Which 1936 book made C.S. Lewis widely known as a literary historian of medieval and Renaissance writing?

The Allegory of Love made C.S. Lewis widely known as a literary historian of medieval and Renaissance writing.

Published in 1936, The Allegory of Love is a study of the medieval tradition of courtly love and allegorical poetry. Lewis examines how writers represented love through personification, symbolism, and elaborate literary conventions. The book helped establish his reputation as a major scholar of English literature.

Its subtitle, A Study in Medieval Tradition, signals the work’s historical scope. Lewis later wrote other influential scholarly books, including English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama and The Discarded Image. Those titles are sometimes confused with his first major critical success, but The Allegory of Love is the 1936 work that brought him especially broad academic recognition.