Seven planets for seven chronicles?
 A French 17th-century rendering of Mars. |
Why are there seven Narnia chronicles - as opposed to, say, six or eight? In 2003, Michael Ward, a British student of literature working on a dissertation on Lewis, realized that a section of Lewis's 1935 poem "The Planets," dealing with Jupiter, could be read as a plot summary of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," published in 1950.
Lewis's scholarship, Ward knew, aimed to retrieve the medieval worldview, in which there were seven "planets," or heavenly bodies, each thought to be associated with certain human characteristics. Those born under the sign of Jupiter, also known as Jove, were "jovial" (convivial). Mars was a "Martial" (warlike) planet, Mercury was "mercurial" (both good and evil), Venus "veneral" (lustful), and Saturn "saturnine" (melancholic). The Sun and the Moon, finally, were believed to represent actions and emotions, respectively, or lucidity and dreams.
Taking note of the Jovian character of Aslan in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," Ward dug deeper. In April 2004, he theorized in the Times Literary Supplement that - though Lewis was by no means a New Age astrology buff - each of the Narnia books had been written, in a sense, under the sign of one of these planets. If Ward is right, then the series could be diagrammed thus:
In "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (Jupiter) Aslan's saving of Narnia can be seen as festal and Jovian.
"The Silver Chair" (the Moon) is an emotional voyage through a dreamlike underworld.
"The Horse and His Boy" (Mercury) recounts the adventures of a boy from a virtuous culture brought up in a sinful one, and a girl from the sinful culture who flees to the virtuous one.
"The Magician's Nephew" (Venus) is dominated by a gorgeous witch-queen.
"The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader'" (the Sun) is an action-packed quest to reach the sun-drenched East.
"Prince Caspian" (Mars) is a martial book whose most memorable character is the warlike mouse Reepicheep.
At the end of "The Last Battle" (Saturn), the history of Narnia is brought to a close by a Time-Giant reminiscent of Kronos, also known as Father Time, a version of Saturn.
