February (Web-only) 2000

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The Allegory of Love: a Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 83. "No religion, so long as it is believed, can have that kind of beauty [the beauty of pagan gods, 'pure aesthetic contemplation of their eternity, their remoteness, and their peace, for its own sake"] which we find in the gods of Titian, of Botticelli, or of our own romantic poets."

Rehabilitations and Other Essays (Oxford Univ. Press, 1939), p. 68. In his essay, "The Idea of an English School" Lewis says, "Ovid's erotic poetry, received by our culture, becomes the poetry of Courtly Love; his mythological poetry becomes the wonder tales of Chaucer and Gower, the allegorical and astrological pantheon of Fulgentius and Lydgate, the gods of Botticelli, Titian, and Tintoretto, the emblematic deities of masque and ballet and pantomime, and the capitalized abstractions of eighteenth-century verse."

English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954). p. 89. Writing about Gavin Douglas's Palice of Honour (1501) in Book I, "The Close of the Middle Ages in Scotland," Lewis says it begins with a salvo of mythology and personification; but the shining figures that move across Douglas's sky are as unconventional and meaningful as the similar figures in Botticelli.

An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge Univ, Press, 1961), pp. 18-9. In chapter 3, "How the Few and the Many Use Pictures and Music," Lewis says, "We must begin by laying aside as completely as we can all our own preconceptions, interests, and associations. We must make room for Botticelli's Mars and Venus, or Cimabue's Crucifixion, by emptying out our own. After the negative effort, the positive. We must use our eyes. We must look, and go on looking till we have ...