Recounts the beginnings of the friendship of Lewis and Williams and Williams’s later association with the Inklings until his death following complications from surgery in May 1945. Discusses the effect of his death on C.S.  Lewis’s thoughts about mortality and reprints his poem “On the Death of Charles Williams.

Kawano, Rolan M.

English

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Volume 1 Issue 2 Article 10 January 1971 The Impact of Charles Williams' Death on C.S. Lewis Rolan M. Kawano Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythpro  Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Kawano, Rolan M. (1971) "The Impact of Charles Williams' Death on C.S. Lewis," Mythcon Proceedings: Vol. 1 : Iss. 2 , Article 10. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythpro/vol1/iss2/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythcon Proceedings by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact phillip.fitzsimmons@swosu.edu. Mythcon 51: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico • Postponed to: July 30 – August 2, 2021 Abstract Recounts the beginnings of the friendship of Lewis and Williams and Williams’s later association with the Inklings until his death following complications from surgery in May 1945. Discusses the effect of his death on C.S. Lewis’s thoughts about mortality and reprints his poem “On the Death of Charles Williams.” Keywords Inklings; Lewis, C.S.—Friends and associates—Charles Williams; Williams, Charles—Friends and associates—C.S. Lewis This article is available in Mythcon Proceedings: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythpro/vol1/iss2/10 work in London at the Amen House. But the outbreak of the war shat- tered the routine schedules of many lives. On September 3, 1939 the Amen House evacuated from London to South-Field House in East Oxford with the staff billeted throughout the city. 5 Williams' removal to Oxford brought his genius to both the Univer- sity and to the Inklings. With the depletion of the English faculty at Oxford, Williams' "standing as scholar and poet was quickly recogniz- ed. 116 He "was soo~ making an Oxford reputation both as a lecturer and as a private tutor, 11 and within three years was conferred an honorary M.A. degree by the university. 8 Williams advent to Oxford also brought him into closer contact with the Inklings with whom he was soon to be a frequent member. The Inklings usually met twice a week. On Tuesday mornings a- bout an hour before lunch. they met at the Eagle and Child pub in St. GUes. Because of its habitual character, this assemblage must have made quite an impression on Oxford during the war. Lewis' brother, Warren, notes that "these gatherings must have attained a certain notor- iety, for in a detective novel of the period a character is made to say, "lt must be Tuesday--there's Lewis going into the Bird. 119 Normally reticent about his private life, 10 Lewis w'ithheld the name of the pub in his account of the meeting. He notes that they met "on Tuesday morn- ings in the best of all public-houses for draught cider, whose name it would be madness to reveal. 11 Although the Inklings loved a good mug, Lewis reveals that Williams completely abstained. "I must confess that with Mi.ss Dorothy Sayers I have seen him drink onfy tea: but that was neither his fault nor hers. "11 The Inklings also met after diMer on Thursday evenings in Lewis' 27 May, 194S was important both in the lives of England and C. S. Lewis. England was just completing a long and wPnrisome war; on the seventh of May Germany was to surrender unconditionally at Rheims. The war years brought Lewis a growing reputation and the cognomen, "Apostle to the Skeptics. 111 especially with the American publication of ;rhe Screwtape Letters lo 1943. 2 In Lewis' life May also brought the death or his good friend, Charles Williams. Earlier, the war had brought Williams into much closer contact with Oxford and the Inklings, the literary discussion group to which both Williams and Lewis belonged. An editor with Amen House of Oxford University Press, Charles Williams had not been able to finish at University College for lack of finances and so got his education editing papers at Amen House. 