue: Know Thy Enemy
Screwtape?s Millennial Toast
Lewis on Education and the Arts: A Bibliographical Essay

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Louis Markos

Louis Markos (PhD, University of Michigan) is professor of English and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University. He is the author of many books, including Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes, Ancient Voices: An Insider's Look at Classical Greece, From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics, Atheism on Trial: Refuting the Modern Arguments Against God, On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue in Tolkien and Lewis, and Restoring Beauty: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C. S. Lewis.