Happy Hour: C.S. Lewis and the Powerful Predicament of Language

Sponsored by the ESU Central Florida Branch

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. Lewis wrote more than thirty books, reaching a vast audience and attracting thousands of new readers every year.

In his last, best novel, C. S. Lewis gives voice to a potent and glorious challenge facing writers, readers, and lovers of language when a wise character suggests that, “to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words”. As a deeply-committed and famously-accomplished scholar, critic writer, and reader, C. S. Lewis has much incisive wisdom to offer in such matters.

In his talk, Lewis scholar and Episcopal priest the Rev’d Andrew Lazo explores a number of Lewis’s most insightful and helpful observations arising from a lifetime devotion to the powerful predicament of language. This ESU Happy Hour is sponsored by the ESU Central Florida Branch. ESU Happy Hour programs are online, free, and open to all members and the public. Registration is required. All programs take place on Eastern Time.

Register Here

About Andrew Lazo

The Rev’d Andrew Lazo is an internationally-known speaker and writer specializing in C.S. Lewis and the Inklings. Andrew earned his Master’s in Modern British Literature from Rice University where he was a Jacob K. Javits fellow in the Humanities. He is a frequent speaker around the U.S. and U.K. and has written several articles on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. In 2009, Andrew published Mere Christians: Inspiring Encounters with C.S. Lewis. In 2014 he also was honored to transcribe, edit, and publish a previously unknown book by C.S. Lewis, “Early Prose Joy,” which was Lewis’s very first spiritual autobiography. For ten years he taught English and C. S. Lewis at St. Thomas and Houston Christian High Schools in Houston.

After finishing studies for an M. Div. (with Honors) at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, VA in May 2022, Andrew was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in January 2023 and serves as the Apprentice Rector at Church of the Messiah in Winter Garden, FL. He is also pursuing his doctorate in Romantic Theology at Northwind Seminary, where he serves as a Distinguished Lecturer. Andrew is married to author and speaker Dr. Christin Ditchfield Lazo.

For more than fifteen years, Andrew has been working on a long-awaited study of Till We Have Faces, making groundbreaking discoveries all along the way. The results of his ongoing research have led him to give talks to the Mythopoeic Society in 2016 as Scholar Guest of Honor; in the summer of 2017, Andrew served as a plenary speaker at the C.S. Lewis Foundation’s 2017 Summer Institute in Oxford and Cambridge.