North Carolina
The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis: Inspiration, Belief and the Power of Language
Program No. 21023RJ
See the world through the eyes of C. S. Lewis as you join experts to view and discuss rare materials, hear a broadcast from his Oxford days and have a virtual visit of his England home.
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DATES
& starting prices
PRICES
May 12 - May 17, 2024
Starting at
899Aug 4 - Aug 9, 2024
Starting at
899DATES
& starting prices
PRICES
May 12 - May 17, 2024
Starting at
1,099Aug 4 - Aug 9, 2024
Starting at
1,0996 days
5 nights
15 meals
5B 5L 5D
6
Discussion of Lewis's Legacy, Lunch and Departures
Montreat, NC
At a Glance
Enjoy a comprehensive survey of C. S. Lewis’ life and work. Led by a noted Lewis scholar, focus on his extraordinary imagination and how he presented a rational basis for Christian faith, powerfully, persuasively and delightfully developed in books and movies that have achieved worldwide popularity.
Activity Level
Easy Going
All facilities are in one building, with approximately 300 yards walking required; a few stairs. Outside areas are mountainous, with inclines and uneven terrain.
What You'll Learn
- In addition to selections from his letters, journals, poems, fiction and non-fiction, view and discuss important new video productions and gain perspectives on the ideas, thoughts and opinions of the 20th century’s most popular Christian author.
- Hear a rare broadcast of one of Lewis’ talks on BBC radio during WWII when he was at Oxford, including material that later appeared in his book on theology, Mere Christianity, considered a classic of Christian apologetics.
- Take a “virtual” exploration of Lewis’ home — The Kilns — in Oxford, England, and learn about newly discovered love sonnets written to Lewis by his wife, Joy Davidman.
General Notes
The Retreat Difference: This unique, often basic and no-frills experience at a Road Scholar Retreat includes opportunities for early morning exercise, interaction with the local community for insight into local life, an authentic farm-to-table or locally sourced meal, a live performance or event, and a value-priced single room. Opportunities are available for traveling companions to attend a different program at Montreat during the same week. Due to the nature of this program, listening devices are not available.
Featured Expert
All trip experts
Don King
Don King led seminars on C. S. Lewis at the Kilns — Lewis’ home just outside Oxford — for the C. S. Lewis Foundation in 2004, 2009, 2019, and 2023. A professor of English since 1974, he has written books including "C. S. Lewis, Poet: The Legacy of His Poetic Impulse," "Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman," "The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis: A Critical Edition," and "A Naked Tree: Joy Davidman’s Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems."
Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.
Don King
View biography
Don King led seminars on C. S. Lewis at the Kilns — Lewis’ home just outside Oxford — for the C. S. Lewis Foundation in 2004, 2009, 2019, and 2023. A professor of English since 1974, he has written books including "C. S. Lewis, Poet: The Legacy of His Poetic Impulse," "Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman," "The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis: A Critical Edition," and "A Naked Tree: Joy Davidman’s Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems."
Tracy Bailey
View biography
Tracy has been on the program staff of Montreat Conference Center since 1986. She began working with Elderhostel programs in 1989, and in 1997 assumed the additional role of on-site coordinator. A native of the area, she graduated from Asheville-Buncombe Technical College in 1981. Her favorite hobbies are hiking, pottery and reading. Tracy married Sam in 2007, and added three daughters to her family. In addition to her own grown children, she and Sam have been foster parents since 2010. They have four grandchildren.
Zachary Rhone
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Zachary Rhone specializes in fantasy, science fiction, and the work of authors J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald. Outside his specialties, he has an insatiable epistemophilia which urges him to read and learn across disciplines. In addition to research writing, Dr. Rhone is an active technical and creative writer. He is a sub-creator who enjoys building worlds, designing and playing tabletop games, preparing all kinds of foods and beverages, growing things, singing, and songwriting.
Suggested Reading List
(9 books)
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The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis: Inspiration, Belief and the Power of Language
Program Number: 21023
Yet One More Spring: A Critical Study of Joy Davidman
Joy Davidman (1915–1960) is probably best known today as the woman that C. S. Lewis married in the last decade of his life. But she was also an accomplished writer in her own right — an award winning poet and a prolific book, theater, and film reviewer during the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Yet One More Spring is the first comprehensive critical study of Joy Davidman's poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. Don King studies her body of work — including both published and unpublished works — chronologically, tracing her development as a writer and revealing Davidman's literary influence on C. S. Lewis. King also shows how Davidman's work reflects her religious and intellectual journey from secular Judaism to atheism to Communism to Christianity.
Drawing as it does on a cache of previously unknown manuscripts of Davidman's work, Yet One More Spring brings to light the work of a very gifted but largely overlooked American writer.
Inkling, Historian, Soldier and Brother: A Life of Warren Hamilton Lewis
Detailing the life of Warren Hamilton Lewis, author Don W. King gives us new insights into the life and mind of Warren’s famous brother, C. S. Lewis, and also demonstrates how Warren’s experiences provide an illuminating window into the events, personalities, and culture of 20th-century England. Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother will appeal to those interested in C. S. Lewis and British social and cultural history.
