‘And so she returned to the eternal source’: continuing bonds and the figure of Dante’s Beatrice in C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed

A significant theme in A Grief Observed, the diary Lewis kept following the death of his wife, is anxiety that he will never see her again in any meaningful way – that is, in all her (and his) particularity. Lewis ends the diary with an easily-overlooked quotation from Dante; in English: ‘and so she returned to the eternal source’. In so doing, Lewis draws a parallel between his wife, and the figure of Beatrice, whom Dante is (paradoxically) most fully united with precisely when he lets her return to God. This relates to ideas in Aquinas and Augustine about the relationship between love of creatures and love of God.

We explore the relevance of Dante for understanding the evolution of Lewis’ thinking about how to relate to his deceased wife. We draw on insights from continuing bonds (CB) literature, and draw out some implications for CB: CB theorists sometimes claim that, within Western Christianity, there is a tension between union with God and continuing bonds with the deceased; we argue that this is a misreading of Western Christian thought and practice. Relatedly, we draw out some therapeutic and pastoral implications relating to the centrality of theology for Christian forms of CB.

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