Planet Narnia

Last week I (Christina) went to a lecture at New College by Michael Ward who is the author of a new book called Planet Narnia. The lecture was absolutely fascinating. Apparently the Narnia Chronicles have long been criticized as being a hodgepodge of ideas which Lewis hastily slapped together with no apparent order or reason. Tolkien himself was highly critical of Lewis in this regard. On the other side of the debate, many people believe there is some order or unity to the seven books which hasn't been discovered yet, although many suggestions have been made, including that the seven books correspond to the seven deadly sins, or to the seven Catholic sacraments, or to the seven steps of Anglican commitment, or to seven of Shakespeare's plays, and so on and so forth. However, none of these theories have been convincing to anyone.

Ward's book proposes a new unifying theme for the chronicles. He suggests that the the seven books correspond to the seven planets of the pre-Copernican universe. Each of the planets was associated with a god, and of course each god has specific characteristics which Lewis used to outline the basic plot of each book, but in particular to flesh out Aslan's character in each book. So, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe corresponds to Jupiter; Prince Caspian to Mars, Voyage of the Dawn Treader to the Sun, The Silver Chair to the moon, The Horse and His Boy to Mercury, The Magician's Nephew to Venus, and The Last Battle to Saturn. I know it may sound strange, but Ward's argument is incredibly convincing. I'm hoping to get his book soon and get a more in-depth look at what he's proposing.

Anyway . . . I had an idea for a homeschooling project in conjunction with this, and since I know some of our readers are homeschoolers, I thought I'd share it and you can tell me what you think. The idea is to study the Narnia Chronicles from this point of view, and in doing so you'd cover multiple subjects and all in a fun way. First, you'd do a study of the pre-Copernican view of the universe and what medieval people believed about the heavens and why, and how science was done, etc. Then you'd do a study of each of the seven planets and the god or goddess associated with each one. This would, of course, include studying Greek and Roman mythology. Then you'd read the chronicles of Narnia and have your students act as literary critics, examining the books for evidence for or against Ward's theory. Then you could use all of this as a jumping off point to discuss natural theology -- what it is, Lewis' affinity for it, why it can be dangerous and/or beneficial, what church traditions have embraced natural theology and which have rejected it, and so on and so forth.

So, that's my idea. I'd love to hear what you homeschoolers out there think of it!