The significance of the friendship of JRR Tolkien and C.S. Lewis
Tolkien was widely known for his friendship with C.S. Lewis. They had both lived in Oxford and were part of a literary group, The Inklings.
Meeting
Tolkien had met Lewis in 1925 – though at the time, Lewis was a man in question, “a Northern Irishman of Protestant family who had been raised to disrupt papists. What was more, he was an atheist, having abandoned his childhood Christianity around the same age that Tolkien had embraced his own faith.” (Dr. Holly Ordway, Tolkien’s Faith, “Fellow Pilgrim”)
C.S. Lewis would begin his academic career in philosophy and secure a fellowship in English in Magdalen College, Oxford, when he first encountered Tolkien. Later he would write this event in his diary, that Tolkien “is a smooth, pale, fluent little chap…No harm in him: only needs a smack or so.” (C.S. Lewis, All My Road Before Me, 393)
At the time of meeting, Tolkien was still at a low point in his religious life, though despite Lewis being atheist at first meeting, he helped Tolkien improve spiritually through their lively disagreements, leading Tolkien to think critically about why he held this particular faith.
Literary Influences
Had Tolkien not met C.S. Lewis, Lord of the Rings probably wouldn’t have been published. As he put it years later, “But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The L. Of the R. To a conclusion.” (Letters, 362.)
Tolkien, along with Hugo Dyson, would talk one September night convincing Lewis that Christianity is a “true myth.” Soon after, he would start “The Lay of Leithian” which would not be finished. However, the exchange of this work with the poem Lewis wrote strengthened their friendship.
The three of them would take a stroll around Addison’s Walk discussing myth, metaphor, and later Christianity. A week later, Lewis started to believe in not only God but the Christian faith, crediting Dyson and Tolkien, though he still had some issues, one of them being that his approach to Christianity was more allegorical than mythical and his friends would convince him to approach it from a mythical perspective.
Lewis would start to believe the ways of his friends, that Christianity is a “true myth.”
“Tolkien and Dyson had helped him see that Christianity was a series of events that shone by its own light; doctrinal expressions had their use, but they were secondary and derivative.” (Dr. Holly Ordway, Tolkien’s Faith, “Fellow Pilgrim”)
Shortly after the walk, Tolkien would write a poem which would end up shaping Lewis’s new perspective. Mythopoeia describes a way of looking at the world as an “endless multitude of forms,” with objects being named and categorized without real intrinsic value. However, Tolkien would say that it is cold and regimented, since one can’t really see the stars without seeing them as living silver, outer space is only a void unless and until art is perceived as a “jeweled tent / myth-woven” where the universe carries its meaning with it.
The Inklings and Discussions
After Tolkien asked Lewis to read his draft, they invited other friends and Oxford Colleagues to join them and soon after, they had created a group identity called The Inklings.
At its start, C.S. Lewis considered to be part of the Church of England, and so was his brother Warren. However, there were other Catholics in the group besides Tolkien, who were Fellows of Magdalen. However, Dyson would start to become a source of real difficulty for the group and a trial of Tolkien, due to a remark he made – that he would resign if any more Catholics joined. (Philip and Carol Zaleski, The Fellowship, p. 342-343)
However, the group was ecumenical, with the Anglicans and Catholics being able to unite. While there were some disputes during their commonly held “hot button topics” between the two denominations, they did not get in the way of their being united to the adherence of the Christian Faith.
Tolkien tended to be a quieter participant, with Havard recalling his contributions to be…
“Brief, but witty, and to the point, so far as they could be heard.” (Robert Havard, “Tolkien: A Personal Memoir,” 61)
However, he would not be unsettled by the wide range of views from the fellow Inklings, having had many discussions with other members, though he would one day find himself having to bind up sone wounds:
“I regret causing pain, even if and in so far as I had the right; and I am very sorry indeed still for having caused it quite excessively and unnecessarily.” (Letters, 126)
However, Lewis and his brother Warren would continue to have issues with Catholicism, which would sometimes affect Tolkien but they would shrug it off as a sort of insensitivity. Meanwhile, Dyson would start to become increasingly anti-Catholic, resulting in issues which showed in ways more than the occasional insensitivity.
Dyson would later become aggressively against Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, resorting an effective veto whenever Tolkien pulled it out and prepared to read a section of the book – which Tolkien took to heart – which was recalled by his son Christopher. C.S. Lewis tried to intervene but it was no use, and Dyson would continue with his “effective vetoes” starting with Tolkien and later with other Catholic members of the Inklings.
Religious decision
It is commonly known that Tolkien had wanted Lewis to be Catholic with him but Lewis opted for the Church of England instead when he finally had his conversion. One reason of this could be more clear than we may think.
“In England, King Henry VIII had previously been such a staunch catholic that the pope had given him the title ‘Defender of the Faith.’ However, when it transpired that his wife Catherine of Aragon could not bear him a son, Henry sought to have the marriage annulled. The pope refused Henry’s request to declare the marriage with Catherine null, and he declined to recognize the legitimacy of the king’s new liaison with Anne Boleyn. In response, Henry overthrew papal authority and declared himself head of the Church in England…Henry’s Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, refused to endorse this sudden change and was executed by beheading…Royal supremacy-as opposed to papal supremacy- became the law of the land; Catholic monasteries were abolished, with their wealth and property confiscated by Henry and distributed to the followers.” (Tolkien’s Faith)
However, ultimately Tolkien was clear that Lewis was a Christian, as “God cannot be limited…and may use any channel for His grace. Even to love Our Lord, and certainly to call him Lord, and God, is a grace, and may bring more grace.” (Letters, 339)