Another Eden: Lewis and Milton on Genesis Seminar

Perelandra is one of C. S. Lewis’ finest and most intriguing works. Drawing from the legacy of Milton’s great epic, Paradise Lost, Lewis reimagines the story of Genesis as it might occur on a world different from ours and recasts it in the form of a modern novel—much as Milton reworks the biblical narrative as an epic poem in the tradition of Homer, Virgil, and Dante. By examining both works and the dramatic and philosophical questions they raise, we can approach the opening chapters of the Bible with fresh eyes. Lewis shows both his admiration for and critique of Milton’s work in surprising ways, often by provoking troubling questions. What does Lewis mean by the division between “truth from myth and both from fact”? Does placing Genesis in the literary and mythic tradition call into doubt its veracity? Further—are things good because God declares that they are, or does He declare them good because they already are so? What was the nature of “man’s first disobedience?” What really is the “knowledge of good and evil”?