Abstract
"This essay explores the origins of the word Narnia, the name that Lewis gave to the fictional kingdom in which his seven Chronicles of Narnia are mostly set. How did he come by it? What, if anything, does the word mean?...I will be pursuing two lines of enquiry and two sets of intriguing connections that strike me as potentially illuminating. What follows is more of a theory for consideration than a hard-and-fast conclusion for acceptance. But though I write with a degree of tentativeness, I hope, nonetheless, to shed some light upon Lewis’s statements about his naming
of Narnia and upon certain matters that may underlie those statements."
Recommended Citation
Ward, Michael
(2025)
"Signifying Nothing? Narnia, Inanity, and A. L. Rowse,"
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal: Vol. 19
:
Iss.
2
, Article 5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/1940-5537.1571
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cslewisjournal/vol19/iss2/5
Included in
History Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons