Conception
The idea of retelling the myth of Cupid and Psyche, with the palace invisible, had been in C. S. Lewis's mind ever since he was an undergraduate; the retelling, as he imagined it, involved writing through the mouth of the elder sister. He argued that this made the sister not simply envious and spiteful, but ignorant (as any mortal might be of the divine) and jealous (as anyone could be in their love).
He tried it in different verse-forms when he considered himself primarily a poet, so that one could say that he'd been "at work on Orual for 35 years," even though the version told in the book "was very quickly written." In his pre-Christian days, Lewis would imagine the story with Orual "in the right and the gods in the wrong."
Read more about this topic: Till We Have Faces
Famous quotes containing the word conception:
“If the Nazis have really been guilty of the unspeakable crimes circumstantially imputed to them, then—let us make no mistake—pacifism is faced with a situation with which it cannot cope. The conventional pacifist conception of a reasonable or generous peace is irrelevant to this reality.”
—John Middleton Murry (1889–1957)
“It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“The world ‘s a bubble, and the life of man
Less then a span:
In his conception wretched, from the womb
So to the tomb;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)