Description
"Lewis held three lectures: 1) Emily Bronte and Freedom, 2) George Meredith and Responsibiity & 3) W.B. Yeats and Human Dignity. Lewis declared that a poet can think/feel as passionately as others about freedom, responsibility and human dignity but needs to control those feelings in order to create an imaginative object that brings thoughts to life; a poem did not make a statement about freedom so much as paint an image of freedom. In analyzing Bronte's work, Lewis claimed that she illuminated the concept of freedom in a way which moves from the particular to the universal; her poems started from a box of toy soldiers which grew into characters and entire kingdoms. He claimed that many of her early works touched upon topics of imprisonment and conflict which spoke of her own limitations and desire for liberty. He believed that her focus on exile and confinement and freedom was a result of the limitation of not being a man. Lewis focused on Mereith's work ""Modern Love,"" he 'one great poem,' which dramatizes the problem of responsibility and the struggle of right thinking. The poem described the responsibility associated with upholding wedding vows, in a situation where love is no longer present in a marriage. Lewis claims that it captured the fluid nature of relationships and the responsibility which people must take for their parts in relationships, and the guilt which must be born equally if a relationship fails. Referring to the poem, Lewis claimed that it showcased the pull between the obligation to set down the truth, and the obligation to further society's moral and intellectual advance - which had a common frontier in the poem. Lewis concluded with Yeats' work ""The Second Coming"". Yeats saw, Lewis said, the movement toward a New Dark Age in what men of the day were calling 'progress,' as the good life, a life steeped in tradition, was being swept away. Lewis claimed that this work highlighted the seperation between human dignity, found in a settled, traditional and simple life, and a 'flood of vulgarity' pushed forth by 'progress' that will act as a new Dark Age.
While at Queen's, he also gave several less formal addresses and a poetry reading, which aroused great student interest. The Queen's Journal reprinted some major excerpts of his first talk. "
