C. S. Lewis and the Historical Imagination

Abstract

What role should the imagination play in historical inquiry? Much has been written about how Lewis’s understanding of the imagination influenced both his literary and apologetic work. However, very little has been said about how his view of the imagination influenced his work as a literary historian. Throughout Lewis’s career at both Oxford and Cambridge, he argued for a unique approach that privileged the role of the imagination both in the study and composition of history.