The Space Trilogy
Encyclopedia
The Space Trilogy, Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy is a trilogy
of science fiction
novels by C. S. Lewis
, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia
. A philologist
named Elwin Ransom
is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third.
The books in the trilogy are:
In 1946, the publishing house Avon (now an imprint
of HarperCollins
) published a version of That Hideous Strength specially abridged by C.S. Lewis entitled The Tortured Planet.
The other main literary influence was David Lindsay
's A Voyage to Arcturus
(1920).http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=882
The books are not especially concerned with technological speculation, and in many ways read like fantasy
adventures combined with themes of biblical history and classical mythology. Like most of Lewis's mature writing, they contain much discussion of contemporary rights and wrongs, similar in outlook to Madeleine L'Engle
's Kairos series. The kidnapping of Ransom by Dr Weston is reminiscent of Flash Gordon
being forced into Dr Hans Zarkov's spaceship. Many of the names in the trilogy reflect the influence of Lewis' friend J.R.R. Tolkien's Elvish languages.
and with no living relatives except for one sibling. Lewis, however, apparently intended for Ransom to be partially patterned after his friend and fellow Oxford
professor J. R. R. Tolkien
, since Lewis is presented as novelizing Ransom's reminiscences in the epilogue of Out of the Silent Planet and is a character-narrator
in the frame tale for Perelandra. In That Hideous Strength
Ransom, with his royal charisma and casual acceptance of the supernatural, appears more like Charles Williams
(or some of the heroes in Williams' books).
In Out of the Silent Planet it is suggested that "Ransom" is not the character's real name but merely an alias for a respectable professor whose reputation might suffer from his telling a fantastic story of having been to the planet Mars.
In the following books, however, this is unaccountably dropped and it is made clear that Ransom is the character's true name. As befits a philologist, he provides an etymology
: the name does not derive from the modern word "ransom" but rather is a contraction of the Old English for "Ranulf's Son". This may be another allusion to Tolkien, a professor of Old English.
from the Oyarsa (presiding angel) of Malacandra, or Mars
. Maleldil, the son of the Old One, ruled the Field of Arbol, or solar system
, directly. But then the Bent One (the Oyarsa of Earth) rebelled against Maleldil and all the eldila (similar to the Valar in Tolkien's Silmarillion) of Deep Heaven (outer space). In response to this act, the Bent One suffered confinement on Earth where he first inflicted great evil. Thus he made Earth a silent planet, cut off from the Oyéresu of other planets, hence the name 'Thulcandra', the Silent Planet, which is known throughout the Universe. Maleldil tried to reach out to Thulcandra and became a man to save the human race. According to the Green Lady, Tinidril (Mother of Perelandra, or Venus), Thulcandra is favored among all the worlds, because Maleldil came to it to become a man.
In the Field of Arbol, the outer planets are older, the inner planets newer.
Earth will remain a silent planet until the end of the great Siege of Deep Heaven against the Oyarsa of Earth. The siege starts to end (with the Oyéresu of other worlds descending to Earth) at the finale of the Trilogy, That Hideous Strength
. But there is still much to happen until the fulfillment of what is predicted in the Book of Revelation
, when the Oyéresu put an end to the rule of the Bent Eldil and, on the way, smash the Moon
to fragments. This, in turn, will not be "The End of the World", but merely "The Very Beginning" of what is still to come.
s. The human characters in the trilogy encounter them on various planets, but the eldila themselves are native to interplanetary and interstellar space ("Deep Heaven"). They are barely visible as pillars of faint, shifting light.
Certain very powerful eldila, the Oyéresu (singular Oyarsa), control the course of nature on each of the planets of the Solar System (similar to the Valar
in The Silmarillion). They (and maybe all the eldila) can manifest in corporeal forms. The title Oyarsa seems to indicate the function of leadership, regardless of the leader's species; when the Perelandran human Tor assumes rule of his world, he styles himself "Tor-Oyarsa-Perelendri" (presumably "Tor, Ruler of Perelandra").
