The Narnia Code (Ward)

[RamistThomist]

Ward, Michael. The Narnia Code. Tyndale.

If one were to say, “I’ve found the secret code that unlocks the Narnia stories,” everyone would think he’s crazy. To make it worse, this code is found in the stars. Now this sounds like the New Age. Michael Ward makes such a claim.

The typical response would be, “No, Narnia is about Jesus.” And much of it is, but much of it does not make sense if Narnia is simply about Jesus. For example, why does Father Christmas show up in The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe? What does Aslan have to do with Santa Clause? Jesus imagery does not answer that question. Why does the god Bacchus show up in Prince Caspian?

The planets, however, do. At this point Ward’s case begins to make sense. The problem is not with Ward’s claim. It is with us. We know that geocentrism is wrong. Even more, we do not look (or cannot look) at the stars because of light pollution. We simply cannot understand such a worldview. The medievals had no such problem. C. S. Lewis knew that and whether he intended the planets to form a kind of code to unlock the Narnia stories, the symbolism is in the Narnia stories.

If one reads The Discarded Image, the symbolism is familiar. If one reads “The Descent of the Gods” in That Hideous Strength, it is painfully obvious. The fault is not in the stars. It is with modernity. The symbolism looks like this, taken from Lewis’s poem “The Planets.”

Moon
Mercury
Venus
Sun
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn

This is the order of their appearance from Earth, give or take.

The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe

Planet: Jupiter
Symbolism: Kingly, jovial spirit, winter

Prince Caspian

Planet: Mars
Symbolism: Wooden shields, battle, planetary conjunction

Voyage of the Dawntreader

Planet: Sun
Imagery: Gold, Apollos killing the dragon

The Silver Chair
Problem: Psalm 121:6 says the sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night. We understand how the sun can hurt us, but how do moonbeams harm us? In the ancient (and medieval) world, the moon made you crazy. We think Jesus healed epileptics. The Greek word is “Selenites,” lunatics
Planet: The moon
Imagery: Silver, wet (the moon and tides)
Prince Rillian is crazy for much of the book

The Horse and his Boy
Planet: Mercury
Imagery: Quicksilver, conjoining, “twinning”

The Magician’s Nephew
Planet: Venus
Imagery: Apples, Orchard is in the West

The Last Battle
Planet: Saturn
Imagery: Sleeping Giant, Father Time, end of the World

Conclusion

Does Ward make his case? Probably, though at this point we cannot know Lewis’s deepest intentions. For those in tune with medieval symbolism about the planet and have read That Hideous Strength and The Discarded Image, the point is obvious.

 

[John Nyberg]

Great review. Michael Ward’s work on Lewis is fantastic. He makes a really convincing case for Lewis’ hidden symbolism. The section on The Last Battle is spectacular. Why is that book so dark, disastrous, and melancholy? Why does Tirian cry out to Aslan in his captivity and hear no reply in the darkness? Why do so many characters die, more than all the other books combined? Ward masterfully argues that it is because Lewis is using the influence of Saturn to bring Narnia to a cold and disastrous end, just as he used the influence of Venus to bring about its creation. This sounds strange to the Christian until we realize Lewis is using the deities in a literary sense.

The section on The Horse and His Boy made that story one of my favorite out of the series. I cannot recommend Michael Ward enough if you are a Lewis nerd and want to understand him better.

 

[John Nyberg]

C.S. Lewis’ poem on the planets, Ward draws heavily on this work to develop his thesis.

