{"title":"Contemporaneity, Religious Instruction and Music in Dryden’s “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” and C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia*","authors":"R. M. Gilete","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959764","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Summary In English literature, we sometimes find biblical messages that have been adapted to the contemporary reader, and may be interpreted as veiled religious instructions such as John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The present study delves into this idea by presenting and comparing John Dryden’s neoclassical poem, “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”, with C.S. Lewis’s fantasy heptalogy, The Chronicles of Narnia. Both texts contain the Christian doctrine of faith and morals and fulfil the requirements for the Catholic catechism, given their respective historic and cultural context. The way that Dryden and Lewis incorporate music in their texts follows a common pattern that serves as a unifying factor for this structured analysis, and justifies a comparative study.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"375 1","pages":"100 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Literary Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1092","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959764","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Summary In English literature, we sometimes find biblical messages that have been adapted to the contemporary reader, and may be interpreted as veiled religious instructions such as John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The present study delves into this idea by presenting and comparing John Dryden’s neoclassical poem, “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”, with C.S. Lewis’s fantasy heptalogy, The Chronicles of Narnia. Both texts contain the Christian doctrine of faith and morals and fulfil the requirements for the Catholic catechism, given their respective historic and cultural context. The way that Dryden and Lewis incorporate music in their texts follows a common pattern that serves as a unifying factor for this structured analysis, and justifies a comparative study.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Literary Studies publishes and globally disseminates original and cutting-edge research informed by Literary and Cultural Theory. The Journal is an independent quarterly publication owned and published by the South African Literary Society in partnership with Unisa Press and Taylor & Francis. It is housed and produced in the division Theory of Literature at the University of South Africa and is accredited and subsidised by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training. The aim of the journal is to publish articles and full-length review essays informed by Literary Theory in the General Literary Theory subject area and mostly covering Formalism, New Criticism, Semiotics, Structuralism, Marxism, Poststructuralism, Psychoanalysis, Gender studies, New Historicism, Ecocriticism, Animal Studies, Reception Theory, Comparative Literature, Narrative Theory, Drama Theory, Poetry Theory, and Biography and Autobiography.