The eldila are science-fictionalized depictions of angel
s, immortal and holy, with the Oyéresu perhaps being angels of a higher order. (As Lewis implies in Chapter 22 of Out of the Silent Planet, the name Oyarsa was suggested by Oyarses, the name given in Bernard Silvestris
's Cosmographia
to the governors of the celestial spheres
. Bernard's word was almost certainly a corruption—or a deliberate alteration—of Greek οὐσιάρχης [ousiarches, "lords of being"], used with the same meaning in the Hermetic
Asclepius.) The eldila resident on—actually, imprisoned in—Earth are "dark eldila", fallen angel
s or demon
s. The Oyarsa of Earth, the "Bent One", is Satan
. Ransom later meets the Oyéresu of both Mars and Venus, who are described as being masculine (but not actually male) and feminine (but not actually female), respectively. The Oyarsa of other worlds have characteristics like the Classical Gods, the Oyarsa of Jupiter gives a feeling of merriment.
The term was adopted by some other people, including Lewis' friend J. R. R. Tolkien
, who used the term in his (unpublished during his lifetime) The Notion Club Papers
- distinguishing hnau from beings of pure spirit or spirits able to assume a body (which is not essential to their nature). Similarly, a character in James Blish
's science fiction novel A Case of Conscience
wonders whether a particular alien is a hnau, which he defines as having "a rational soul".
In recent times the term has been used by some philosophers
, for example in Thomas I. White's "Is a Dolphin a Person?", where he asks if Dolphins are persons, and if such, if they can also be reckoned as hnau: that is sentient beings of the same level as humans.
Other uses of the term include the term as used by some Christians
: here as with Tolkien's use of the term "hnau" refers to sentient beings possessing independent will, and thus by extension a soul
.
somewhat resemble the corresponding gods from classical
mythology—derives from Lewis's interest in medieval beliefs. Lewis discusses these in his book The Discarded Image (published much later than the Ransom Trilogy). Lewis was intrigued with the ways medieval authors borrowed concepts from pre-Christian religion and science and attempted to reconcile them with Christianity
, and with the lack of a clear distinction between natural and supernatural phenomena in medieval thought. The Space Trilogy also plays on themes in Lewis's essay "Religion and Rocketry", which argues that as long as humanity remains flawed and sinful, our exploration of other planets will tend to do them more harm than good. Furthermore, much of the substance of the argument between Ransom and Weston in Perelandra
is found in Lewis's book Miracles. Links between Lewis's Space Trilogy and his other writings are discussed at great length in Michael Ward's Planet Narnia and in Kathryn Lindskoog's C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian.
J.R.R. Tolkien was a friend and sometime mentor to Lewis. In That Hideous Strength, Lewis alludes several times to Tolkien's Atlantean
civilization Numinor (spelt Númenor
by Tolkien), saying in the foreword “Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the True West must (alas!) await the publication of much that still exists only in the MSS. of my friend, Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.” Villains in both Tolkien's Lord of the Rings cycle and here are very hostile toward the natural world (specifically in the wanton destruction of trees and the manipulation of life).
Stephen R. Lawhead
's Song of Albion
trilogy contains numerous references to and parallels to the Space Trilogy. The main character is an Oxford student whose first name is Lewis. The books combine themes of Christianity and pre-Christian mythology, while the plot involves materialistic endeavors to gain access to forbidden worlds for material gain. There is also a minor villain named Weston.
John C. Wright's War of the Dreaming duology also references the Space Trilogy, with Sulva as a name for the Moon and references to fallen 'planetary angels'.
s, adding an internal -é-, and adding or altering a final vowel (usually to -i or -u), and may also include internal metathesis
(Oyérasu, séroni, hnéraki).
, whose lyrics frequently subsist on monster themes, borrowed heavily from The Space Trilogy in their album The Monster Who Ate Jesus. Their song "Ransom vs. The Unman" is a direct retelling of the struggle between Ransom and the Unman in Perelandra. The very next song, entitled "March of the Macrobes," alludes to the N.I.C.E. Institute's attempts to disembody the heads of those who wish to gain immortality with lines such as, "Leave flesh behind / There's only mind / Or set the brain apart / To elevate the heart / Whatever happened to the individual? (N.I.C.E.) / Where is his soul? (R.A.P.E.)." Lastly, "Tundra Time on Thulcandra" is a tribute to Out of the Silent Planet, with an allusion to the planet Perelandra as well. "Malacandra on my mind / Perelandra all the time / Nevermind it's tundra / It's tundra time."