“The Planets”​

Lady LUNA, in light canoe,
By friths and shallows of fretted cloudland
Cruises monthly; with chrism of dews
And drench of dream, a drizzling glamour,
Enchants us–the cheat! changing sometime
A mind to madness, melancholy pale,
Bleached with gazing on her blank count’nance
Orb’d and ageless. In earth’s bosom
The shower of her rays, sharp-feathered light
Reaching downward, ripens silver,
Forming and fashioning female brightness,
–Metal maidenlike. Her moist circle
Is nearest earth. Next beyond her
MERCURY marches;–madcap rover,
Patron of pilf’rers. Pert quicksilver
His gaze begets, goblin mineral,
Merry multitude of meeting selves,
Same but sundered. From the soul’s darkness,
With wreathed wand, words he marshals,
Guides and gathers them–gay bellwether
Of flocking fancies. His flint has struck
The spark of speech from spirit’s tinder,
Lord of language! He leads forever
The spangle and splendour, sport that mingles
Sound with senses, in subtle pattern,
Words in wedlock, and wedding also
Of thing with thought. In the third region
VENUS voyages…but my voice falters;
Rude rime-making wrongs her beauty,
Whose breasts and brow, and her breath’s sweetness
Bewitch the worlds. Wide-spread the reign
Of her secret sceptre, in the sea’s caverns,
In grass growing, and grain bursting,
Flower unfolding, and flesh longing,
And shower falling sharp in April.
The metal copper in the mine reddens
With muffled brightness, like muted gold,
By her fingers form’d. Far beyond her
The heaven’s highway hums and trembles,
Drums and dindles, to the driv’n thunder
Of SOL’s chariot, whose sword of light
Hurts and humbles; beheld only
Of eagle’s eye. When his arrow glances
Through mortal mind, mists are parted
And mild as morning the mellow wisdom
Breathes o’er the breast, broadening eastward
Clear and cloudless. In a clos’d garden
(Unbound her burden) his beams foster
Soul in secret, where the soil puts forth
Paradisal palm, and pure fountains
Turn and re-temper, touching coolly
The uncomely common to cordial gold;
Whose ore also, in earth’s matrix,
Is print and pressure of his proud signet
On the wax of the world. He is the worshipp’d male,
The earth’s husband, all-beholding,
Arch-chemic eye. But other country
Dark with discord dins beyond him,
With noise of nakers, neighing of horses,
Hammering of harness. A haughty god
MARS mercenary, makes there his camp
And flies his flag; flaunts laughingly
The graceless beauty, grey-eyed and keen,
Blond insolence – of his blithe visage
Which is hard and happy. He hews the act,
The indifferent deed with dint of his mallet
And his chisel of choice; achievement comes not
Unhelped by him – hired gladiator
Of evil and good. All’s one to Mars,
The wrong righted, rescued meekness,
Or trouble in trenches, with trees splintered
And birds banished, banks fill’d with gold
And the liar made lord. Like handiwork
He offers to all – earns his wages
And whistles the while. White-feathered dread
Mars has mastered. His metal’s iron
That was hammered through hands into holy cross,
Cruel carpentry. He is cold and strong,
Necessity’s song. Soft breathes the air
Mild, and meadowy, as we mount further
Where rippled radiance rolls about us
Moved with music – measureless the waves’
Joy and jubilee. It is JOVE’s orbit,
Filled and festal, faster turning
With arc ampler. From the Isles of Tin
Tyrian traders, in trouble steering
Came with his cargoes; the Cornish treasure
That his ray ripens. Of wrath ended
And woes mended, of winter passed
And guilt forgiven, and good fortune
Jove is master; and of jocund revel,
Laughter of ladies. The lion-hearted,
The myriad-minded, men like the gods,
Helps and heroes, helms of nations
Just and gentle, are Jove’s children,
Work his wonders. On his white forehead
Calm and kingly, no care darkens
Nor wrath wrinkles: but righteous power
And leisure and largess their loose splendours
Have wrapped around him – a rich mantle
Of ease and empire. Up far beyond
Goes SATURN silent in the seventh region,
The skirts of the sky. Scant grows the light,
Sickly, uncertain (the Sun’s finger
Daunted with darkness). Distance hurts us,
And the vault severe of vast silence;
Where fancy fails us, and fair language,
And love leaves us, and light fails us
And Mars fails us, and the mirth of Jove
Is as tin tinkling. In tattered garment,
Weak with winters, he walks forever
A weary way, wide round the heav’n,
Stoop’d and stumbling, with staff groping,
The lord of lead. He is the last planet
Old and ugly. His eye fathers
Pale pestilence, pain of envy,
Remorse and murder. Melancholy drink
(For bane or blessing) of bitter wisdom
He pours out for his people, a perilous draught
That the lip loves not. We leave all things
To reach the rim of the round welkin,
Heaven’s heritage, high and lonely.

 

[Ed Walsh]

Jacob,

I love the Narnian series. But now you've given more sense of what was in the heart of CS Lewis. Maybe we learn more about Lewis than about Narnia from the book.

Thanks for a great review.

EW