Romanticism and C.S. Lewis -- Beauty, Wordsworth, and Lewis -- The romantic roots, Woodsworth and Coleridge -- MacDonald, Chesterton, and Barfield -- The Prelude, Wordsworth, and Lewis -- Perelandra and the Space Trilogy: creation and the medieval utopia in Lewis's vision -- surprised by Joy and the redemption of nature -- Early and late: the pilgrim's regress to till we have faces -- Lewis as child critic -- Leavis, Lewis, and postmodernism.

Contrary to the popular perception that C.S. Lewis was merely a religious writer, there is a good case to be made for Lewis being one of the major British writers of the twentieth century if we look at him as a prime member of a resurgent Romantic movement after the Second World War. Much has been written on Lewis's thoughts on joy, a central aspect of his Romanticism. However, Lewis was at the same time a Rationalist, and managed to merge his rationalism with his romanticism in a unique and original manner. And his romanticism likewise was complex and owed much to George MacDonald and, through medium of McDonald's thought, to the romanticism of William Wordsworth.