Reason (poem)
short poem by C. S. Lewis
"Reason" is a short poem of sixteen lines by C. S. Lewis, written in about 1925.
Text
Set on the soul's acropolis the reason standsA virgin, arm'd, commercing with celestial light,And he who sins against her has defiled his ownVirginity: no cleansing makes his garment white;So clear is reason. But how dark, imagining,Warm, dark, obscure and infinite, daughter of Night:Dark is her brow, the beauty of her eyes with sleepIs loaded, and her pains are long, and her delight.Tempt not Athene. Wound not in her fertile painsDemeter, nor rebel against her mother-right.Oh who will reconcile in me both maid and mother,Who make in me a concord of the depth and height?Who make imagination's dim exploring touchEver report the same as intellectual sight?Then could I truly say and not deceive,Then wholly say that I BELIEVE.
Background
The poem, initially untitled in manuscript form, was only published posthumously in Walter Hooper's critical edition The Collected Poems of C.S. Lewis, and is entitled therein "Reason". It has been suggested that a more correct title would be "Reason and Imagination". Hooper dates the poem to as early as 1925—after Lewis embraced theism, but before his conversion to Christianity in 1931.
Analysis
According to Malcolm Guite, "The poem offers an extended metaphor of the soul as an inner Athens divided between the two Goddesses, Athene, who represents Reason, and Demeter, who represents the Imagination." The speaker wishes to reconcile the two forces within himself, and in the sestet poses an unanswered question: "Oh who will reconcile in me both maid and mother, …?" Guite finds allusion to the Annunciation in these lines, and sees in the spatial language of the poem the following passage from Ephesians:
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
References
Sources
Guite, Malcolm (2010). "Poet". In MacSwain, Robert, & Ward, Michael (eds.).
“Reason (poem)” enters the record as short poem by C. S. Lewis. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Reason, poem and short can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Reason (poem)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Reason, poem and short provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 10, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q114000424. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1925, 1931 and 2010.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Reason (poem)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Reason (poem) primary sources, Reason (poem) archive and Reason research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Reason (poem)”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Reason (poem)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.