Lewis, C(live) S(taples) 1898–1963: Critical Essay by John Wain

This author is of course well known as a controversialist—indeed my view is that the death of George Orwell left Mr. Lewis standing alone as our major controversial author—and while controversialists are common enough in the world of letters, they do not usually get asked to contribute to a 'safe' academic series like the Oxford History of English Literature. So it is important to begin by saying that the controversial nature of the book [English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama, volume III of The Oxford History of English Literature] does not make it any the less helpful as a literary history. The chief functions of a literary history are fulfilled: the names are strung together, the historical and biographical information is given, and the bibliography shows us how to set about more detailed study. What is more, the book is a very pleasurable one to read. Mr. Lewis is today the only major critic of English literature who makes a principle of telling us which authors he thinks we shall enjoy: this may not sound much, but most dons have moved a long way from any recognition that literature is something that people used to read for fun. Mr. Lewis, now as always, writes as if inviting us to a feast: not in the take-it-or-leave-it Saintsbury way, but always giving his reasons, and frequently warning us to stay away from this or that boring writer who is only included because the Oxford History can't leave him out. He quotes, for instance, a few good things from one William Warner, and adds, 'But no one should be deceived by these quotations into reading Warner.' This is sense; pleasure is a major motive in reading anything, and if the fact is tactfully suppressed by most academics, that is because they don't enjoy their work and ought really to say so. This is all I have to say about the literary qualities of the book, but I assure you that the whole review could easily be given over to praising its wit, its pure and strong prose (what they used to call 'nervous'), and the general high spirits of the performance. Mr. Lewis is the virtuoso of literary history; he is like a violinist who makes up his own cadenzas.

I must now turn to the elements in the book that make it controversial. These, as everyone will know, are in the parts which treat of the concept of the 'Renaissance.' Mr. Lewis is, broadly speaking, 'against' the Renaissance, in the sense that he thinks its importance as a factor in causing things has been exaggerated. What he is attacking is the view, common for the last three centuries, that the Renaissance was a great 'liberation' to which we Owe Everything. Mr. Lewis claims that this estimate of the Renaissance achievement is simply their own valuation of themselves, which we have not yet got rid of, and that in fact the period witnessed (whether or not it 'caused') as many deaths as it did births. Certainly the Renaissance, on its literary side, stands for the acceleration of classical studies, the rejection of the Middle Ages, the discrediting of scholastic philosophy; and Mr. Lewis, however he looks at these things, cannot see that they did any good to the English literary mind. (p. 403)

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