© 1997 Don W. King

A version of this essay appears in C. S. Lewis: A Reader's Encyclopedia (1998) published by Zondervan. Only students taking English 401: C. S. Lewis: The Legacy of His Poetic Impulse at Montreat College have permission to use material from the essay.

Notes on Spirits in Bondage

Most of the poems were written between 1915-1918, primarily when Lewis was sixteen to seventeen.

The book was initially turned down by Macmillian; Lewis sent it to Heinemann where an important critic, John Drinkwater, asked to include "Death in Battle" in a literary magazine, Reveille.

According to Lewis the theme of SB is that nature is malevolent and that any God that exists is outside the cosmic system. In a letter to Arthur Greeves he says: "I believe in no God, least of all in one that would punish me for the 'lusts of the flesh': but I do believe that I have in me a spirit, a chip, shall we say, of universal spirit; and that, since all good & joyful things are spiritual & non-material, I must be careful not to let matter (=nature=Satan, remember) get too great a hold on me, & dull the one spark I have" (June 3, 1918; TST, 221) In a later letter he adds: "[My book] is going to be called 'Spirits in Prison' by Clive Staples & is mainly strung round the idea that I mentioned to you before--that nature is wholly diabolical & malevolent and that God, if he exists, is outside of and in opposition to the cosmic arrangements" (September 12, 1918; TST, 230).

The book was generally reviewed positively as "graceful and polished," and "strongly imagined and never unhealthy, trifling or affected." Unfortunately, such reviews did not help to sell the book.

Warren Lewis did not like SB and wrote his father: "While I am in complete agreement with you as to the excellence of part of IT's book, I am of the opinion it would have been better if it had never been published. Even at 23 [Warren's age when writing this letter] one realizes that the opinions of 20 are transient things. Jack's Atheism is I am sure purely academic, but, even so, no useful purpose is served by endeavouring to advertise oneself as an Atheist. Setting aside the higher problems involved, it is obvious that a profession of a Christian belief is as necessary a part of a man's mental make-up as a belief in the King, the Regular Army, and the Public Schools" (January 28, 1919; LP, 6:84 and quoted in part in the introduction to SB, xxxvii-xxxviii).

To mollify his father, Lewis responded and wrote: "You know who the God I blaspheme is and that it is not the God that you or I worship, or any other Christian" (March 5, 1919; LP,6:96).

Themes in Spirits in Bondage

• Life, often as a result of war, is seen as demeaning, futile, and empty; also, there is a contrast between the beauty of nature and the past versus the horror of war and the present. Poems reflecting this are:
• • French Nocturne, 4
    In Praise of Solid People, 42
    Victory, 7
    Oxford, 57
    Apology, 12
    Tu Ne Quaesieris, 68
    In Prison, 19
    Death in Battle, 74
• God is a hateful, cruel, and "red" enemy. He "kills us for His sport." Poems reflecting this are:
• • Satan Speaks I, 3
    Satan Speaks XIII, 22
    Ode for New Year's Day, 13
    Alexandrines, 41
    De Profundis, 20

• Nature deserves our love in the lyricial and romantic tradition of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Yeats. Poems reflecting this are:
• • The Satyr, 5
    The Autumn Morning, 34
    Irish Nocturne, 9
    The Ass, 51
    Spooks, 11
    Night XXIX, 55
    Night IX, 16
    How He Saw Angus the God, 61
    To Sleep, 18
    The Roads, 63
    The Witch, 23
    The Star Bath, 67
    The Ocean Strand, 29
    Lullaby, 70
    Noon, 31
• Beauty is the evidence that there is "something" beyond the material world. Poems reflecting this are:
• • Dungeon Grates, 25
    Song, 50
    The Philosopher, 27
    Ballade Mystique, 53
    Milton Read Again, 32
    Hymn, 58
    Sonnet, 33
    Our Daily Bread, 60
    L'Apprenti Sorcier, 39
    World's Desire, 72
    Song of the Pilgrims, 47
    Hesperus, 65