What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1964 study of medieval and Renaissance cosmology?
Answer
The Discarded Image
C.S. Lewis’s 1964 study of medieval and Renaissance cosmology was The Discarded Image.
The book examines the model of the universe that shaped much medieval and Renaissance literature. Lewis discusses the period’s ideas about the heavens, Earth, spirits, planets, and the ordered structure of creation. His purpose was to help modern readers understand the imaginative framework behind older texts rather than judge them only by modern scientific assumptions.
The subtitle, An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, signals that the book is literary and intellectual history rather than a work of astronomy. Lewis draws on writers and traditions that include medieval cosmological thought and the literature it influenced.
The title refers to the decline of that older cosmic picture as later scientific models replaced it. It is not the same book as Lewis’s study of medieval allegory, The Allegory of Love, published in 1936.