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Charles Walter Stansby Williams (20 September 1886
– 15 May 1945) was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary
critic, and a member of the Inklings.
Biography
Williams was born in London in 1886, the only son of Richard and
Mary Williams of Islington. He had one sister, Edith, born in 1889.
Educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire,
Williams was awarded a scholarship to University College London,
but was forced to leave in 1904 without taking a degree because his
family lacked the financial resources to support him. In the same
year he began work in a Methodist Bookroom. Williams was hired by
Oxford University Press as a
proofreading assistant in 1908 before quickly climbing to the
position of editor. He continued to work at OUP in various
positions of increasing responsibility until his death in 1945. One
of his greatest editorial achievements was the publication of the
first major English-language edition of the works of Søren
Kierkegaard.
Although chiefly remembered as a novelist, Williams also
published works of literary criticism, theology, drama, history,
biography, and a voluminous number of book reviews. Some of his
best known novels are War in Heaven (1930), Descent into
Hell (1937), and All Hallows' Eve (1945). T. S. Eliot, who wrote
an introduction for the last of these, described Williams’s novels
as "supernatural thrillers" because they explore the sacramental
intersection of the physical with the spiritual while also
examining the ways in which power, even spiritual power, can
corrupt as well as sanctify. All of Williams’ fantasies, unlike
those of J. R.
R. Tolkien and most of those of C. S. Lewis, are set in the contemporary
world. More recent writers of fantasy novels with contemporary
settings, notably Tim
Powers, cite Williams as a model and inspiration. W. H. Auden, one of
Williams’ greatest admirers, reportedly re-read Williams’s
extraordinary and highly unconventional history of the church,
Descent of the Dove (1939), every year. Williams’s study
of Dante entitled The Figure of Beatrice (1944) was very
highly regarded at its time of publication and continues to be
consulted by Dante scholars today. Williams, however,
regarded his most important work to be his extremely dense and
complex Arthurian
poetry, of which two books were published, Taliessin through
Logres (1938) and The Region of the Summer Stars
(1944), and more remained unfinished at his death. Some of
Williams’ best essays were collected and published in Anne Ridler's Image
of the City and Other Essays in 1958.
Williams gathered many followers and disciples during his
lifetime. He was, for a period, a member of the Salvator Mundi
Temple of the Fellowship
of the Rosy Cross. He met fellow Anglican Evelyn
Underhill (who was affiliated with a similar group, the Order of the Golden Dawn) in 1937 and was
later to write the introduction to her published Letters
in 1943.[1]
Williams also formed master-disciple relationships with young women
throughout his lifetime. The best known (though probably not the
most significant) of these occurred in the early 1940s with Lois
Lang Sims. Lang Sims, whom Williams referred to as Lalage,
published a series of letters that Williams wrote to her during
this period in a volume entitled Letters to Lalage (1989).
Though Williams married his first sweetheart, Florence Conway, in
1917, he continually struggled to reconcile a lifelong (though
probably unconsummated) love affair with Phyllis Jones (who joined
the Oxford University Press in 1924 as librarian) with his
Christian faith (he was an unswerving and devoted member of the Church of
England, reputedly with a refreshing tolerance of the
scepticism of others and a firm belief in the necessity of a
"doubting Thomas" in any apostolic body).
Although Williams attracted the attention and admiration of some
of the most notable writers of his day, including T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, his
greatest admirer was probably C. S. Lewis, whose novel That
Hideous Strength was at the time regarded as entirely
inspired by Williams's novels. Williams came to know Lewis after
reading Lewis’s recently published study The
Allegory of Love; he was so impressed he jotted down a
letter of congratulations and dropped it in the mail.
Coincidentally, Lewis had just finished reading Williams’s novel
The Place of the Lion and
had written a similar note of congratulations. The letters crossed
in the mail and led to an enduring and fruitful friendship. When World War II broke
out in 1939, Oxford University Press moved
its offices from London to Oxford. Although Williams was
reluctant to leave his beloved city, this move did allow him to
participate regularly in Lewis’s literary society known as the Inklings. In this setting
Williams was able to read (and improve) his final published novel,
All Hallows' Eve, as well as to hear J. R. R.
Tolkien read some of his early drafts of The
Lord of the Rings aloud to the group. In addition to
meeting in Lewis’ rooms at Oxford, they also regularly met at The Eagle
and Child pub in Oxford (better known by its nickname "The Bird
and Baby"). During this time Williams also gave lectures at Oxford on John Milton and received an honorary M.A.
degree. Williams is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford: his
headstone bears the word "poet".
Williams’s novels
- War in Heaven (1930) — The Holy Grail surfaces in an obscure country
parish and becomes variously a sacramental object to protect or a
vessel of power to exploit.
- Many Dimensions (1931) — An evil antiquarian illegally
purchases the fabled Stone of Suleiman (Williams uses this Muslim
form rather than the more familiar King Solomon) from its
Islamic guardian in Baghdad
and returns to England to discover not only that the Stone can
multiply itself infinitely without diminishing the original, but
that it also allows its possessor to transcend the barriers of
space and time.
- The Place of the Lion (1931)
— Platonic archetypes begin to appear throughout
England, wreaking havoc and drawing to the surface the spiritual
strengths and flaws of individual characters.
- The Greater Trumps (1932) — The original Tarot is used to unlock enormous
metaphysical powers by allowing the possessors to see across space
and time, create matter, and raise powerful natural storms.
