HSU Insider

HSU Chapel Service Visited by 19th Century Mentor of C.S. Lewis

• By Janlyn Echols Thaxton
• Posted February 25, 2009 2:34 PM
• 0 Comments

"Narnia and Middle Earth Wouldn't be the Same Without Him."

Students in Dr. Larry Fink's Fantasy Literature class have discovered that the land of Narnia and Middle Earth would not be the same places without the influence of a once popular, but now nearly forgotten author.

The obscure Scottish novelist wrote in the time of Charles Dickens and was even friends with Samuel Clemmons, a.k.a. Mark Twain. But the name George MacDonald, today, hardly rings a bell.

Daniel Koehn looks like a regular Nashville guy until he dons spats, skinny-legged suit pants, a long unkempt beard, and a thick Scottish brogue. Looking like he stepped out of a Victorian novel, Koehn brings George MacDonald to life before the eyes of his audience, in this case, HSU's morning chapel crowd.

Credited with the invention of the modern fantasy novel, most people who know about this obscure literary figure discover him, oddly enough, through the magical lands of C.S. Lewis.

"That's how I found him," says Professor Fink, whose first college degree is in Bible. Fink says MacDonald is known for "influencing the spiritual life of C.S. Lewis more than any other writer. Without him, Tolkien, Lewis, and even fantasy writers of today like J.K. Rowling, might be writing very different things."

One freshman student, who was especially taken with Koehn's performance, said afterward, "That's what I love about HSU, we are exposed to so many new things and new ideas. It really astounds me to realize that fantasy writing is really as new as it is!" "Here's a guy, I never even heard of, and he's responsible for what we see in movies today, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, and that whole Lord of the Rings thing."

Fink quotes Tolkien as he explains the basis of fantasy writing. He says a writer can change the laws of physics in the world they create, but the writer can never change morality. Fink says writers like Tolkien and Lewis use that method, created by MacDonald, to teach moral lessons.

Oddly enough, MacDonald was not always so obscure. Fink says, "During MacDonald's lifetime, he was a popular, successful novelist in both Britain and the United States. Popular enough to justify an eight-month speaking tour through the U.S. and Canada." Fink teases, "He didn't stop in Abilene, though, which is a good thing -- because our city wasn't founded until eight years later."

Fink tells students that we can experience today, through the art and magic of theatre, what tens of thousands of Americans experienced 136 years ago."

Meanwhile, the actor, who shared his character with HSU students and faculty also creates "John's Gospels", teaches voice lessons in Nashville, and performs in numerous operas from Chicago to San Diego. He is also a minister for the Francis Asbury Society, a group of evangelists, scholars and missionaries whose purpose is to spread holiness throughout the world.

Fink says the HSU Library contains all of George MacDonald's books, nearly fifty, which are still in print. He provides a rundown to his students of what he calls, a "Read-Me-First List" which includes titles like, The Golden Key, The Princess and the Goblin, At the Back of the North Wind, and Lilith.