# “Reading great literature” by C.S. Lewis

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2016/05/20/reading-great-literature-by-c-s-lewis/
- Published: 2016-05-20T12:00:47-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous
extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk 
with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits
a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only
himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison.

My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others. Reality,
even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented.
I regret that the brutes cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face
things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory
world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog…

In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like 
the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who
see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, in knowing, I transcend myself;
and am never more myself than when I do.”

–C.S. Lewis, [_An Experiment in Criticism_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521422817/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=toletaupanre-20&linkId=ada89ea98575f67b918e2c7a54afe227)(
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961/1992), 140-141.

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## Comments

### By: The 3 R's Blog

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2016/05/20/reading-great-literature-by-c-s-lewis/comment-page-1/#comment-9825
- Published: 2016-06-15T06:59:35-05:00

Reblogged this on [The Three R's Blog](https://cjts3rs.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/reading-great-literature-by-c-s-lewis/)
and commented:
 A fine quote on the meaning and purpose of reading by a master of
modern literature. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the best writers are also great
readers. \-CJT