What 1936 scholarly book made C.S. Lewis an important literary historian?

The Allegory of Love made C.S. Lewis an important literary historian. Published in 1936, the study examines allegorical and courtly love literature from the medieval period through the Renaissance.

Lewis analyzes works by authors including Ovid, Chrétien de Troyes, and Edmund Spenser. He argues that medieval writers developed a distinctive literary tradition in which personified abstractions, moral ideas, and romantic experience could be woven into elaborate narratives.

The book established Lewis’s reputation beyond his teaching at Oxford and helped lead to his appointment as a fellow and tutor at Magdalen College. Its scholarship also influenced how many readers approached medieval poetry and allegory.

The title is sometimes confused with Lewis’s later book A Preface to Paradise Lost, which focuses specifically on John Milton’s epic. The Allegory of Love is broader in historical range and is not a study of Paradise Lost alone.