Fill the Stage

Daniel Dignan

Fill The Stage

“Character is Destiny”

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A Reader’s Guide Through the Wardrobe

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Through the Wardrobe is an enlightening guide to C.S. Lewis’s classic fairy tale The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Literature expert Leland Ryken provides readers with a chapter-by-chapter account of the story. Elements such as characterization, plot, story world, and archetypes are explained in an engaging and accessible manner. Throughout each chapter, he includes discussion and reflection questions that aid personal reading and group teaching. After reading the guide, the reader will be a more informed reader of fiction and will be greatly helped in understanding the truth and beauty Lewis conveys.

Ryken studied Lewis’s life and work in detail. (His suggested reading list at the end of the book is extensive.) Ryken also taught literature to college students and wrote over 60 books. In this book, he guides the reader through the ancient story types that Lewis enjoyed, studied, and drew upon in The Chronicles of Narnia, including romance literature, fairy tales, and myth. All of this is presented in concise chapters that are accessible to high school students.

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I enjoyed every chapter. In particular, the chapters on the White Witch and Edmund’s temptation, Peter’s first battle and romance literature, fairy tales, and Aslan were profound and educational. The final part of the book explains the origins of the Narnia books, their reception, their Christian vision, and biographical information about Lewis.

The guide will help your student enjoy the best literature and gain a deeper understanding of the Bible and human experience.

Guides to The Odyssey

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Leland Ryken, one of the great literary minds of the 20th and 21st centuries, wrote a helpful short guide to The Odyssey. His great contribution is making the famous Greek narrative epic understandable and applicable to modern readers. The guide provides short summaries of the plot and profound commentaries of the important ideas in the epic. Ryken also provides helpful questions and thoughts for reflection, conversation, and study.

Ryken emphasizes the presence of the domestic code that governs the story of The Odyssey and helps one understand why the epic’s content is timeless and matters today. He points out Homer’s literary achievements, explains the essential parts of Odysseus’ adventures, trials, and tests during his journey home after the Trojan War, and underlines the significance of encounters and conversations that are difficult to pick up unless one carefully studies the book.

If you want a short guide to help your kid understand why The Odyssey matters and what lessons it teaches, I highly recommend the book.

Another enlightening and helpful resource is a talk Ryken gave a few years ago about Greek classics and The Odyssey in particular. In this talk he explains his approach to teaching the epic to college students, and what is true, good, and helpful about it.

The Odyssey

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No book has had a more significant impact on the Western world and literature outside of the Bible than Homer’s Odyssey. The great literary philosopher Leland Ryken noted that it (along with Homer’s prequel, The Iliad) was a kind of bible for the ancient Greeks. One of the five great Western epics, it has influenced generations of thinkers and leaders with its captivating story, message, and lessons.

This adventure story follows the travels of the Greek hero Odysseus as he endeavors to return home after the Trojan War. Twelve temptations require various virtues to overcome. The hero’s son and wife also play prominent roles: Telemachus in his search for his father, and Penelope in her struggle against the evil suitors at home.

Who can forget the hero’s adventures? His struggle against the deadly witch, outsmarting the cyclops, leadership at sea, the Siren’s Call, faithfulness to his family and home, and patient planning to right wrongs all factor into an epic of endurance. He faced grave danger, overt temptation, and subtle dangers that require careful reading.

If read carefully and with help, a teenager can benefit from witnessing the virtues displayed in the face of temptations. I recommend Emily Wilson’s poetic translation; it was a joy to read.

The Odyssey might be the best entry point if your son or daughter has never read Homer. The Iliad is fascinating but focuses on war and can be tiring. The Odyssey offers more variety, and the lessons are more apparent.

How To Be A Friend

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Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesman, wrote a short book on friendship that is helpful. By an older character talking to two younger men, he makes the case that friendship is critical to happiness, and that it is based chiefly on virtue. In fact, the greater one’s virtue, the greater one’s capacity for happy friendships.

There are gems in this book about how friendships flourish and die, the dangers of flattery, the importance of criticism, and how to be a true friend. It is the kind of book that one will want to read more than once.