3 Al- though he was best known for The Figure of Beatrice, The English Poet- ic Mind, and Poetry at Present, Lewis felt that Williams' criticism was his least valuable work. Williams was a romantic theologian, "one who is theological about romance ..• who considers the theological implicat- ions of those experiences which are called romantic. 11 Lewis had in- itially heard of Williams at a dinner where Dr. R. W. Chapman called Williams; novels "spiritual shockers," but it was not until several years later when Lewis spent an evening with Nevil Coghill that Lewis was fully awakened to Williams. Professor Coghill was pregnant with Wil- Iiams" The Place of the Lion. Lewis left that evening with CoghiU's copy and the next day wrote to Williams, neither of whom had met be- fore, to congratulate him. By return mail Williams wrote that he was just about to do the same for Lewis' Allegory of Love. 4 Although Lewis and Williams became fast friends, they saw little of one another since Lewis was teaching at Oxford and Williams was at The Impact of Charles Wil~ams· Death on C.S. Lewis by Roland M. Kawano Frederick Jome- The i!1n3 of the lllbelun:;. .B.""°Schott"S S'Ohne, n. d, ;fugner, R1cluird. scn , tr. ilainz: Spence, Lc111s. Encyelope:l1a £! Occultism. ~lei; Yorlc: Un1v- ers1ty Books, 1960. Tolkien, J, n. R. The .Id!~ EJ ~ Rlnr;s, Vols. I-}. ilonton: Ho~ton !Uffl1n, no date. Roberts, .Uexonder and Jnmeo ilonaldson. The An to-::icene F:l- thers, Vol. 1. !irnnd Rn:ilds: :Im. D, Eerdii:ins Pul>l1sfiin';- ~cn. 1885, · ,. Pauwels, Louis ond Jacques Bergier. Tho Morn1n~ of!!!!~- .!£!!.!!!. New York: Avo~ Books, 1963.~- ~ ~ Ph1lootrntuo. L1ro or .lpollon1us ot Tyona, Volo. 1 & 2. New York: G. P:-P\itnnm1s Sons, 1912. Lew1s, 0. S. That Hideous Strength. New Yorlc:: The ,::1c- o11lan Co., 1 9~ --- !h! Ma(l:1c1on 's Neohew. The Mo.cm111 ... n Co., 1955 Ownbey, Enbert Sydnor. Merlin and .lrthur: .&. Stldy of Mer- lli.'e Oharaoter end PunctIO'ii'ln-nieliOiiiiiicee-Deo ing-w1th ~rly Life oTTrtbur. 1lailivffia: Condensnt1on of l'h.D Thos10, Vanderbilt Un1vero1ty, 1932. Pe.go, Curtis H. , ed. Bri t1ob Poets or the Nineteenth Oen t- .!!£l. :~ew York: BenJ.H.Siiiiborn-& Co.;-19~. ·-- Jonas, Hans. !h! ~Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 196}. .l.brco:i, r. i .• ed. The :rorton A.nthologx tl En.13116~ L1tor- ~. Vol. 1. New"YOr'k:'"'"lr. w. !lorton & Co, 19 . Buber, Martin. I nnd Thou. Ronald Gregor Sm1th, tr. Edin- burgh: T & T Clark, 1953. Butler, E. M. The Myth or lli Magus. lieu York: T:1e ~:nc- m1llan Oo., 19~ Reiber. Helmut. ~ill!!!· London: Oa,rald ilolff Ltd., 1961. DIBLIOGIU.PHY In s11M111ary: DlROJ'Y' s judp.men t on the !~al" I c I an w 1th a Hlp.h and Lonely Destlay ls well borne out by tho co~parison with others in the t~adltlon. Most of then are drlvon hy lanor hunRer and are aetr-dece1ved. Those who cone closest to g~ataoss, Apolloniua and Oandalr, are those who raster tbemael•os and do not claim to be free from the conmon roatr1ct1ons. !!or are they over deeply lonely; ·they ore sensitive to the value in others, and have Inner resources out or which they draw to become self-givlnR. Wost to fir.ht tho power or S&uron. There ls no accounL or an Initiation ror their work, except ror Oandalr•s battle with tho Aalror: near the end or his career in MiBdle Earth. 