As a career soldier, Warren served in France during the nightmare of World War I and was later posted to Sierra Leone and Shanghai. On his retirement from the army, he became an active member of the household at the Kilns, the residence outside Oxford that he co-owned with his brother and Mrs. Janie Moore, and he played an important role in the relationship between his brother and Joy Davidman, the woman who became C. S. Lewis’s wife. A talented writer and accomplished amateur historian, Warren also researched and wrote seven books on 17th-century French history.
Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother examines Warren Lewis’s role as an original member of the Oxford Inklings—that now famous group of novelists, thinkers, clergy, poets, essayists, medical men, scholars, and friends who met regularly to drink beer; discuss books, ideas, history, and writers; and share pieces of their own writing for feedback from the group.
Drawing from Warren Lewis’s unpublished diaries, his letters, the memoir he wrote about his family, and other primary materials, this biography is an engaging story of a fascinating life, period of history, and of the warm and loving relationship between Warren and his brother, which lasted throughout their lives.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Four adventurous siblings—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie—step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.
Open the door and enter a new world! The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the second book in C. S. Lewis's classic fantasy series, which has been captivating readers of all ages with a magical land and unforgettable characters for over sixty years. This is a stand-alone read, but if you would like to discover more about Narnia, pick up The Horse and His Boy, the third book in The Chronicles of Narnia.
Mere Christianity
In the classic Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, the most important writer of the 20th century, explores the common ground upon which all of those of Christian faith stand together. Bringing together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War Two from his three previous books The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality, Mere Christianity provides an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear this powerful apologetic for the Christian faith.
A Naked Tree: Joy Davidman's Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and other Poems
Although best known as C. S. Lewis's wife, Joy Davidman was a gifted writer herself who produced, among other things, two novels and an award-winning volume of poetry in her short lifetime.
The first comprehensive collection of Davidman's poetry, A Naked Tree includes the poems that originally appeared in her Letter to a Comrade (1938), forty other published poems, and more than two hundred previously unpublished poems that came to light in a remarkable 2010 discovery.
Of special interest is Davidman's sequence of forty-five love sonnets to C. S. Lewis, which offer stunning evidence of her spiritual struggles with regard to her feelings for Lewis, her sense of God's working in her lonely life, and her mounting frustration with Lewis for keeping her at arm's length emotionally and physically.
Readers of these Davidman poems -- arranged chronologically by Don King -- will discover three recurring, overarching themes: God, death, and immortality; politics, including capitalism and communism; and (the most by far) romantic, erotic love. This volume marks Joy Davidman as a figure to be reckoned with in the landscape of twentieth-century American poetry.
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere . . . God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."
This book is not an autobiography. It is not a confession. It is, however, certainly one of the most beautiful and insightful accounts of a person coming to faith. Here, C.S. Lewis takes us from his childhood in Belfast through the loss of his mother, to boarding school and a youthful atheism in England, to the trenches of World War I, and then to Oxford, where he studied, read, and, ultimately, reasoned his way back to God. It is perhaps this aspect of Surprised by Joy that we—believers and nonbelievers—find most compelling and meaningful; Lewis was searching for joy, for an elusive and momentary sensation of glorious yearning, but he found it, and spiritual life, through the use of reason.
In this highly personal, thoughtful, intelligent memoir, Lewis guides us toward joy and toward the surprise that awaits anyone who seeks a life beyond the expected.
"Lewis tempered his logic with a love for beauty, wonder, and magic . . . He speaks to us with all the power and life-changing force of a Plato, a Dante, and a Bunyan."—Christianity Today
"The tension of these final chapters holds the interest like the close of a thriller."—Times Literary Supplement
C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis (1898–1963), one of the great writers of the twentieth century, also continues to be one of our most influential Christian thinkers. He wrote more than thirty books, both popular and scholarly
Plain to the Inward Eye: Selected Essays on C. S. Lewis
A collection of essays by a career C . S . Lewis scholar on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis's death.
C. S. Lewis scholar Don W. King has kept a critical eye on the work by and about Lewis for four decades. Now, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis's death, King has put together a collection of his essays and critical reviews organized around four areas. The first deals mainly with what will perhaps be Lewis's longest lasting legacy--his ''Chronicles of Narnia.'' The second deals with Lewis's poetry, a neglected area of his work. The third focuses on Lewis and the two women poets with whom he had lasting relationships: Ruth Pitter and Joy Davidman. (Lewis and Davidman eventually fell in love and later married, twice.) The fourth offers a critical perspective on the way in which critical interest in Lewis has developed over the last thirty years.
A Grief Observed
Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man -- or at any rate a man like me -- out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself." This is a beautiful and unflinchingly honest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings.
The Screwtape Letters
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a classic masterpiece of religious satire that entertains readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written.