Morality and the Medieval Cosmos: Musical Analogy in the Works of C.S. Lewis

In many of his works, whether fiction or non-fiction, C.S. Lewis infuses passages with music. Despite the ubiquity of music throughout Lewis’ writings, it remains a relatively unexamined topic in recent scholarship. In this thesis, I compile and analyze representative instances of music in Lewis’ corpus, and contend that musical analogy performs an integral role throughout his works. Specifically, Lewis incorporates music into his own view of ethics, aesthetics, and cosmology. A thorough understanding of this musical analogy adds greater coherence to many of his works, because the relations of the analogy persist across diverse genres. Furthermore, it provides an underlying musical cadence to The Chronicles of Narnia and The Cosmic Trilogy, his two major fictional series. By studying first his works of non-fiction and then those of fiction, I hope to show the dynamic and important role that music played for the venerated British scholar.