'lot nar,ical ~Owers they certainly do have. Pror. tho boitlnnin;. Saru.man•s gifts wore related to power and the dorninetion or others, even before ha turned traitor. Ills ::peclalty ls Rlng-<liore, and he rnakes rl11p,s hlrsolf. Ila Is able to work spolla on Lho rnlnds or othora. For axarnrlc, as Oandalf tells Glmli, "Sarw..an could look llka re in your eyes, lf lt su1tad his purpose.,,• Ho casts a srell over the rnlnds or hls listeners at the entrance to Crthanc, ono which savaral are unable to resist, and 'l'heodon re!llsts onl;t with tho a;reatest difficulty. It wos Sarunan•s rnarlc that drove Sauron out or Ool Ouldur du r-t nr- tho action of 'i'HE HOBIHT, and Oandalr wrongly ant1c11ata!l that ha nay now have some weapon which would d rlva '>ack tho 'lazr.ul. 11andalr•a wizardry seems to center around a cartalo Secret Piro, the Plarno of Anor. He enploys a rarlc staff, l"ar I c w"'rol~ anti spe 1 ls. ,.,t the r.reat contrast between them lies proclaely ln the fact. that Saruman forsakes his destiny as outlined in the cnrrranlls rlvon to the Plve Wlzar<!s when t.hey wore sent out.: to conbat Sauron, but not by his klnd or power; to 11volcl 1111 use or rorco or rear ap.a~nst. tha dweller~ In l'ldclle 1 arth. lfow, a t.raltor, he soaks to overthrow Sauron by wlelelnp tho Ono Rlnr. hlrnaolr; as a beginning ho ~akes war on aohan. !l~t ho reels those evil acts are justlflod by hla !11-h <•ostlrt) l!l clear rror.1 his appeal to 11andalf at Orthanc: "Ara wa not hoth members of a hlrh and ancient order, moat excol lont. In lllddle-1:.arth? •••• Let ua understand one another, an•I cl:-r•l:7S rror t.hourht these lessor folk I" 'l'ho other llst.onoru, half-hound hy tha spell, ore convinced or this: "Or loftlor r•ol<I those two wore made: reverend and wise ••• Tho door wnnld '>e closed, and (tho others) would be left eu t s tue , dliomlssotl to await allotted work or punlshnont." Sar•u•nn or ton uses t.he ti tla The Wise to 1nd1cat.o thet they havo A saparat.e 111oral code: "Wo must have power, power to order 1111 t.hlnt,s as we vlll, for that rood which only the Nlae can see." Only the Wise. l'oru, '.;ar11 .. an ls saytnr, ls the lonollnel'ls of our hlP!i deotln . Le aae r- creatures cannoL unllorst11nl1. IL 1~ nvon lonelier than thet., r.andalf rerlnd" hlm; only· onu I.anti can wield the Rini"." ~ejuctlnr :;arunnn•s torrpt.atlon, r.andalr replles that It ts :;aruran who cannot un<le-rstand hlrr.. Llka l'ncl11 Anllrow, Saruman has tried to rnako hlnselr stu~ldor than he really wan, and has succeeded. J t 1 s true that thoro a re ways ln whl ch Oandalr Is lonel). ?horo are rrnny thlnrs he cnnnot share with the hobblts. Jt 13 tn1e thai ho lo oft.en alone on dist.ent joumeyti. But tho final i::olatlnn or Serurran, hated and fearer. hy \4omtonp;ue who <!oe:i ne r r!are •o leav" hlr.1--ls not r.ani:olf 111. Oon<lalf can enjoy all ke t.he comran} 01 t·m wl::ctt 1.lve: a nd Lho slnplc:it hohblts becau:io ho ncl:-:oul•·dr,oo thal. he and t.ho) nro finally ~art or tho sune plun; he l'Cfuses to be ft·oe frOI". cor-nen rostrlctlons. l!a rrn:tcr: himself ams his own <.loslre ror tho !Uno;, whllo :iernnan rtoL only Lo so e hls nar.lc bu t becomes totally the 3lavo or t.ho •ennest nnd 1~ttlaot rrallce. 1Kawano: The Impact of Charles Williams' Death on C.S. LewisPublished by SWOSU Digital Commons, 1971a. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 10. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 4. 3. Footnotes 1. Chad Walsh, "C. S. Lewis, AposUe to the Skeptics," Atlantic Monthly, CLXXVUl, September 1946, 115-119. --- 2. , "Impact on America," Light on C. S. Lewis, ed. by Jocelyn Gibb (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc,, 1966), 109. Alice Mary Hadfield, An introduction to Charles Williams, (London: Robert Hale Ltd .• 1959), 22. C. S. Lewis, ed .• Essays Presented to Charles Williams, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), vi, vii, viii. lbid., viii; Hadfield, Charles Williams. 164. Hadfield, Charles Williams, 165. C. S. Lewis, Essays, ix. Hadfield, Charles Williams, 165. W. H. Lewis, "Memoir of C. S. Lewis," in Letters of C. S. Lewis, by C. S. Lewis (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966), 14. Clyde S. Kilby, The Christian World of C.S. Lewis, (Grand Ra- pids: Eerdmans. 1964), 7. C.S. Lewis, ~1ssays, v , ix. W. H. Le.vis, Memoir," 13, 14. C. S. Lewis, ~1ssays, v , W. H. Lewis, Memoir." 