Quotations
and Allusions in
C.
S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
compiled by Arend Smilde (Utrecht, The
Netherlands)
References are to paragraph numbers in the first edition (Oxford University
Press 1943); for greater certainty the first four words of each
paragraph referred to are added in small capitals. No references are given where Lewis gave adequate notes, and no information
from his notes is repeated here. The list is based on the notes I made for my
Dutch translation of The Abolition of Man, published in 1997 (De
afschaffing van de mens, 4th edition 2004).
I have pointed out several
small differences between The Abolition of Man’s first (1943) and second
(1946) editions. These improvements in the second edition have found their way,
as far as I know, into all American editions. The British Fount edition (1978)
however has not incorporated them and consistently follows the 1943 text.
Another page of the present website
offers a 2,000-word Summary of the book, followed by a Brief Summary of
just over 300 words.
I apologize for telling you
that Shelley was ‘an English
poet’ if you
already knew that; I apologize also for not telling you that Plato was ‘a Greek philosopher’ should that be news to you. I still hope there will be at least a couple
of interesting items for any user. Double question marks – ?? – indicate
my failure to find the information I wanted to give. Corrections and
additions (including new entries) are welcome.
Chapter I: MEN WITHOUT CHESTS
motto
So he sent the word to slay, etc.
From the Christmas Carol, ‘Unto us is born a Son’. ‘...This did Herod sore affray,
/ And grievously bewilder, / So he sent the word to slay / And slew the little
childer.’
para. 1 [i doubt whether we...]
Gaius and Titius, The Green Book
This book is The Control of Language: A critical approach to reading and
writing, by Alex King and Martin Ketley, published in 1939. ‘Gaius’ and ‘Titius’ are, in classical Latin, generally representative
standard fictitious names; in colloquial Italian, un tizio is
still used as a word for ‘a guy’, ‘a fellow’.
para. 2 [in their second
chapter...]
the well-known story of Coleridge at the
waterfall
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1772–1834), English poet and philosopher. I have
not seen The Green Book, and do not know exactly which story ‘Gaius and Titius’ were quoting, nor indeed whether they were
quoting literally. There is a passage in Doroty Wordsworth’s Recollections of a Tour in Scotland, A.D.
1803 where Coleridge briefly meets ‘a lady and gentleman’ near the falls called Cora
Linn on 20 August 1803. They do exchange a few epithets
to describe the waterfall, but no one calls it ‘pretty’ and there does not appear to
be any violent disagreement or disgust. If this is the only source for the
story – i.e. if this is the story (??) – Lewis
clearly failed to check both Gaius & Titius and his own memory.
para. 5 [before considering the
philosophical...]
Johnson’s famous passage
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English writer, poet, literary critic and
lexicographer. The fame of this passage, like Johnson’s own, is partly due to
his biographer James Boswell. It was Boswell who selected this passage as an
example of the ‘sublimity’ of Johnson’s style.
Iona
Island on the western coast of Scotland, site of an ancient abbey dating
from the sixth century A.D.
Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet.
Lamb, Virgil, Thomas Browne, Mr. de la Mare
Charles Lamb (1775–1834), English essayist, critic, poet, a friend of
Wordsworth and Coleridge; Virgil (70–19 B.C.), Roman poet, author of the Aeneid; Thomas Browne (1605–1682), English physician
and writer famed for his ‘poetical’ prose;
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956), English poet, novelist and short-story
writer.
para. 6 [but it is not...]
Orbilius
The book referred to is The Reading and Writing of English (1936) by
E. G. Biaggini. The pseudonym is the name of an ancient Roman language teacher,
Lucius Orbilius Pupillus. According to Horace (Epistulae II.1, 70) his
rude treatment of pupils translating Homer got him the nickname ‘Orbilius with
the Ferule’, Orbilius Plagosus. The idea to use this name for a modern
language teacher (and so to accuse him of rudeness) likely came to Lewis from
the example of Thomas Fuller’s Worthies of England (1662). Writing about
Richard Mulcaster, language teacher of the young Edmund Spenser in the years
1561–1569, Fuller describes Mulcaster’s ‘severity’ and calls him plagosus
Orbilius. See Lewis’s English Literature in the Sixteenth Century,
p. 350, where Lewis appears to construe this ‘severity’ as ‘cruelty’.
Michael Stapleton in his Cambridge Guide to English Literature (1983)
describes Mulcaster as ‘a teacher of formidable quality and a man with a
passionate devotion to the possibilities of English as a literary language; the
schoolboy Spenser was already practising the poet’s craft as Mulcaster’s
pupil.’
Ruksh and Sleipnir and the weeping horses of Achilles and the charger in
the Book of Job
– Ruksh is Rustum’s horse in Matthew Arnold’s poem ‘Sohrab and Rustum’
(1853). ‘So arm’d, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse, / Followed him like a
faithful hound at heel’ (270–271). Ruksh grieved over the fate of his master
Rustum and the latter’s son Sohrab: ‘and from his dark, compassionate eyes /
The big warm tears roll’d down, and caked the sand’ (735–736).
