What 1936 book established C. S. Lewis as a major literary scholar?

The Allegory of Love established C. S. Lewis as a major literary scholar in 1936.

The book examines representations of courtly love in medieval and Renaissance literature. Lewis discusses works and traditions associated with authors including Ovid, Chaucer, and Edmund Spenser, tracing how allegorical ideas shaped literary treatments of love. Its scholarship helped secure his reputation beyond his earlier imaginative and theological writing.

The title can mislead readers into treating the work as a general history of romantic relationships. It is instead a focused study of literary conventions, allegorical figures, and changing intellectual traditions. Lewis’s command of older English and European literature is central to the book’s influence.

The Allegory of Love was published before his best-known works of Christian apologetics and before The Chronicles of Narnia. It remains one of his most important academic books and is distinct from The Pilgrim’s Regress, his first published book.