14. C. S. Lewis, Essays, v. Hadfield, Charles Williams, 176. Father Mathews contributes "Marriage and Amour Courtois in Late-Fourteenth Century England" to the 1[ssays ed. by C. S. Lewis. Quoted in W.H. ewrs, "Memoirs," 18-19. Hadfield, Charles Williams, 48, 208, 209. C. S. Lewis, Essays, xiii, xiv. Hadfield, Charles Williams, 209. c.s. Lewis, Essays, i.x, xiv. C.S. Lewis, Letters, 206. Walter Hooper, "A Bibliography of the Writings of C.S. Lewis," Light on C. S. Lewis, 132, 138. C.S. Lewis, Poems. ed. by Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,-f!i64), 105. 1 J. j . \i I\ . € /! I I ; 1// 11 - 1111 JI·\ -ULUll_/ ~,;jf~ .... A hard question and worth talking a whole night on. But with whom? or whom now can I ask guidance? With what friend concerning your death. ls It worthwhile to exchange thoughts unless--oh un- less it were you? 24 His death gained an added theological r-ealtty=--It significantly altered the present world for those who remained behind. Reading Williams' very novels is akin to that experience--the impact becomes or such an intensity that our very perspectives of reality are re-oriented. ience and the first severe loss Lewishad suffered. It corroborated Lewis' _ belief in immortality, it swept away his horror and disgust at the whole realm of funerals, coffins and graves, and it greaUy reduced his rears about ghosts. "To put it in a nutshell: what the idea of death has done to him is nothing to what he has done to the idea of death. Hit it for six: yet it used to rank as a fast bowler 11122 The obituary notice to "Charles Walter Stanby Williams (1886- 1945)" appeared May twenty-fourth in The Oxford Magazine. The poem first entitled "On the Death of Charles Williams" was first published in Britain To-day In August of 1945. 23 Later Lewis changed the title to "To Charles Williams." It reads: Your death blows a strange bugle call, friend, and all is hard To see plainly or record truly. The new Light im- poses change, Re-adjusts all a life-landscape as lt thrusts down its probe from the sky, To create shadows, to reveal waters, to erect hills and deepen glens. The slant alters. I can't see the old contours. It's a larger world Than I once thought it. I wince, caught in the bleak air that blows on the ridge. ls it the first sting or the great winter, the world- waning? Or the cold of spring? rooms at Magdalen college. There were no fixed rules to the meetings although it was understood that "ten-thirty was as late as one could decenUy arrive." There was, however, a kind or unvarying rltuaL When hall-a-dozen or so had arrived, pipes lit and tea poured, Jack (as Lewis always wanted himself called in preference to Clive Staples) would say, "'Well, has anybody got anything to read?' Out would come a man- uscript, and we would settel down to sit in judgement upon it--real un- biased judgement, too, si.nce we were no mutual admiration society: praise for good work was unstinted, but censure for bad work--or even not-so-good work--was often brutally frank. To read for the Inklings was a formidable ordeal." 12 The object of the Inklings was to discuss and understand literary narrative, or as Lewis put it, "The problems of narrative as such--seldom heard or in modern critical writings--were constantly before our minds. "13 llere In Lewis' Magdalen rooms J. R.R. Tolkien read his "New Hobbit" as the Inklings first named it, the precursor to his trilogy, The Lord or the Rings. Roy Campbell read "translations or a couple or Spanish poems, 11 David Cecil read a chapter or his forthcoming book on Gray," and Warren Lewis, a scholar on the reign o Louis XIV, read "the first chapter of my first book. "14 Charles Williams read his All Hallow's Eve and Lewis himself read his Perelandra. They were au read aloud, each chapter as It was written. They owe a good deal to the hard-hitting critlclsm or the circle." 15 Father Gervase Mathews, who will appear later, was also present. l6 The Inklings shared a deep comraderle, but friendship did not bar harsh criticism when it was need- ed. H. M. Glamlres, one or Lewis' former students, wrote that Lewis "had a near-fanatical devotion to Charles Williams, but when Williams wrote a bad book Lewis described it as "bloody awful." 