Becoming the Archetype
, a Christian progressive death metal band, produced an album titled Dichotomy
which was inspired by The Space Trilogy. The album explores themes that are prevalent in the trilogy: biology versus technology and man versus machine.
Circle of Dust
, a Christian industrial band, reference The Space Trilogy on Disengage, an album which includes two instrumental tracks named Thulcandra and Perelandra.
Progressive rock band Glass Hammer
have based the concept of their album Perelandra
on the stories of The Space Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia
.
by Walter Hooper
, its editor, features Elwin Ransom in a less central role as involved with an experiment that allows its participants to view on a special screen their own location in a parallel universe
. Its authenticity was impeached by Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog
in her scholarly criticism of Walter Hooper, but in 2003 Alastair Fowler established its authenticity when he wrote in the Yale Review
that he saw Lewis writing the manuscript that would be subsequently published as The Dark Tower, heard him reading it, and discussed it with him.
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novels by C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children by C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children's literature and is the author's best-known work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages...
. A philologist
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
named Elwin Ransom
Elwin Ransom
Elwin Ransom is the prominent character from C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy series. He is the main character in the books Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, which are told almost entirely from his point of view...
is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third.
The books in the trilogy are:
- Out of the Silent PlanetOut of the Silent PlanetOut of the Silent Planet is the first novel of a science fiction trilogy written by C. S. Lewis, sometimes referred to as the Space Trilogy, Ransom Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy. The other volumes are Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, and a fragment of a sequel was published posthumously as The...
(1938), set mostly on MarsMarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. In this book Elwin Ransom voyages to Mars and discovers that Earth is exiled from the rest of the solar system due to its fallen nature and is known as "the silent planet". - PerelandraPerelandraPerelandra is the second book in the Space Trilogy of C. S. Lewis, set in the Field of Arbol...
(1943), set mostly on VenusVenusVenus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
. Also known as Voyage to Venus. Here Dr Ransom journeys to an unspoiled Venus in which the first humanoids have just emerged. - That Hideous StrengthThat Hideous StrengthThat Hideous Strength is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom...
(1945), set on EarthEarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. A scientific think tank called the N.I.C.E. is secretly in touch with demonic entities who plan to ravage and lay waste to planet Earth.
In 1946, the publishing house Avon (now an imprint
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
of HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
) published a version of That Hideous Strength specially abridged by C.S. Lewis entitled The Tortured Planet.
Influences and approach
Lewis stated in a letter to Roger Lancelyn Green:What immediately spurred me to write was Olaf StapledonOlaf StapledonWilliam Olaf Stapledon was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction.-Life:...
's Last and First MenLast and First MenLast and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre, it describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years and eighteen...
and an essay in J.B.S. Haldane's Possible Worlds both of which seemed to take the idea of such [space] travel seriously and to have the desperately immoral outlook which I try to pillory in Weston. I like the whole interplanetary ideas as a mythology and simply wished to conquer for my own point of view what has always hitherto been used by the opposite side. I think H. G. WellsH. G. WellsHerbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
's First Men in the MoonThe First Men in the MoonThe First Men in the Moon is a 1901 scientific romance novel by the English author H. G. Wells. The novel tells the story of a journey to the moon undertaken by the two protagonists, the impoverished businessman Mr Bedford and the brilliant but eccentric scientist Dr. Cavor...
the best of the sort I have read....
The other main literary influence was David Lindsay
David Lindsay (novelist)
David Lindsay was a Scottish author now most famous for the philosophical science fiction novel A Voyage to Arcturus .-Biography:...
's A Voyage to Arcturus
A Voyage to Arcturus
A Voyage to Arcturus is a novel by Scottish writer David Lindsay, first published in 1920. It combines fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence. It has been described by critic and philosopher Colin Wilson as the...
(1920).http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=882
The books are not especially concerned with technological speculation, and in many ways read like fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
adventures combined with themes of biblical history and classical mythology. Like most of Lewis's mature writing, they contain much discussion of contemporary rights and wrongs, similar in outlook to Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer best known for her young-adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time...