A high school or middle school student can benefit from it.

The translator includes the Latin on the left-hand pages and the English translation on the right.

A Well-Ordered Life

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As a Christian, I enjoy hearing preachers explain Bible texts. The Bible contains 66 books that form a unified whole. Each book has a purpose and a unique message, but the Bible can and should be read as a single story.

Charles Spurgeon was one of the greatest preachers and leaders in modern history. His sermons were read worldwide and are still widely read today. For decades, he preached to thousands in London every week.

I recommend that you read Spurgeon’s sermons to your kids. They are an excellent tool for helping young people understand the Bible’s message about God, man, Christ, and his future kingdom. While his language is a product of Victorian England, it can be understood with a little effort. A parent can help a kid make sense of more challenging words.

The following sermon is about living a well-ordered life, a life that leads to happiness. I have read it twice, and it is worth reading more than that. It is full of wisdom.

Becoming C.S. Lewis

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Although C.S. Lewis’s writings and adult life are well-known, his childhood, adolescence, and the influences that shaped him are less so. Harry Lee Poe’s Becoming C.S. Lewis, the first of a three-volume biography, reveals Lewis’s thinking and education as a boy and his transition to adulthood.

As a boy, C.S. Lewis became deeply interested in stories about journeys or quests–the pursuit of something valuable. Stories like the Odyssey, the Arthurian legends, and The Faerie Queen shaped his thinking and imagination and eventually helped him understand what he was searching for. His childhood was marked by his mother’s death, books, music, long walks, difficult school experiences, and W.T. Kirkpatrick’s tutelage in Surrey, England.

The book does an excellent job of tracing his thinking (through his correspondence), intellectual and spiritual development, and his likes and dislikes. The author, deeply versed in the great books, helps the reader understand the great stories of Western Civilization and why they mattered to him.

I recommend this book for high school students and parents alike. It enables readers to think about and experience what made Lewis one of the greatest minds of Western Civilization.

Inklings Fellowship Events

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The Inklings Fellowship is hosting two Narnia-related events in 2025. One will be in North Carolina in April and the other at Oxford University in July. The host is Harry Lee Poe, retired Union University professor and C.S. Lewis biographer.

At Oxford, C.S. Lewis became a renowned literature professor and established a lifelong friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien. For years, they and other writers met at the Eagle and Child across the street from the University to discuss their writings (including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and enjoy each other’s company.

The trip includes free time to explore Oxford and its surroundings. Oxford is a beautiful town known for its University, culture, bookstores, restaurants, and shops. It is worth a visit.

Narnia on Stage

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will soon be performed at the Bible Museum’s theater in Washington, D.C.

I went to The Horse and His Boy a couple of years ago. It was very well done. The theater is large and world-class. I recommend it!

Jesus The Great Philosopher

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Jesus The Great Philosopher provides a helpful introduction to ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and the big philosophical domains they explored. The domains are what reality is (metaphysics), how we know what we know (epistemology), what is good (ethics), and how to order society for happiness (politics).

They sought to identify and show how to think and live to become happy and flourish.

Jonathan T. Pennington contends that while Christianity should certainly be viewed as a religion in that it deals with man’s relationship with God, it is also “a philosophy of happiness” (205).

The author shows that the Bible provides thick answers to metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and political questions, and intentionally so.

Moreover, ancient art and the Bible reveal that Jesus was not only considered to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the LORD, and the Savior, but also a philosopher. Pennington cites texts like John 10:10 and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) as evidence that Jesus was a philosopher of happiness.

The book explains the importance of emotions and relationships, examines ancient philosophical views that continue to affect Western civilization today, and discusses how Christianity provides emotional renewal and relational restoration between God and man, and between people. The author also helpfully discusses biblical disciplines like reflection and prayer.

The author believes that a lapse in serious reflection on ultimate philosophical questions and on the philosophy of Christianity has led to confusion about what’s necessary to think and live well.

The book is a page-turner and suitable for high school students, even if they are unfamiliar with Greek philosophy. Also, it’s a great introduction to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the primary philosophical questions, and the philosophy of the Bible.

Here are a few short videos from the author about the book.