Encomium: Roger Lancelyn Green

The Virtue of Humility

Roger Lancelyn Green is best known for two things. He is known for his close friendship with C. S. Lewis (as one of the famous Inklings) and also as a reteller of great tales which deserve to be retold. In his life he authored, or participated in the authorship, of about forty books. He wrote a number of original stories such as The Land of the Lord High Tiger and From the World’s End. He wrote books retelling the legends and myths of old including The Tales of Ancient Egypt, Myths of the Norsemen, Tales of the Greek Heroes, King Arthur, Robin Hood, and many more. Green was also a biographer, writing about the lives of noteworthy people such as Andrew Lang, C. S. Lewis, and Lewis Carroll. 

Green was born November 2, 1918 in Norwich England to a very distinguished family, a family which could trace their lineage as far back as the 11th century. His family also had a proud record of military service to their country, his father serving in the Royal Artillery and his grandfather, on his mother’s side, being a Lieutenant Colonel. 

Green was given the best kind of education available, an education that certainly outstrips much of what is available in our own day. When he arrived at Oxford he found himself studying English Literature under C. S. Lewis himself. After graduating with a B.Litt. he began working as the Deputy Librarian at Merton College of Oxford. Later he would hold the post as the William Noble Research Fellow in English Literature at the University of Liverpool, and later still he became the Andrew Lang Lecturer at the University of St Andrews for a time. Throughout his life he wrote and published prolifically, sometimes serving as teacher and lecturer in distinguished colleges and universities, sometimes living a quiet life as an author. 

Green was credited by C. S. Lewis as the one who encouraged him to name his famous work The Chronicles of Narnia. The two men maintained a close friendship from teh time Green graduated Oxford all the way until Lewis’ death in 1963. Green had accompanied Lewis and his wife, Joy, on their Mediterranean tour of Greece shortly before Joy passed away from Bone cancer in 1960. It was due to this relationship that many consider Green’s biography on C. S. Lewis to be the best one available to us, written as an insider and friend would write.

What should perhaps stand out the most when one considers Roger Lancelyn Green is how little information is actually available about him personally. The cynic might jump to a foolish conclusion and argue that this must be because he had something to hide, but cynicism and thinking the worst of people is not to be admired. What is to be admired is a man who had all the privileges that family lineage, money, and education could offer, who never seemed to put himself in the spotlight. Roger Lancelyn Green made a career out of exalting others and their work. He lifted up and praised great men in biography, he retold the great stories that he believed were worth being preserved, and he largely remained in the shadows while doing so. To date, there is no biography on Roger Lancelyn Green. What can be actually known about Green is that he was a great friend and a great writer who labored with great energy to preserve and pass on truth, goodness, and beauty to the next generation. In a world where so many men strive and claw to get ahead, Green strove to lift up and praise others.

Though less famous, it should not surprise us that Green became a lot like his teacher. C. S. Lewis was a great storyteller and so was his student. Like Lewis he drew upon the great body of Western literature, from Homer to his present day, and he brought forth its precious stones to share with the world. Green helped a new generation of readers not only to appreciate the classics of literature, but also he brought front and center that which they have to offer us, namely, a meaningful life in the pursuit of virtue. Perhaps nowhere better does this notion present itself in Green’s writing than in the story of Heracles’ beginning. 

While Heracles was guarding the cattle of Amphitryon on the lonely slopes of Mount Cithaeron, and still ignorant of his high destiny, a strange thing befell him. As he sat alone on the hillside one day, wondering if he was fated to be a cow-herd all his life, or whether it would not be better to become a wild robber of the mountains, he saw two lovely maidens coming towards him. One of them was dressed in simply white, and had modest, down-cast eyes and a calm, gentle face from which seemed to shine both goodness and wisdom; but the other wore bright colours, and came striding along glancing glancing boldly about her – now admiring herself, and now looking to others for admiration. She was decked with rich jewels, and her face was artfully touched with powder.

