Which 1936 book made C.S. Lewis known as a medieval-literature scholar?

The Allegory of Love made C.S. Lewis widely known as a medieval-literature scholar.

Published in 1936, the book studies allegorical love poetry from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Lewis examines how literary ideas about love developed and changed across several centuries.

The work helped establish his academic reputation before his best-known Christian apologetics and children’s fiction. It also reflects his deep interest in medieval and Renaissance literature, subjects that remained central to his teaching and scholarship.

Readers sometimes identify The Discarded Image as his main early scholarly breakthrough, but that later book appeared in 1964. The Allegory of Love was the important 1936 study that brought Lewis major recognition in literary scholarship.