Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften C. S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication

C. S. Lewis, based on the popularity of his books and essays, is one of the best communicators of the twentieth century. During his lifetime he was hailed for his talents as author, speaker, educator, and broadcaster; he continues to be a best-selling author more than a half-century after his death. C. S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication analyzes Lewis’s communication skill. A comprehensive review of Lewis’s work reveals five communication principles that explain his success as a communicator. Based on Lewis’s own advice about communication in his books, essays, and letters, as well as his communication practice, being a skilled communicator is to be holistic, intentional, transpositional, evocative, and audience-centered. These five principles are memorably summarized by the acronym HI TEA. Dr. Steven Beebe, past president of the National Communication Association and an internationally-recognized communication author and educator, uses Lewis’s own words to examine these five principles in a most engaging style. Review "C. S. Lewis continues to enchant readers worldwide, in part because of what he said but also because of how he said it. This important book offers clear and surprisingly practical insight into a truly remarkable communicator. It is profound without being ponderous; it is useful without being formulaic. I learned a great deal in these pages, and I look forward to reading it again and again. I give it my highest recommendation."--Diana Pavlac Glyer, Professor, The Honors College, Azusa Pacific University, and author of Bandersnatch and The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community "C. S. Lewis understood the theory and practice of the medieval trivium (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric) better than anyone in his generation, but far too little attention has been given to his extraordinary skill as a communicator. Steven A. Beebe brings to this gap in scholarship his own formidable experience and expertise as a professor of communication, and also a keen personal enthusiasm. The result is a thoughtful, insightful, delightful book that informs, instructs and illuminates."--Michael Ward, Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis, and author of Planet Narnia and The Narnia Code "Here indeed we find a great treasure; in the beautifully conceived carefully written pages of this book, Steven A. Beebe has brilliantly answered a question readers have long felt but perhaps never formed: How did Lewis communicate so clearly? Bringing to bear a lifetime of distinguished scholarship and decades of keenly insightful thinking about Lewis, Beebe has created an indispensable aid not only for lovers of Lewis but for all who would communicate clearly themselves."--Andrew Lazo, an independent scholar and speaker on C. S. Lewis, editor of "Early Prose Joy," Lewis's groundbreaking first spiritual autobiography, and co-editor, Mere Christians: Inspiring Stores of Encounters with C. S. Lewis "I envy Dr. Beebe because he has learned from C. S. Lewis what it is like to be able to say exactly what he means. But I'm getting beyond the envy, thanks to Dr. Beebe's C. S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication. He wants us to be as clear in what we say, as in what we hear. And his book provides us with a framework and advice for how to do this well. Both men use these rules: 'Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.' 'Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do.' 'If you mean, "More people died" don't say "Mortality rose."'"--Walter Hooper, former secretary to C. S. Lewis, Literary Advisor of the C. S. Lewis Estate, and author of C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide "If you have long loved C. S. Lewis--Christian apologist, children's book author, Oxford and Cambridge scholar--viewing Lewis through the lens of what he can teach us about human communication is like