THREE very different people — C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and T. S. Eliot — all thought that Charles Williams was the most genuinely good person that they had ever met. Eliot for example wrote: “He seemed to me to approximate, more nearly than any man I have known familiarly, to the saint.” On the other side, it has to be noted that he had a troubled marriage and, like Eliot, a “Beatrice” figure in his life.
Seventy years ago, the works of Williams, with their strong Christian themes, were widely appreciated. Today, he is little known, though an excellent Wikipedia article on him indicates the extraordinary range of his writings and the influence that he had not only on Eliot and Lewis, but on Dorothy Sayers and Dante studies more generally — all this while he had a full-time job at the Oxford University Press.
Stephen Barber however, has remained a big fan not only of his novels, but also of his much more difficult poetry. In this book, he assembles writings of his own on Williams, of varying length and purpose. In the first chapter, he explores the relationship between him and Eliot, arguing that, while Eliot was a significant early influence on Williams, by the end of his life he had been a no less spiritual influence on Eliot. He goes on to consider the Taliessin poems and some of Williams’s key ideas such as the way of exchange, romantic love, the way of affirmation of images, and co-inherence.
The last term, derived from patristic theology to describe the mutual indwelling of members of the Holy Trinity, Williams used more widely to include the way in which members of the body of Christ are to dwell with one another. It is closely related to the way of exchange, in which we are bidden to take on the good qualities of others as they take on ours.
There is a significant discussion of the use of symbols and what Barber terms the “interpenetration of the literal with the metaphorical meaning, together with the systematic elusiveness of the literal meaning” which characterised the poetry of Williams. This is probably a book for those who are already familiar with Williams’s writings. It highlights the need for a simple introduction to his ideas for a new generation of readers.
The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth is a former Bishop of Oxford. He is the author of Haunted by Christ: Modern writers and the struggle for faith (SPCK, 2018).
Patterns of Glory: Studies in Charles Williams
Stephen Barber
Apocryphile Press £18.99
(978-1-958061-90-9)
Church Times Bookshop £17.09
