The text on this page is from David Lavery, "An Owen Barfield Readers Guide." Seven 15 (1998): 97-112.
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The Silver Trumpet |
The Silver Trumpet. London: Faber and Gwyer, 1925; rpt. Boulder, CO: Bookmakers Guild, 1986.
And there was no longer any loathsome toad on her bed, but there in the middle of the chamber, his chain-mail flashing silver in the moonlight, stood a beautiful Prince. And when she arose from her bed, he held her in his arms. Nor did Princess Lily ever know Fear again, either in the darkness of in the daytime (the closing words of The Silver Trumpet).
The Silver Trumpet is a fairy tale and children’s story, thought of very highly by both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien (and his children) which, Barfield recalled, exhibited his own developing romantic leanings and was the first published book of a would-be author. Though not quite allegory (a literary mode Barfield predicted would be reborn in the age ahead), the tale does become an argument for the importance of the "feeling element" in life and its inseparability form the rational and logical.