's Kairos series. The kidnapping of Ransom by Dr Weston is reminiscent of Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
being forced into Dr Hans Zarkov's spaceship. Many of the names in the trilogy reflect the influence of Lewis' friend J.R.R. Tolkien's Elvish languages.
Ransom
Ransom appears very similar to Lewis himself: a university professor, expert in languages and medieval literature, unmarried (Lewis did not marry until his fifties), wounded in World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and with no living relatives except for one sibling. Lewis, however, apparently intended for Ransom to be partially patterned after his friend and fellow Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
professor J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
, since Lewis is presented as novelizing Ransom's reminiscences in the epilogue of Out of the Silent Planet and is a character-narrator
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...
in the frame tale for Perelandra. In That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom...
Ransom, with his royal charisma and casual acceptance of the supernatural, appears more like Charles Williams
Charles Williams (UK writer)
Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings.- Biography :...
(or some of the heroes in Williams' books).
In Out of the Silent Planet it is suggested that "Ransom" is not the character's real name but merely an alias for a respectable professor whose reputation might suffer from his telling a fantastic story of having been to the planet Mars.
In the following books, however, this is unaccountably dropped and it is made clear that Ransom is the character's true name. As befits a philologist, he provides an etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
: the name does not derive from the modern word "ransom" but rather is a contraction of the Old English for "Ranulf's Son". This may be another allusion to Tolkien, a professor of Old English.
Cosmology
Ransom gets much information on cosmologyCosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
from the Oyarsa (presiding angel) of Malacandra, or Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. Maleldil, the son of the Old One, ruled the Field of Arbol, or solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
, directly. But then the Bent One (the Oyarsa of Earth) rebelled against Maleldil and all the eldila (similar to the Valar in Tolkien's Silmarillion) of Deep Heaven (outer space). In response to this act, the Bent One suffered confinement on Earth where he first inflicted great evil. Thus he made Earth a silent planet, cut off from the Oyéresu of other planets, hence the name 'Thulcandra', the Silent Planet, which is known throughout the Universe. Maleldil tried to reach out to Thulcandra and became a man to save the human race. According to the Green Lady, Tinidril (Mother of Perelandra, or Venus), Thulcandra is favored among all the worlds, because Maleldil came to it to become a man.
In the Field of Arbol, the outer planets are older, the inner planets newer.
Earth will remain a silent planet until the end of the great Siege of Deep Heaven against the Oyarsa of Earth. The siege starts to end (with the Oyéresu of other worlds descending to Earth) at the finale of the Trilogy, That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom...
. But there is still much to happen until the fulfillment of what is predicted in the Book of Revelation
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
, when the Oyéresu put an end to the rule of the Bent Eldil and, on the way, smash the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
to fragments. This, in turn, will not be "The End of the World", but merely "The Very Beginning" of what is still to come.
Eldila
The eldila (singular eldil) are super-human extraterrestrialExtraterrestrial life in popular culture
In popular cultures, "extraterrestrials" are life forms — especially intelligent life forms— that are of extraterrestrial origin .-Historical ideas:-Pre-modern:...
s. The human characters in the trilogy encounter them on various planets, but the eldila themselves are native to interplanetary and interstellar space ("Deep Heaven"). They are barely visible as pillars of faint, shifting light.
Certain very powerful eldila, the Oyéresu (singular Oyarsa), control the course of nature on each of the planets of the Solar System (similar to the Valar
Vala (Middle-earth)
The Valar are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. They are first mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, but The Silmarillion develops them into the Powers of Arda or the Powers of the World...
in The Silmarillion). They (and maybe all the eldila) can manifest in corporeal forms. The title Oyarsa seems to indicate the function of leadership, regardless of the leader's species; when the Perelandran human Tor assumes rule of his world, he styles himself "Tor-Oyarsa-Perelendri" (presumably "Tor, Ruler of Perelandra").
The eldila are science-fictionalized depictions of angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
s, immortal and holy, with the Oyéresu perhaps being angels of a higher order. (As Lewis implies in Chapter 22 of Out of the Silent Planet, the name Oyarsa was suggested by Oyarses, the name given in Bernard Silvestris
Bernard Silvestris
Bernard Silvestris, also known as Bernardus Silvestris, was a Medieval Platonist philosopher and poet of the 12th century.-Biography:Little is known about his life. André Vernet, who edited Bernard's Cosmographia, believed that he lived from 1085 to 1178; the only certain date in his life is 1147,...
