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from Part II - Thinker
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2010
An obvious place to start in exploring C.S. Lewis's views on love is The Four Loves (1960). The book's major lesson is a theme that Lewis reiterated throughout his long career: natural loves are God-given goods, yet are also prone to distortions - distortions so severe that Lewis calls them demonic - unless they are transformed by Charity. The Four Loves is a slim volume that grew out of a series of radio talks prepared for the Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation of Atlanta, Georgia. Its conversational style and relative brevity give it an appearance of simplicity. This appearance is deceptive. As one commentator has observed, 'As an author of nonfiction [Lewis] is a demanding writer . . . If reading Lewis can be compared to the hikes that he loved famously then the reader must know ahead of time that he will at times outpace you with his thinking . . . The Four Loves is not easily “hiked” through in one reading.' While casual familiarity with The Four Loves yields many insights and edifying pricks of conscience, even a second or third reading may leave the book's overall structure a mystery. In this essay I will clarify Lewis's views on love, concentrating on some of the more puzzling aspects of his theoretical work, reflecting on the cultural contexts of his ideas, and briefly examining his literary depictions of love and its distortions.
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