Narrative Poems

C.S. Lewis enjoyed both stories and poetry. His narrative poems combine his gift in story-telling with his skills as a poet. The four pieces in this book are the only narrative poems by Lewis known to be in existence.
The poems are full of Lewis’s romantic imagination; they display his love and knowlege of classic mythology and his own mastery of the English language.

Dymer (1926) * Launcelot (?early 1930s) * The Nameless Isle (1930) * The Queen of Drum (1938)

‘Dymer’ was begun by Lewis as a story in prose and the original idea had ‘come to him’ at the age of 17. It tells the story of a man who begets a monster. The monster kills his father and becomes a god.

‘Launcelot’ is based on the legend of King Arthur and the Holy Grail and ‘The Nameless Isle’ is the story of a shipwrecked mariner and his adventures on a magic island.

‘The Queen of Drum’ tells of an old pompous king and his young queen who eventually has to choose between heaven, hell and fairyland.