Sounds like a fascinating lecture. I wish I could have heard it! I'm not sure I'd have been completely convinced that Lewis was intending to imbue the books with the cosmological imagery Dr. Ward suggests he is, but it still would have been fun to hear the theory--thanks for writing about it.

When I was in college, I did a paper comparing the scenes in The Magician's Nephew where Digory is in the garden, being tempted by Jadis, by the scenes in Paradise Lost where Eve is tempted in the Garden of Eden. Some of the descriptions of the place were very, very similar. Lewis certainly brought a whole lot from **tons** of sources to what he wrote.