17 On the world scene the war In the EU'r:'opean theatre was drawing to a close. On the second or May Germany surrendered in Italy. On the rifth they surrendered in Northwest Germany, llolland and Denmark. And on the seventh Germany made the complete and unconditional sur- render at Rheims. The English expected news or peace to be released any day. Ox- ford University press promised a holiday in celebration, and most or the staff or Southfield llouse were already planning to go to London. On Tuesday May eighth Williams commented to Helen Peacock, the Dorinda or !us masques and one or his oldest frlends who Joined the Oxford Press stacr in 1916, "Well, you and I, Dorinda, will be there as usual at our desks." Later ln the day Williams met Gervase Mathew and asked him to say a Mass "for anyone l have ever loved in any way." Pathe r Mathew did not object, said the Mass, but felt that Williams had a "sense that he was going to die." On Wednesday May ninth the news or peace was released, and Southfield house was deserted except for WUllams, Miss Peacock and a few others. That night Williams went out with Anne Spaulding, the daughter or the family he lived with in Oxford, to watch the English bon- fires lit for victory. However, seized with pa in the next day, Williams cancelled all his work arrangements, staying In his rooms. That Thurs- day evening the Inklings met without him. Since the war bad separated them, on Friday Mrs. Williams came up Crom London. Although the pain bad disappeared, Williams was taken to Radcliffe Hospital where he was operated on for a recurrance of in- ternal troubles which had first appeared eleven years earlier. Williams never recovered consciousness and died after fifty-nine years on Tuesday May fifteenth. 18 Although the inklings learned that Williams was at Radcliffe, they did not at all expect anything serious. On Tuesday morning, the fifteenth, just before they were to meet at the Eagle and Child, Lewis went to Rad- cliffe to lend Williams a book and perhaps to take back a message from him to the Inklings. When be arrived, he learned of Williams' death. He went to the pub to tell them what had happened: When 1 Joined them with my actual message--it was only a few minutes walk from the InClrmiry but, I remember, the very streets looked dlfferent--1 had some difficulty in making them believe or even understand what bad happened. The world seemed to us at that moment primarily a strange one. They began to verify the experience of many bereaved peoples, of "the ubiquitous presence of a dead man, as it be had ceased to meet us in particular places in order to meet us everywhere. "19 C~lf les Williams was buried in St. Cross Churchyard, Holywell, Oxford, "where lie the bodies of Kenneth Grahame and P. V. M. Ben- ecke." After the funeral one of Williams' friends told Lewis as they were sitting in Addison's walk: Our Lord told the disciples it was expedient for them that He should go away for otherwise the Comforter would not come to them. I do not think it blasphemous to suppos.e that what was true arcbetypally, and in eminence, of His death may, in the appropriate degree, be true of the deaths of all His followers. Williams' death had a profound effect on C. S. Lewis for he says, "No event bas so corroborated my faith in the next world as Williams thus met in my mind, it was the idea or death that was changed." Only after Williams' death did the inklings realize "what a small and late addition we were to the company of those who loved him. and whom we loved. "21 As to the total impact Williams' death had on Lewis' writings, one cannot even surmise. But there appeared soon after a letter, an obit- uary, and a poem on Charles Williams. The letter was written three days after Williams' death on May eighteenth to Owen Barfield, a London solicitor and philologist. It says that Williams' death was an odd exper-28 2Mythcon Proceedings, Vol. 1, Iss. 2 [1971], Art. 10https://dc.swosu.edu/mythpro/vol1/iss2/10

The Impact of Charles Williams\u27 Death on C.S. Lewis

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The Impact of Charles Williams\u27 Death on C.S. Lewis

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