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On Courage in Teen Literature, part 2
Here is a quote that always bothered me:
…courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, cited in http://beinggoodnews.com/2012/01/21/c-s-lewis-on-how-courage-ranks-among-the-virtues/
Another well-known author reiterates Lewis’s point in simpler language:
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. (Maya Angelou, quoted in http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mayaangelo120859.html.
What do these authors mean by this? Do they mean we all have to be Gryffindors, or, heaven help us, Dauntless, in order to be good people? And is it even true? Do you have to be brave before you can be consistently loving, or generous, or humble? Couldn’t it work the other way around, so that practicing one of these other virtues could lead you to bravery?
Yes, I think it could. C.S. Lewis himself wrote a remarkable scene in a novel for adults – a scene of resolute heroism on the part of a very young, very frightened woman. It wasn’t until I read another scene, in Elizabeth Wein’s brilliant, harrowing Rose Under Fire, that the scene Lewis had written truly clicked into place for me. Thinking of the two scenes together made me see courage in a new way. Warning – there are some spoilers ahead for both Rose Under Fire and Lewis’s adult novel, That Hideous Strength.
( Read more... )
Here is a quote that always bothered me:
…courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, cited in http://beinggoodnews.com/2012/01/21/c-s-lewis-on-how-courage-ranks-among-the-virtues/
Another well-known author reiterates Lewis’s point in simpler language:
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. (Maya Angelou, quoted in http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mayaangelo120859.html.
What do these authors mean by this? Do they mean we all have to be Gryffindors, or, heaven help us, Dauntless, in order to be good people? And is it even true? Do you have to be brave before you can be consistently loving, or generous, or humble? Couldn’t it work the other way around, so that practicing one of these other virtues could lead you to bravery?
Yes, I think it could. C.S. Lewis himself wrote a remarkable scene in a novel for adults – a scene of resolute heroism on the part of a very young, very frightened woman. It wasn’t until I read another scene, in Elizabeth Wein’s brilliant, harrowing Rose Under Fire, that the scene Lewis had written truly clicked into place for me. Thinking of the two scenes together made me see courage in a new way. Warning – there are some spoilers ahead for both Rose Under Fire and Lewis’s adult novel, That Hideous Strength.
( Read more... )