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was the Master of Jesus College at Cambridge University. Both were interested in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Tillyard had already published a critical work on Milton. Lewis’s book A Preface to Paradise Lost was still to come. Lewis took issue with an underlying assumption Tillyard made, that is, that Milton’s Paradise Lost was primarily about the state of the author’s mind when he wrote the book.

      Lewis disagreed and wrote a critical essay in opposition, publishing it in Essays and Studies, a literary journal. The following year, Tillyard responded in the same journal. The next year, Lewis responded again to Tillyard. The fact that the debate was recognized as worthy of note to occupy space in three successive years of journal publications is no small matter. And, the debate was intriguing enough that Tillyard and Lewis decided to continue it, each responding to the other, until a book could be published containing the entire conversation. The Personal Heresy is of great significance for all who are interested in Milton. Even more, it is significant for all who are interested in learning the art of thinking through a matter where understanding can be honed and sharpened by positive engagement with others with whom we might disagree.

       Behind Lewis’s Challenge to Tillyard

      Lewis possessed certain assumptions that drove his challenge to Tillyard’s work. Lewis was an objectivist, which means he believed that there are knowers (or subjects) capable of knowing. Furthermore, there are knowable objects (material objects, or objects of thought set apart by definition and developed in an inferentially coherent way). He does not deny the importance of a subject in the quest to understand, but for understanding to occur properly, the object at hand is paramount. Truth is not reality; truth is what one thinks about reality when thinking accurately about it. The object provides a necessary plumb line by which the subjective assessment might be measured and affirmed or by which assertions might be falsified. Without respect for objects—either material or conceptual—subjective judgments become anarchistic. In such cases, one is reduced to what Lewis called subjectivism. This occurs when the self projects onto the world, seeking to shape reality to fit its whims and predilections, rather than respond to reality with all of its complexity.

      Lewis believed objectivity was possible through accurate responses to reality in matters of reason, emotion, and volition. A proper response is just only when it renders to reality its due. In cases of literary analysis, one must provide a proper response to the text if a judgment is to have merit. Due to the limits of human perception, a collective assessment of a literary text has the potential to increase the level of discovery. The give and take of debate—properly engaged, with a constant appeal to a text—could bring greater clarity and a more nuanced assessment. This was the context behind Lewis’s challenge to Tillyard.

       The Essence of the Debate

      We come now to Tillyard’s work on Milton, and what specifically led Lewis to enter into the debate as it is preserved in The Personal Heresy. As we’ve said, Tillyard wrote that Paradise Lost was about the state of Milton’s mind at the time he wrote the poem.⁴³ Lewis said that Milton’s work was actually about the content of the story Milton wanted to tell. It was a story about creation, the nature and fall of man, and the story of redemption. Therefore, it was not at all about the state of the author’s mind.⁴⁴ Lewis argued that an attempt to analyze the author’s mind would be an exercise in unverifiable judgments. It would likely amount to nothing more than the critic’s own projection onto the author, rather than an analysis of the text itself. Such criticism of the author’s mind, which is not present, removes the discussion away from the text, which is present. Attention is diverted from the objective and directed toward the hypothetical. Lewis asserts that criticism must be about texts themselves if a critic’s judgment is ever to be validated or rendered invalid. The work is the necessary object.

      Lewis’s essay was published in 1934, making it one of his earliest public presentations of critical judgment (only three years after his conversion and two years before the publication of The Allegory of Love).

       The Content of Lewis’s Argument

      Lewis challenges Tillyard’s claim that Milton’s Paradise Lost “is really about, the true state of Milton’s mind when he wrote it.”⁴⁵ Lewis calls this approach The Personal Heresy, because, as has been mentioned, it takes the reader’s attention away from the text itself to focus on the author. That approach is a distraction. Lewis sets forth six reasons why he rejects Tillyard’s claim.

       1. TO DESCRIBE EMOTION IS TO HAVE GOTTEN BEYOND THE EMOTION

      Lewis begins to make his case, citing reasons why a text does not provide access to the state of the author’s mind when he wrote it. For instance, when an author describes a state of emotion, is the author in that state, or removed from such a state and now considering that state of mind by recollection? Lewis would later develop these ideas in his essay “Meditation in a Toolshed”⁴⁶ and in Surprised by Joy where he comments about Samuel Alexander’s Space, Time, and Deity.⁴⁷ He makes the distinction between “enjoying” or experiencing and “contemplating” or thinking about. Here in The Personal Heresy we have perhaps the earliest expression of Lewis’s use of this distinction. “The character presented is that of a man in the grip of this emotion: the real poet is a man who has already escaped from that emotion sufficiently to see it objectively.”⁴⁸ Therefore, the emotion does not express the state of the author’s mind as he writes.

       2. THE LITERARY CRITIQUE NECESSARY FOR DRAMA

      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

       3. THE PROBLEM OF TEXTS WITH MULTIPLE AUTHORS, AND OF TRANSLATIONS

      Lewis then asks about the “class of poetical experiences in which the consciousness that we share cannot possibly be attributed to any single individual.” Poems such as Beowulf come immediately to mind. The reader has no knowledge of who the author is, or if the text was redacted and several authors were involved in its production. Nevertheless, the story can still be enjoyed because the text is objective. As another case in point, Lewis suggests the biblical text of Isaiah where he claims we do not know the author. There could have been multiple authors and redactors.⁵² Lewis tips his hand, suggesting that as a young convert to Christianity he has been influenced by higher critical approaches to Scripture. This is a view he will later modify substantively, as evidenced by his late essay “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism.”⁵³ Lewis uses this example to make his case that criticism must be about texts and not authors. Furthermore, this problem is exacerbated when it comes to translations of texts. Whose consciousness is manifest in the translation? Is it the author’s, or

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