's Cosmographia
Cosmographia (Bernard Silvestris)
Cosmographia is a Latin philosophical allegory, dealing with the creation of the universe, by the twelfth-century author Bernard Silvestris. In form, it is a prosimetrum, in which passages of prose alternate with verse passages in various classical meters...
to the governors of the celestial spheres
Celestial spheres
The celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental entities of the cosmological models developed by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus and others...
. Bernard's word was almost certainly a corruption—or a deliberate alteration—of Greek οὐσιάρχης [ousiarches, "lords of being"], used with the same meaning in the Hermetic
Hermetica
The Hermetica are Greek wisdom texts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, mostly presented as dialogues in which a teacher, generally identified with Hermes Trismegistus or "thrice-greatest Hermes", enlightens a disciple...
Asclepius.) The eldila resident on—actually, imprisoned in—Earth are "dark eldila", fallen angel
Fallen angel
Fallen angel is a concept developed in Jewish mythology from interpretation of the Book of Enoch. The actual term fallen angel is not found in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. Christians adopted the concept of fallen angels mainly based on their interpretations of the Book of...
s or demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s. The Oyarsa of Earth, the "Bent One", is Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
. Ransom later meets the Oyéresu of both Mars and Venus, who are described as being masculine (but not actually male) and feminine (but not actually female), respectively. The Oyarsa of other worlds have characteristics like the Classical Gods, the Oyarsa of Jupiter gives a feeling of merriment.
Hnau
Hnau is a word in the Old Solar language which refers to "sentients" such as Humans. In the book, the Old Solar speaker specifies that God is not hnau, and is unsure whether Eldila (immortal angelic beings) can be termed "hnau", deciding that if they are hnau, they are a different kind of hnau than Humans or Martians.The term was adopted by some other people, including Lewis' friend J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
, who used the term in his (unpublished during his lifetime) The Notion Club Papers
The Notion Club Papers
The Notion Club Papers is the title of an abandoned novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, written during 1945 and published posthumously in Sauron Defeated, the 9th volume of The History of Middle-earth. It is a space/time/dream travel story, written at the same time as The Lord of the Rings was being developed...
- distinguishing hnau from beings of pure spirit or spirits able to assume a body (which is not essential to their nature). Similarly, a character in James Blish
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...
's science fiction novel A Case of Conscience
A Case of Conscience
A Case of Conscience is a science fiction novel by James Blish, first published in 1958. It is the story of a Jesuit who investigates an alien race that has no religion; they are completely without any concept of God, an afterlife, or the idea of sin; and the species evolves through several forms...
wonders whether a particular alien is a hnau, which he defines as having "a rational soul".
In recent times the term has been used by some philosophers
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, for example in Thomas I. White's "Is a Dolphin a Person?", where he asks if Dolphins are persons, and if such, if they can also be reckoned as hnau: that is sentient beings of the same level as humans.
Other uses of the term include the term as used by some Christians
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
: here as with Tolkien's use of the term "hnau" refers to sentient beings possessing independent will, and thus by extension a soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
.
Parallels with other works
The cosmology of all three books—in which the Oyéresu of Mars and VenusVenus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
somewhat resemble the corresponding gods from classical
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
mythology—derives from Lewis's interest in medieval beliefs. Lewis discusses these in his book The Discarded Image (published much later than the Ransom Trilogy). Lewis was intrigued with the ways medieval authors borrowed concepts from pre-Christian religion and science and attempted to reconcile them with Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and with the lack of a clear distinction between natural and supernatural phenomena in medieval thought. The Space Trilogy also plays on themes in Lewis's essay "Religion and Rocketry", which argues that as long as humanity remains flawed and sinful, our exploration of other planets will tend to do them more harm than good. Furthermore, much of the substance of the argument between Ransom and Weston in Perelandra
Perelandra
Perelandra is the second book in the Space Trilogy of C. S. Lewis, set in the Field of Arbol...
is found in Lewis's book Miracles. Links between Lewis's Space Trilogy and his other writings are discussed at great length in Michael Ward's Planet Narnia and in Kathryn Lindskoog's C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian.
J.R.R. Tolkien was a friend and sometime mentor to Lewis. In That Hideous Strength, Lewis alludes several times to Tolkien's Atlantean
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
civilization Numinor (spelt Númenor
Númenor
Númenor is a fictional place in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings. It was a huge island located in the Sundering Seas to the west of Middle-earth, the main setting of Tolkien's writings, and was known to be the greatest realm of Men...
by Tolkien), saying in the foreword “Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the True West must (alas!) await the publication of much that still exists only in the MSS. of my friend, Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.” Villains in both Tolkien's Lord of the Rings cycle and here are very hostile toward the natural world (specifically in the wanton destruction of trees and the manipulation of life).
Stephen R. Lawhead
Stephen R. Lawhead
Stephen R. Lawhead, born , is a best-selling American writer known for his works of fantasy, science fiction, and more recently, historical fiction, particularly Celtic historical fiction...
's Song of Albion
Song of Albion
The Song of Albion is a series of books by Stephen Lawhead, consisting of The Paradise War, The Silver Hand and The Endless Knot. The series combines Christian religious themes with Celtic mythology, and tells the tale of a pair of university students who stumble into an alternate world...
trilogy contains numerous references to and parallels to the Space Trilogy. The main character is an Oxford student whose first name is Lewis. The books combine themes of Christianity and pre-Christian mythology, while the plot involves materialistic endeavors to gain access to forbidden worlds for material gain. There is also a minor villain named Weston.
John C. Wright's War of the Dreaming duology also references the Space Trilogy, with Sulva as a name for the Moon and references to fallen 'planetary angels'.
Language
According to the Space Trilogy's cosmology, the speech of all the inhabitants of the Field of Arbol is the Old Solar or Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi. Only Earth lost the language due to the Bent One's influence. Old Solar can be likened to the Elvish languages invented by Lewis's friend, Tolkien. The grammar is little known, except for the plurals of nouns. The plurals of some words (hross, eldil) are simple, only adding a final -a or -i; others (as for Oyarsa, sorn, hnakra), are quite complex broken pluralBroken plural
In linguistics, a broken plural is an irregular plural form of a noun or adjective found in the Semitic languages and other Afroasiatic languages such as Berber. Broken plurals are formed by changing the pattern of consonants and vowels inside the singular form...
s, adding an internal -é-, and adding or altering a final vowel (usually to -i or -u), and may also include internal metathesis
Metathesis (linguistics)
Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...
(Oyérasu, séroni, hnéraki).
The Space Trilogy in other media
Christian horror punk band Blaster the Rocket ManBlaster the Rocket Man
Blaster the Rocket Man was a Christian horror punk band from Indianapolis, Indiana. They formed in the early 1990s as Blaster the Rocketboy and signed with Boot to Head Records in 1994. They released two records before signing with Jackson Rubio Records. Their name changed to Blaster the Rocket Man...
, whose lyrics frequently subsist on monster themes, borrowed heavily from The Space Trilogy in their album The Monster Who Ate Jesus. Their song "Ransom vs. The Unman" is a direct retelling of the struggle between Ransom and the Unman in Perelandra. The very next song, entitled "March of the Macrobes," alludes to the N.I.C.E. Institute's attempts to disembody the heads of those who wish to gain immortality with lines such as, "Leave flesh behind / There's only mind / Or set the brain apart / To elevate the heart / Whatever happened to the individual? (N.I.C.E.) / Where is his soul? (R.A.P.E.)." Lastly, "Tundra Time on Thulcandra" is a tribute to Out of the Silent Planet, with an allusion to the planet Perelandra as well. "Malacandra on my mind / Perelandra all the time / Nevermind it's tundra / It's tundra time."
Becoming the Archetype
Becoming the Archetype
Becoming the Archetype is a Christian progressive death metal band signed to Solid State Records and Century Media Records formed in 1999 in Dacula, Georgia. They have released four albums on Solid State Records. Dichotomy, released in November 2008, sold around 2,300 copies in the United States...
