The Discarded Image

C. S. Lewis’s The Discarded Image offers a clear and engaging portrait of the medieval worldview, providing essential background for understanding the literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Lewis describes the grand “medieval synthesis” in which theology, science, and history were woven into a single, harmonious vision of the universe.

This final book he wrote as a scholar reflects his characteristic clarity, wit, and deep learning. Through explanations of classical and medieval sources, discussions of cosmology, and reflections on the imagination of the period, Lewis helps modern readers appreciate how profoundly different the medieval “model” was from our own. Erudite yet accessible, the book remains a valuable guide to the intellectual world that shaped centuries of Western thought.