Читать книгу The Neglected C. S. Lewis - Mark Neal - Страница 22

As an example, Lewis argues that any kind of sound, critical judgment about theatrical authorship would be threatened by Tillyard’s approach. Theater requires that several points of view be on display. Each character must have a point of view. “The Drama is, in fact, the strongest witness for my contention … for there the poet is manifestly out of sight, and we attend not to him but to his creation.”⁴⁹ Lewis asserts:

Let it be granted that I do approach the poet; at least I do it by sharing his consciousness, not by studying it. I look with his eyes, not at him. He for the moment will be precisely what I do not see; for you can see any eyes rather than the pair you see with, and if you want to examine your own glasses you must take them off your own nose. The poet is not a man who asks me to look at him; he is a man who says ‘look at that’ and points; the more I follow the pointing of his finger the less I can possibly see of him.⁵⁰

Then, he adds: “To see things as the poet sees them I must share his consciousness and not attend to it; I must look where he looks and not turn round to face him; I must make of him not a spectacle but a pair of spectacles: in fine, as Professor Alexander would say, I must enjoy him and not contemplate him.”⁵¹