, a Christian progressive death metal band, produced an album titled Dichotomy
Dichotomy (album)
Dichotomy is the third studio album by metal band Becoming the Archetype. The album features guest appearances by Devin Townsend, Ryan Clark, a soprano named Suzanne Richter, and Aslan.The Album is based heavily on C.S...
which was inspired by The Space Trilogy. The album explores themes that are prevalent in the trilogy: biology versus technology and man versus machine.
Circle of Dust
Circle of Dust
Circle of Dust were a 1990s Industrial rock band created and run by Klayton who is now more widely known for his solo band Celldweller. Circle of Dust was, along with contemporaries Mortal and Deitiphobia, instrumental in bringing industrial metal to the Christian alternative metal scene...
, a Christian industrial band, reference The Space Trilogy on Disengage, an album which includes two instrumental tracks named Thulcandra and Perelandra.
Progressive rock band Glass Hammer
Glass Hammer
Glass Hammer is a progressive rock band from Chattanooga, Tennessee. They formed in 1992 when multi-instrumentalists Steve Babb and Fred Schendel began to write and record Journey of the Dunadan, a concept album based on the story of Aragorn from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings...
have based the concept of their album Perelandra
Perelandra (album)
Perelandra is the second studio album of the progressive rock band Glass Hammer. Its concept is based around the stories of Space Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S...
on the stories of The Space Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children by C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children's literature and is the author's best-known work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages...
.
Glossary
Some terminology in the "Old Solar" language is used throughout the trilogy.- Eldil, pl. Eldila — an everlasting, rational, "multidimensional energy being," that is not organic; an angelAngelAngels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
. Some act in the capacity of "Oyarsa" of a planet. - Field of Arbol — the Solar SystemSolar SystemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
- Glund or Glundandra — JupiterJupiterJupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
- hnau or nau — a rational being, capable of speech, intellect, and personhood, and containing a soul.
- handra — a planet or land
- Lurga — SaturnSaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
- Malacandra — MarsMarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
- Maleldil — JesusJesusJesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, the second person of God with his Father and "the Third One." - Neruval — hapax legomenonHapax legomenonA hapax legomenon is a word which occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or just in a single text. The term is sometimes used incorrectly to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author's works, even though it...
in Perelandra and, from context, apparently UranusUranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus... - Oyarsa, pl. Oyéresu — (Title) Ruler of a planet, a higher-order angel, perhaps an arch-angel.
- PerelandraPerelandraPerelandra is the second book in the Space Trilogy of C. S. Lewis, set in the Field of Arbol...
— VenusVenusVenus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows... - Sulva — The MoonMoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
- Thulcandra — EarthEarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, literally "The Silent Planet" - Viritrilbia — MercuryMercury (planet)Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
The Dark Tower
An unfinished manuscript published posthumously in 1977, named The Dark TowerThe Dark Tower (1977 novel)
The Dark Tower is an incomplete manuscript allegedly written by C. S. Lewis that appears to be an unfinished sequel to the science fiction novel, Out of the Silent Planet. Perelandra instead became the second book of Lewis' Space Trilogy, concluded by That Hideous Strength...
by Walter Hooper
Walter Hooper
Walter McGehee Hooper is a trustee and literary advisor of the estate of C.S. Lewis. Born in Reidsville, North Carolina, U.S., he earned an M.A. in education and was an instructor in English at the University of Kentucky in the early 1960s. As a visitor to England, he served briefly as Lewis's...
, its editor, features Elwin Ransom in a less central role as involved with an experiment that allows its participants to view on a special screen their own location in a parallel universe
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
. Its authenticity was impeached by Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog
Kathryn Lindskoog
Kathryn Lindskoog was a C. S. Lewis scholar known largely for her theory that some works attributed to Lewis are forgeries, including The Dark Tower....
in her scholarly criticism of Walter Hooper, but in 2003 Alastair Fowler established its authenticity when he wrote in the Yale Review
Yale Review
The Yale Review is the self-proclaimed oldest literary quarterly in the United States. It is published by Yale University.It was founded originally in 1819 as The Christian Spectator. At its origin it was published to support Evangelicalism, but over time began to publish more on history and...
that he saw Lewis writing the manuscript that would be subsequently published as The Dark Tower, heard him reading it, and discussed it with him.