– Sleipnir, in Germanic mythology, is Wodan’s eight-legged horse.
– The Greek hero Achilles’s two horses, Xanthus and Balius, appear in Ilias
XVI.148–154, XVII.426–428 (where they weep over the death of Patroklos), and
XIX.400–424.
– The ‘charger’ is the horse described in Job 39, 19–25.
Brer Rabbit
Principal character in the ‘Uncle Remus’ stories, by J. C. Harris (c.
1848–1908).
Peter Rabbit
Principal character in the children’s
book of the same name, by Beatrix Potter (1866–1943).
ordinate love
The phrase certainly anticipates the references to Augustine’s ordo
amoris and Aristotle’s ‘ordinate affections’ in para. 10, notes 11 and 13.
para. 8 [but i doubt whether...]
Dr. Richards
Ivor Armstrong Richards (1893–1979), British linguist and literary critic;
his books include The Meaning of Meaning (1923), Principles of
Literary Criticism (1924), Science and Poetry (1925), Practical
Criticism (1929), and How to Read a Page (1942). See also Lewis’s
second note to Chapter II.
para. 10 [until quite modern times...]
Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), English poet.
Traherne
Thomas Traherne (1637–1674), English mystical prose writer, poet and
divine. The Centuries of Meditations were not published until 1908.
NB ‘Century’ in the book’s title means not one hundred years, but a hundred
simply: the book contains ‘hundreds of meditations’.
para. 11 [this conception in
all...]
‘the Tao’
A fundamental concept in ancient Chinese philosophy. Lewis is adopting the Confucian
interpretation of it while disregarding the rival Taoist view. Confucius
(551–479 B.C.) and the Confucian school talked of Tao as ‘the Way’ – a
more or less obviously recommendable code of conduct. Taoists, on the other
hand, following Lao Tze (c. 600 B.C.) and the Tao Te Ching, have
always insisted on the impossibility of saying anything about Tao. For
them, Tao is ‘the Whole’. Since there can be nothing else beside ‘the
Whole’, and the function of words is (in Taoism) to mark the boundary between
what a thing is and what it is not, Tao can be said to be in a very
literal sense indefinable. There are no words about it because there are no
boundaries to it.
para. 14 [perhaps this will
become...]
dulce et decorum
i.e. ‘sweet and seemly’, as Lewis translates at the beginning of this
paragraph. Quoted from Horace, Odes III.2, 3.
para. 16 [but this course ,
though...]
the chest – the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity
Alanus ab Insulis, or Alain de Lille (c. 1125–1203), was a French
scholar reputed to be a universally learned man. As a theologian he contributed
towards a mystical counter-movement against Scholasticism; as a defender of the
Christian faith he presented it as founded on self-evident basic principles.
His poem De planctu naturae (‘Nature’s Complaint’or ‘The Plaint of
Kind’) is a satire on human vice. In The Allegory of Love (1936), C. S.
Lewis describes him as a poet in the ‘School of Chartres’; and admitting that
the Plaint ‘is difficult to read, and rather more difficult to buy’, he
translates two long fragments, one of which includes the remark about
Magnaniimity (Allegory, p. 109).
Chapter II: THE WAY
para. 1 [the practical result
of...]
εν δε φαει και ολεσσον
‘Kill us in broad daylight!’ Homer, Iliad XVII, 647. – Sorry for
omitting the diacritics!
para. 2 [however subjective
they may...]
It would not be difficult to collect...
In the first edition, the word ‘difficult’ was followed by ‘(though it
would be unkind)’. Thus the passage ran, ‘It would not be difficult (though it
would be unkind) to collect...’
para. 11 [finally, it is
worth...]
Olaf Stapledon
British writer and philosopher (1886–1950); his works include what he
called ‘fantastic fiction of a philosophic kind’. Denying that religion and a belief
in immortality were of any use, he postulated a sort of god-in-development. His
philosophical works include A Modern Theory of Ethics (1929), Philosophy
and Living (1939) and Beyond the ‘Isms’ (1942). Much like C. S.
Lewis, he would deliberately blend his view of life into his science fiction
books – which include Last and First
Men (1930), Odd John (1935), Star
Maker (1937), and Sirius (1944).
para. 12 [the truth finally
becomes...]
cuor gentil
Probably a reference to Dante, Inferno V, 100; Amor, ch’al cor
gentil ratto s’apprende (‘Love, rapidly clinging to noble hearts’).
the Chün-tzu, the gentleman or cuor gentil.
In the second edition this was changed into ‘the Chün-tzu, the cuor
gentil or gentleman.’
‘Do as you would be done by’ say Jesus and Confucius both.
In the second edition this was changed into ‘...says Jesus.’
