Tag: The Great Divide

RETROSPECTIVE: December 21st – 31st

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the final third of December (21st – 31st) include: An essay about happiness, a special preview of a forthcoming book and two more installments of the eventual The Great Divorce.

Lewis had articles published in a large variety of places during his life. The final shorter work he wrote came out in The Saturday Evening Post less than a month after his death. “We Have No ‘Right to Happiness’” first appeared in their combined December 21-28, 1963 edition. The only other essay he wrote for them was the encore Screwtape piece mentioned last time. This article specifically attacks sexual happiness and was written at the invitation of the editor, Thomas Congdon. It begins with Lewis describing a comment by someone he calls “Clare” that defended the actions of others by stating “they have a right to happiness.”

RETROSPECTIVE: November 21st – 30th

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect

Interestingly it was on Lewis’s fifty-sixth birthday (in 1954) that he gave what hard-core enthusiasts of his works often consider one of his best talks to a non-religious audience. “De Descriptione Temporum” are not words you hear every day, but they were fitting as a title for his inaugural lecture as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature at Cambridge University. The translation for this Latin title is “a description of the times.” The Internet Archive has a copy of the complete text. Later it was recorded (4/1/1955) as a radio broadcast for the BBC where the title was “The Great Divide” and aired on April 6, 1955. You can get a copy of this recording, along with other audio featuring his voice from Episcopal Marketplace.

As you might imagine, there are differences between the radio version and the actual address. If you have both you will want to listen to it and follow along the printed version to see Lewis’s ability to adapt a text to different audiences.