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Abstract

"The “Time Graph,” as it will be labeled in this essay, is obscurely nestled in C. S. Lewis’s personal manuscripts held in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Comprised of mathematical sketches and cryptic commentary, the document has apparently escaped formal study regarding why Lewis produced it or how it might relate to his published works. More broadly, does it have any bearing on a coherent philosophy of time that Lewis may have held? The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that the Time Graph is very likely an early draft of the mechanics of time travel contained in his unfinished and posthumously published The Dark Tower. Further, I contend that the care with which Lewis treated time travel displays the primacy of time and eternity in both his heart and his mind. Proceeding inductively, this argument will begin by clarifying the Time Graph’s immediate context and then grounding it within Lewis’s broader corpus. Then, the Graph’s brief narrative will be compared with relevant selections from The Dark Tower to highlight the apparent similarities. Concomitantly, the conclusion will attempt to show that his writings were permeated with a weighty conviction: that to be wise is to turn one’s attention and thus our hearts away from the disintegration of time towards the boundlessness of eternity."

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