Humani nihil a me alienum puto
‘Nothing human is alien to me.’ Terentius, Heautontimoroumenos (‘The
Self-Tormenter’) I.1, 25. More fully quoted by Lewis in the Appendix, I ( b).
para. 14 [the innovator, for
example...]
a duty to our own kin, because they are our own kin, a part of traditional
morality
In the second edition, ‘a part of’ is preceded by ‘is’. The corrected
passage runs: ‘a duty to our own kin, because they are our own kin, is a part
of traditional morality.’
para. 17 [a theorist about
language...]
a great poet, who has ‘loved, and been well nurtured in, his mother tongue’
John Keats (1795–1821), The Fall of Hyperion I, 13–15. ‘Since every
man whose soul is not a clod / Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved /
And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.’
para. 18 [in the same way...]
...the Tao admits development from within.
In the second edition (1946), Lewis inserted after this sentence a long passage
almost literally taken from his essay ‘The Poison of Subjectivism’. The
inserted passage is the one running from From the [Stoic and] Confucian ‘Do
not do to others... until ...eating bricks and centipedes instead.’
After that, the 1943 text is resumed, ‘Those who understand the spirit of the Tao
and who have been led’, etc.
Chapter III: THE ABOLITION OF MAN
para. 5 [i am not yet...]
Clotho
Clotho is one of the three Moirai, or goddesses of Fate, in the
ancient Greek pantheon. Each was considered to perform an important task
regarding a human being’s ‘thread of life’; Clotho was the one who spun it,
Lachesis gave it out, Atropos cut it off.
para. 6 [for the power of..]
Elyot
Sir Thomas Elyot (c. 1490–1546), British scholar, diplomat and
Member of Parliament. The Governour (1531) is his principal work.
Locke
John Locke (1632–1704), British philosopher and physician.
para. 8 [to some it will...]
to scorn delight and live laborious days
John Milton, Lycidas (1637), 72.
petitio
In full, a petitio principii, a case of ‘begging the question’; a
logical error which consists in setting out to prove something by argument and
then quietly or onconsciously assuming it to be self-evident.
para. 9 [yet the conditioners will...]
sic volo, sic jubeo
‘This I will, this I command.’ Juvenal, Satire VI (against women), line
223. The full saying is Sic volo, sic iubeo; sit pro ratione voluntas:
‘This I will, this I command: let [my] will takes Reason’s place.’
para. 10 [at the moment ,
then...]
Ferum victorem cepit
‘...and captured her savage conqueror.’ Horace, Epistles II.2,
156–157. The ‘savage conqueror’ is Rome, ‘capturing’ Greece on the battlefield
in 168 B.C. only to see the Greeks ‘capturing’ Rome in the field of arts and
culture. The full passage is Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes
intulit agresti Latio, ‘Greece, when captured, captured her savage
conqueror and brought the arts into rustic Latium.’
para. 11 [my point may be...]
Nature is a word of varying meanings
In a later book, Studies in Words (Cambridge University Press,
1960), C. S. Lewis spent fifty pages on the various meanings of ‘Nature’.
para. 12 [from this point of...]
always conquering Nature, because ‘Nature’ is...
In the second edition, the word ‘because’ is not in italics.
para. 14 [i am not here...]
υλη
Greek for ‘matter’, ‘raw material’; also for timber or firewood.
para. 15 [the true significance
of...]
L.C.M.
In the second edition this was changed into ‘H.C.F.’ So apparently what
Lewis realized he actually meant was not Lowest Common Multiple, but Highest
Common Factor.
para. 16 [nothing i can say...]
Bacon
Francis Bacon (1561–1626), British statesman, philosopher and essayist. It
is quite usual, and certainly no original idea of Lewis’s, to characterize
Bacon as ‘chief trumpeter of the new era’ or something similar.
Marlowe’s Faustus
The Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus, a tragedy in
blank verse and prose by Bacon’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593).
Faustus was a semi-legendary magician and astrologer in early sixteenth-century
Germany. He became the habitual hero of stories about the magician selling his
soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power – or chiefly for power,
as Lewis suggests.
Paracelcus
Pseudonym of Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541), Swiss physician and
alchemist. He considered the human body to be a microcosm reflecting in each of
its parts some particular part of the Macrocosm, or Universe.
para. 17 [is it, then,
possible...]
Dr. Steiner
Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), founder of Anthroposophy, editor of Goethe’s
scientific works. He assumed the existence of a spiritual world which we might
get knowlegde of by (a training of) our highest cognitive powers.
Martin Buber
German Jewish theologian, Biblical scholar, Bible translator, philosopher
of religion and a master of German prose (1878–1965). Having abandoned early
mystical views about union of God an man, he published his Ich und Du
(‘I and Thou’) in 1923. An encounter (not union) of God and man is here
presented as, ideally, a model for all human relationships, especially those
with fellow-humans. The reduction of any Thou to an It ought to
be resisted. As Buber explained, in some other century he might have felt
impelled to preach the opposite message, but clearly his own time called for a
rehablitation of this ‘Thou’.
para. 18 [perhaps i am
asking...]
basilisk
Legendary snake-like animal, a frequent subject or element of stories from
ancient times until the seventeenth century. Eyes were not its only weapon;
among other things its breath, too, was thought to be lethal.
sui generis
‘a class of its own’, not reducible to or explainable from anything else
Last update: 14 August 2008 (two corrections in references to Iliad)