As they drew near to Heracles, the second, as if anxious to forestall her companion, pushed eagerly ahead and spoke to him: ‘Dear Heracles,’ she said, ‘I see that you have reached the age when you must choose what kind of life yours is to be. So I have come to urge you to take me as your friend and let me guide you on your way. I promise that if you do I will lead you by the easiest and most delightful paths. You shall taste every pleasure, and no troubles of toils shall come near you. Your life shall be passed in the pursuit and enjoyment of pleasant things, with no labour, of body or mind, except to please yourself without any thought for the cares of others.’ She paused, and Heracles asked: ‘Lady, tell me your name.” Then she answered softly: ‘Heracles, those who love me call me Happiness, but my enemies, it is true, have another name which I do not care to mention.’

Meanwhile the modest maiden had come up, and now she spoke: ‘I too, noble Heracles, am come to offer you a way of life. I know of what a worthy line you come, that you are descended from Perseus the Gorgon-slayer, and are yourself the son of Zeus. I know how well you have learnt all the accomplishments necessary for the path which I trust that you will take, in my company. Follow me, and you will do great deeds and leave a name which will never be forgotten. But you cannot win what is glorious and excellent in the world without care and labour: the gods give no real good, no true happiness to men on earth on any other terms. If you would bring happiness to others and be remembered in Greece, you must strive for the service of Greece – as you well may with your strength and your skill, if you do but use them rightly. As for my companion, who is called Vice and Folly and other such names, do not be misled by her: there is no pleasure and no happiness like those which you earn by strife and labour and with the sweat of your brow.’

‘Do not believe this foolish girl, who is called Virtue!’ interrupted Vice hastily. ‘My way is short and pleasant; hers is hard, and long, and the end is doubtful.’ 

‘Come, Heracles,’ said Virtue quietly, ‘choose which of us you will follow. Her path leads through easy, worthless pleasures that grow stale and horrible and yet are craved after more and more. But follow me through toil and suffering to the great heritage which Zeus has planned for you.’

‘Lady!’ cried Heracles, ‘I choose your path! Tell me how to set my foot on it, and I will not turn back however hard it prove, and whatever I have to endure on the way.’

‘You have chosen worthily,’ she said in her calm, gentle voice. ‘And for the beginning – look yonder! What is it that disturbs your cattle so?’

Heracles looked across the valley, and saw a great yellow lion leaping down the slope with open jaws towards the cows, who fled this way and that, lowing piteously in terror. With a shout of fury Heracles sprang to his feet and went charging down the valley and up the other side. But by the time he got there, the lion had gone, and one of the cows lay dead. ‘I’ll kill that lion, or perish in the attempt!’ cried Heracles angrily, and he turned back towards the two maidens – but there was no one to be seen.

How many young boys and girls have read these words and had their own heartstrings pulled towards the path of virtue? Many more than will remember the name of the author who wrote the book they read it in. Green got out of the way and became a conduit through which greatness could reach others. In the spirit of John the Baptist, who said of Christ, “He must increase and I must decrease,” Green left us little evidence of seeking his own glory. True he was successful. True he held honored posts, and he had many blessings and privileges in this life (none of which is a bad thing), but the most praiseworthy thing he may have done was simply point at the work of others. Like one who runs in a relay race and faithfully receives and then passes on a baton, so also Green received the Great tradition of Western literature with all of its goods and helped put it in the hands of the next generation. He is one of many men just like that throughout thousands of years of history who have faithfully handed on to us Homer, and Plato, and Plutarch, and Augustine, and Dante, and Shakespear, and Lewis. When Roger Lancelyn Green passed away on October 8, 1987 he left a legacy of not caring about becoming “a great man,” but it is for that very quality that I suggest we should all remember him as a great man! We should also seek to be like him, seeking glory for Christ and for others and forgetting about our own selves.