DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L31286
Authors: Kyoko Yuasa
Abstract: C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (VDT) (1952) is a contemporary mappa mundi, a depiction of not only the Medieval romance of sailing to the west, but also the immram to the west. This proposition of multiple interpretations on directions will reveal C. S. Lewis as a novelist of Christian Postmodernism in the sense that Lewis takes the Postmodernist literary approach of simultaneously showing the reader the multiple values in the contemporary world, and embracing the supernatural guidance of God, who transcends human interpretations. Based on Charles Huttar’s proposal of immram as the voyage for the ultimate goal beyond east and west, and Mary Zambreno’s adaptation of Medieval desires for multiplicity, this paper will further their standpoints and reveal VDT as the modern mappa mundi, an illustration of each voyager’s pilgrim courses and beyond them, in a comparison of VDT with the Medieval romances for the east and the immram for the west.
Keywords: Christian Postmodernism, medieval romance, immram, mappa mundi, voyage literature
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