CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Is there anything to suggest that CS Lewis was a paedophile or a rapist, or neither? Or was that Lewis Carroll? I'm sure I read something somewhere at some point, sorry if I'm completely wrong.

― Gatinha (rwillmsen), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 11:23 (twenty-three years ago)

This guy (http://carolinanavy.com/fleet2/f2/zchildrenslit/LewisCarrollhall/cas/264.html) thinks he was, but I think he's maybe a wee bit dim 'cos he thinks that CS Lewis wrote Alice in Wonderland...

― Gatinha (rwillmsen), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 11:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Ummm a lot of people think that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ("Lewis Carroll") was kind of on the kiddy-fiddling end of the spectrum, as he enjoyed very close relationships with young girls. Oh, and took photographs of them naked. He didn't like boys though, not at all. Make of it what you will.

C.S. Lewis: I don't think so.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 11:33 (twenty-three years ago)

I was raped by Sinclair Lewis in 1926. we were both on LSD. i invented it.

― gabriel (gabe), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 11:35 (twenty-three years ago)

About Lewis Carroll:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,6000,582828,00.html

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 11:42 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not keen on the title of this thread, specially as it's about LC not CSL.

Applying the modern tabloid conception of "the paedophile" to Carroll seems anachronistic. He did seem to have an obsessive interest in children and childhood, and one which was probably sexual - but the 19th century as a whole was a time when childhood as a cultural state was changing massively, with "childhood innocence" being a symbol of civilisation and a treasurable novelty, and there is plenty of evidence that Carroll's tastes found wider public acceptance than wd be the case now.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 11:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh I don't think there's evidence that LC's sexual interest manifested itself as physical abuse, either.

(Roiphe's Guardian piece is interesting but it leaves out one v v crucial viewpoint which is what the 'child-friends' thought of Carroll - IIRC Alice Liddell when grown up tried to distance herself from him)

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 11:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Please change the thread title it makes me sad :(

And twitchy. As it clearly doesn't apply to either poor man and even with a question mark is dodgy surely... (Haha Dodg-y.)

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 11:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks Mod.

― Gatinha (rwillmsen), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 12:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sex Lives, Lies and Videotape?

― Lara (Lara), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 12:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Phew.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 12:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Liddell in later life did somewhat milk the connection.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 16:57 (twenty-three years ago)

the naked or near naked waif was not uncommon as a subject for photographs cf julia margerat cameron (i think that is her name)

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 18:16 (twenty-three years ago)

It is perfectly possible that C Dodgson was attracted to girls but that he did not act on that attraction, except in ways that were publically acceptable.

As far as I know, CS Lewis had one famous affair with a mature, divorced, American woman. I have never heard the suggestion of paedophilia connected with him.

But I don't think this is important. You don't need to know about writers' sex lives other than what is in the text.

― isadora (isadora), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:40 (twenty-three years ago)

oddly, people don't seem to think this with music: political affiliatons of the stars

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 20:42 (twenty-three years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.

CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll - Sex Lives