What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1964 book on medieval and Renaissance literature?

The Discarded Image is C.S. Lewis’s 1964 book on medieval and Renaissance literature.

The book’s full title is The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. It examines the mental model of the universe that shaped much premodern writing, including ideas about the heavens, planets, spiritual beings, and the ordered relationship between the natural and supernatural worlds.

Lewis explains that medieval authors wrote within a richly structured cosmos rather than the modern scientific picture familiar to contemporary readers. Understanding that framework, he argues, helps readers interpret works by authors such as Chaucer, Dante, and John Milton more accurately.

The title does not mean that medieval literature itself was discarded. It refers to the older image of the universe that modern culture largely replaced. The work grew out of Lewis’s academic teaching and was published after he had moved from Oxford to Cambridge, where he held a chair in medieval and Renaissance literature.