C. S. Lewis's Allegory and Symbolism

From reading Lewis's The Allegory of Love, and his definition of allegory vs. symbolism, The Chronicles of Narnia could be called an allegory, but by his definition. In modern usage of the term people who refer to the series as an allegory for Christianity actually mean to say it is symbolic. Allegory starts with the immaterial, like passion, and illustrates it with fiction. Symbolism sees the world itself as the allegory. "If our passions, being immaterial, can be copied by material inventions, then it is possible that our material world in its turn is the copy of an invisible world," (p. 45). "Symbolism is a mode of thought, but allegory is a mode of ..p. 48). Perhaps I can phrase it another way, for my own clarity. It could be categorized as poetry and philosophy. The poet observes the world and writes fiction to reflect it. The philosopher observes the world to see what it reflects. I think of Lewis as a better philosopher than poet. I can see how his studies in Medieval literature, or, more yet, his love of romance noted in Surprised by Joy, would integrate his philosophy with writing fiction.

The best works of literature have both philosophy and poetry. As I think of those I consider great poets -- Wordsworth, Yeats, T.S. Eliot -- they have both aspects in their poetry. They observe the world microscopically and macroscopically. By these categories I see some faults in poetry more clearly. While I admire the imagist poets, they are limited in observing only the world, and not what it represents. Religious and political poetry, in general, is too concerned with the Idea and does not observe the world closely enough.

C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love, New York:Oxford University Press, 1958.