Scott Freeman

Reading C.S.: Spirits in Bondage and Dymer

The first two published works of C.S. Lewis were poems. Spirits in Bondage was published in 1919 when Lewis was 21 years old. Dymer followed 7 years later.

These are the only two works of his before his conversion so they offer somewhat of a different glimpse of the great writer who would emerge in the coming decades.

Reading these works, although both of them were relatively brief, was a chore for me for two reasons:

1) I don’t enjoy poetry. Before you think me a complete and totally uncultured cad you must understand the second reason:

2) I don’t get poetry. The skills required to truly enjoy poetry: reading slowly, savoring each line, focusing on the power of individual phrases over and apart from the whole are lost on me.

So, while I didn’t really enjoy either of these works, I must acknowledge that may be due to my own professed lack of appreciation for the genre. Again, both of these titles are brief and can be read in about an hour. I’ll refrain from giving a grade on both of these.

Spirits in Bondage

Lewis’ first work is the only one that has passed into the Public Domain. You can read it online for free here. I encourage you to read it and share your thoughts.

It is a cycle of lyrical poetry that is divided into three parts: The Prison House, Hesitation, and The Escape.

Lewis’ reaction to his service in WWI and his hatred of the boarding school experiences of his youth obviously color his writing.

In French Nocturne he refers to sacked villages and buzzing planes.

Satan features prominently in The Prison House:

I am the flower and the dewdrop fresh,
I am the lust in your itching flesh.

I am the battle’s filth and strain,
I am the widow’s empty pain.

I am the sea to smother your breath,
I am the bomb, the falling death.

What I see as a constant throughout this work is his own agnosticism. God is distant and uncaring to the young Lewis:

Yet I will not bow down to thee nor love thee,
For looking in my own heart I can prove thee,
And know this frail, bruised being is above thee.

Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right,
Our mercy and long seeking of the light,
Shall we change these for thy relentless might?

Laugh then and slay. Shatter all things of worth,
Heap torment still on torment for thy mirth–
Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth.

But, ultimately, I see a searching for Truth in the words of this poem: “Who shall be our prophets then?” But at this stage in his life there is no true answer.

Spirits in Bondage shows the depth of his intellect but doesn’t display the depth of wisdom that would come in later years. Then again wisdom is not a common commodity for a 21 year old.

Dymer

Dymer would come along 7 years later, although it was probably completed some time prior to 1926.

I found it to be overwhelmingly bleak, which might give us insight to the depth of Lewis’ spiritual crisis at this point in his life. It is a tale, in Lewis’ words, “of a man who, on some mysterious bride, begets a monster: which monster, as soon as it has killed its father, becomes a god.”

For those familiar with Plato the narrative will seem familiar. Upon escaping from the totalitarian “perfect world” Dymer is able to see more clearly. However, he will soon find that not only is totalitarianism not an ideal environment, anarchism is equally flawed.

Set free from the restrictive totalitarian state upon killing his teacher, Dymer finds a banquet and feeds his lust. His desires are acknowledged and answered through abundance and sex.
But that is fleeting. And self-love, the Occult, and other avenues of fulfillment come up wanting.

Without spoiling the ending, Dymer realizes that his desires have produced severe consequences. The ending is bleak and devoid of hope and, ultimately, is a mess. We have little inkling here of the writer Lewis would become.

Up Next: The Pilgrim’s Regress