- Shadows of Ecstasy (1933) — A humanistic adept has
discovered that by focusing his energies inward he can extend his
life almost indefinitely. He undertakes an experiment using African
lore to die and resurrect his own body thereby assuring his
immortality. His followers begin a revolutionary movement to
destroy European civilization.
- Descent into Hell (1937) —
Generally thought to be Williams’s best novel, Descent
deals with various forms of selfishness, and how the cycle of sin
brings about the necessity for redemptive acts. In it, an academic
becomes so far removed from the world that he fetishizes a woman to
the extent that his perversion takes the form of a succubus. Characters include
a doppelgänger and the ghost of a suicidal
Victorian
builder. It is illustrative of Williams’s belief in the replacement
of sin and substitutional love.
- All Hallows' Eve (1945) — Opens with a discussion
between the ghosts of two dead women wandering about London.
Ultimately explores the meaning of human suffering and empathy by
dissolving the barrier between the living and the dead through both
black magic and divine love.
Works
Chronological list of Williams’s publications:
- The Silver Stair (1912) poems
- Poems of Conformity (1917)poems
- Divorce (1920) poems
- Windows of Night (1924) poems
- The Masque of the Manuscript (1927) play
- A Book of Victorian Narrative Verse (1927) edited
collection
- A Myth of Shakespeare (1928) play
- A Masque of Perusal (1929) play
- War in Heaven (1930) novel ISBN 978-0-8028-1219-3
- Poetry At Present (1930) criticism
- The Place of the Lion (1931) novel ISBN
978-1-57383-108-6
- Three Plays (1931) plays
- Many Dimensions (1931) novel ISBN 0-8028-1221-X
- The English Poetic Mind (1932) criticism
- The Greater Trumps (1932) novel ISBN
1-57383-111-5
- A Short Life of Shakespeare: with the Sources (1933)
abridgment of Chamber's 'William Shakespeare: A study of Facts
& Problems'
- Shadows Of Ecstasy (1933) novel (first written in
1925) ISBN 1-57383-109-3
- James I (1934) biography
- Rochester (1935) biography
- The New Book of English Verse (1935), editor, with Lord David
Cecil, Ernest de
Selincourt, E. M. W. Tillyard; collection
- Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury (1936) Canterbury
Festival Play
- Queen Elizabeth (1936) biography
- Descent Into Hell (1937) novel ISBN
978-0-8028-1220-9
- He Came Down From Heaven (1938) theology
- Taliessin through Logres (1938) poems
- The Descent of the Dove: a short history of the Holy Spirit
in the Church (1939) theology
- Judgement at Chelmsford (1939) play
- Witchcraft (1941) history/theology
- The Forgiveness of Sins (1942) theology
- Outlines of Romantic Theology: Religion and Love in
Dante (c. 1930, pub. 1989) theology
- The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante (1943)
criticism
- The Region of the Summer Stars (1944) poems
- All Hallows' Eve (1945) novel ISBN 1-57383-110-7
- The House of the Octopus (1945) play
- Flecker of Dean Close (1946) biography of William
Herman Flecker, 1859–1941
- Arthurian Torso Containing the Posthumous Fragment of The
Figure of Arthur (1948) with C. S. Lewis poetry
- Seed of Adam and other plays (1948) plays
- The Image of the City and Other Essays (1958) edited
by Anne Ridler
- Collected Plays (1963) ISBN 978-1-57383-366-0
- Charles Williams (Arthurian Poets) (1991) edited by
David Llewellyn Dodds
- Charles Williams: Essential Writings in Spirituality and
Theology (1993) edited by Charles Hefling
- Outlines of romantic theology; with which is reprinted
Religion & love in Dante: the theology of romantic love
(1990) edited by Alice Mary Hadfield
Literature
- Ashenden, Gavin. CHARLES WILLIAMS: Alchemy and
Integration. Kent State University Press, 2007.
- Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings. London: Allen and
Unwin, 1978.
- Cavaliero, Glen. Charles Williams: Poet of Theology.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
- Dunning Stephen M.. The Crisis and the Quest — A
Kierkegaardian Reading of Charles Williams. Paternoster
Biblical and Theological Monographs, 2000.
- Glyer, Diana Pavlac. The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and
J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. Kent State
University Press. Kent Ohio. 2007. ISBN 978-0-87338-890-0
- Hadfield, Alice Mary. Charles Williams: An Exploration of
His Life and Work. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1983.
- Howard, Thomas. The Novels of Charles Williams. San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991.
- Huttar, Charles A., and Peter J. Schakel, eds. The Rhetoric
of Vision: Essays on Charles Williams. Lewisburg: Bucknell
University Press/London: Associated University Presses, 1996.
- Lindop, Grevel. Charles Williams: The Last Magician.
Oxford University Press. (forthcoming, 2009)
- Shideler, Mary McDermott. Charles Williams: A Critical
Essay. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966.
- Sibley, Agnes. Charles Williams. Boston: Twayne,
1982.
- Walsh, Chad. "Charles Williams’ Novels and the Contemporary
Mutation of Consciousness," in Myth, Allegory and Gospel: An
Interpretation of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton,
Charles Williams. John Warwick Montgomery, ed. Minneapolis:
Bethany Fellowship, 1974, pp. 53–77.
- Owen, James A. "Here There Be Dragons" and its sequels, "The
Search for the Red Dragon", "The Indigo King", and "The Shadow
Dragons" feature Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R Tolkien as
the main characters.
References
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