Record Number: 32372

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

(1)'What is nicer than to get a book — doubtful both about reading matter and edition, and then to find both are topping?.... I have just had this pleasure in Sidney's "Arcadia". Oh Arthur, you simply must get it.... I don't know how to explain its particular charm, because it is not at all like anything I ever read before: and yet in places like all of them.... The only real fault is that all the people talk too much and with a tendency to rhetoric, and the author insists on making bad puns from time to time.' (2) 'I am at present enjoying a new literary find in the shape of Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia", which I got at a venture and found better than I expected.' (3) 'The "Arcadia" continues beautiful: in fact it gets better and better. There has been one part that Charlotte Bronte could not have bettered: where Philoclea ... goes out by moonlight to an old grove ... that is equal to if not better than the scene where Jane Eyre wakes up on the moor...' (4) 'That feast the "Arcadia" is nearly ended: in some ways the last book is the best ... and here the story is so like the part of Ivanhoe where they are all in Front-de-Boeuf's castle, that I think Scott must have borrowed it.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 15 Jun 1916 and 18 Jul 1916

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

Great Bookham
Surrey
'Gastons'

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Clive Staples Lewis

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

29 Nov 1898

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Student

Religion:

Church of England

Country of Origin:

Northern Ireland

Country of Experience:

England

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Philip Sidney

Title:

The Prose Works of Sir Philip Sidney

Genre:

Fiction, Poetry, Politics, Prose romance, eclogues, Renaissance precursor of the novel

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

Vol. 1 (The Countesse of Pembroke's Arcadia). Cambridge University Press, 1912

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

32372

Source:

Print

Author:

C. S. Lewis

Editor:

Walter Hooper

Title:

C. S. Lewis Collected Letters

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

2000

Vol:

1

Page:

196-97, 199, 201-2, 211

Additional Comments:

(1) From a letter to Arthur Greeves, 20 June 1916 (2) From a letter to his father, 23 June 1916 (3) From a letter to Arthur Greeves, 28 June 1916 (4) From a letter to the same, 11 July 1916

Citation:

C. S. Lewis, Walter Hooper (ed.), C. S. Lewis Collected Letters, (London, 2000), 1 , p. 196-97, 199, 201-2, 211, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32372, accessed: 14 May 2024

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Additional Comments:

'The "Arcadia" is finished: or rather I have read all there is of it, for unfortunately it breaks off at a most exciting passage in the middle of a sentence.' (Letter to Greeves, 18 July 1916, v.1, p. 214). This comment makes it clear that Lewis was reading Sidney's own revision of his work, often known as the 'New Arcadia'. The 'Old Arcadia' is complete in five books. Lewis refers to the edition he bought in an earlier letter: 'I have found that Sidney's romance the "Arcadia" is published at 4/6 by the Cambridge University Press...' (Letter to Greeves, 14 June 1916, v.1, p.192) He was reading 'Arcadia' purely for pleasure, not as part of his studies: 'I am just longing for Saturday when I can plunge into it again.' (Letter to Greeves, 20 June 1916, v.1, p. 197)