What Can Readers Learn from C.S. Lewis' Book Surprised by Joy?
- Justin Wiggins Contributing Writer
- Updated Aug 10, 2023
Surprised by Joy is one of C.S. Lewis’ great works of non-fiction. So what makes it unique among the many books that Lewis wrote?
What Is Surprised by Joy About?
Surprised by Joy covers Lewis’ journey from atheism to theism to Christianity.
The book was first published in 1955 after Lewis was asked in letters to write something recounting his spiritual journey that would enlighten readers curious about his conversion.
The book is a fascinating work of non-fiction. Lewis recounts his childhood in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the loss of his mother at a young age, his traumatic experiences in WWI, and the encounters of transcendent joy experienced through music, landscape, literature, and mythology. This joy eventually led him to Christ, the true source of all goodness, beauty, and truth.
The book’s title comes from an 1815 William Wordsworth poem. Though one Inkling, Dr. Robert Emlyn “Humphrey” Havard, jokingly called the book “Suppressed by Jack,” the public received it well. It continues to be in print today, widely read by various audiences.
Though Surprised by Joy can be considered a work of Christian apologetics, what makes it different from Lewis’ books The Problem of Pain, Mere Christianity, and Miracles is that it is more personal. It shows Lewis explaining a drastic worldview change that affected his whole trajectory.
What Kind of Joy Does C.S. Lewis Talk About?
Lewis defined joy as a bittersweet spiritual longing pointing to something objective outside oneself. In Surprised by Joy, Lewis correlated the German concept of sehnsucht to the joy he experienced throughout his life. Although Lewis was a stanch atheist while experiencing this mystical joy, he found that he could not explain it away empirically.
After he rejected Christianity, Lewis became a staunch atheist. Meeting fellow Oxford student Owen Barfield made Lewis aware that his worldview contained “chronological snobbery.” He defined truth using the prevailing materialistic philosophy, treating the past as primitive and faith as disconnected from “the facts of life.” Barfield challenged Lewis by asking him on what grounds did he accept reason and faith as mutually exclusive?
Though Barfield would not become a practicing Christian for several decades, he held a theistic view that influenced Lewis to reject atheism. Lewis eventually came to understand with his mind and heart that the source of this mystical joy he experienced—through mythology, music, works of literature, and landscape—was Christ Himself. Coming to know Christ was the greatest thing that ever happened in his life.
What Does C.S. Lewis Say Were the Key Factors in His Conversion?
When Lewis was a young lad growing up in Belfast, he was profoundly moved when reading Beatrix Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Tegnar’s Drapa. These literary experiences and the Irish landscape of the Mourne Mountains in County Down filled him with bittersweet longing. The longing only intensified when he encountered a Scottish writer later in his life—when he thought he was finished with Christianity.
One of the key factors in Lewis’ conversion was reading Scottish writer George MacDonald’s novel Phantastes at 16. The fantasy novel depicts the protagonist, Anodos, on a series of adventures in the realm of Faerie, where he learns what it means to lose his pride. Celtic mythology, German romanticism, Arthurian legends, and Scottish folklore all influenced MacDonald’s story.
Lewis picked up the book at a train station in Surrey, England. After reading it, Lewis said that the book baptized his imagination. Though Lewis remained an atheist for many years, the book provided a profound encounter with the holiness of God. He went on to read many of MacDonald’s other fairy tales, fantasy works, novels, poetry, and sermons.
Another key moment came years later when Lewis read G.K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. The philosophical work served as a rebuttal to H.G. Wells’ The Outline of History, critiquing Wells’ materialistic explanation of human history. Chesterton’s work helped Lewis to make sense of the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. In the book, Chesterton argues that all the different world mythologies came true in the story of Christ, a historical event in which a dying and rising god story reached fulfillment.
When Lewis began teaching at Oxford, he became friends with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. Lewis was rather alarmed that they were Christians, as well as how many of his favorite writers—not just MacDonald and Chesterton but also Dante, John Milton, and George Herbert—were Christians. Conversations with Tolkien and Dyson helped him to finally understand Christianity as “the true myth” he yearned to understand. The transition led him from believing in an impersonal God to knowing the person of Christ.
Books Connected to Surprised by Joy
In Lewis’ first work of fiction published, The Pilgrim’s Regress, published in 1933, the main character named John has a glimpse of a mystical island that causes him to experience an indescribable longing. Throughout the book, John goes through a series of adventures and encounters different characters representing different philosophies and worldviews. At the end of the story, although John does not go through death, he understands that his desire for joy will lead him to Christ. This allegorical book by Lewis is a brilliant fictional version of Surprised by Joy, which was not published until years later.
The “Hope” chapter in Lewis’ Mere Christianity correlates to the theme of joy. Lewis critiques the view that Christians’ desire for heaven is wishful thinking. He counters by arguing that hope is a theological virtue and gift of grace. As sinners in a fallen world, hope in Christ keeps Christians filled with courage in the here and now—for what is to come with the marriage of heaven and earth when all will be made right.
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the valiant mouse Reepicheep yearns to find the way to Aslan’s country while going on many different adventures with Caspian, the Pevensies, and their cousin Eustace Scrubb. When a young mouse Reepicheep is prophesied over by a dryad that he will find the great yearning of his life when sailing to the end of the world. At the end of the story, Repicheep makes his way to Aslan’s country, and his great yearning is fulfilled. Reepicheep’s deep longing for Aslan’s country correlates to sehnsucht.
In the science fiction novel Perelandra, the philologist Elwin Ransom is filled with a great longing as he goes on an adventure on the planet Venus. When he experiences the longing, Ransom has an affirmation that it existed long before he was born. This longing is the same sehnsucht.
The Weight of Glory was a sermon Lewis preached to a packed crowd at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Oxford in 1941. Lewis talked about how the naturalistic worldview does not answer the most important philosophical questions in life and that the bittersweet longing roused by mythology, works of literature, and art points beyond itself to an objective source outside of ourselves. In this context, beauty is not meant to be worshipped, but is a gift from Christ, the source of all goodness, beauty, and truth.
The title of “The Weight of Glory” refers to St. Paul’s writing in 2 Corinthians 4:17. Towards the end of the sermon, Lewis affirms that everyone is created in the imago dei (image of God) and because of that truth, we should treat people as Christ did during his time He spent here on the earth.
How to Learn More about Surprised by Joy
The following books—some anthologies of Lewis’ other writings, some books about him by other authors—explore the themes of Surprised by Joy in detail.
1. C.S. Lewis On Joy
2. C.S. Lewis: A Biography of Friendship by Colin Duriez
3. Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer
4. A Shiver of Wonder: A Life of C.S. Lewis by Derick Bingham
The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs
5. A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C.S. Lewis by Devin Brown
6. The Magic Never Ends: The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis by John Ryan Duncan
7. C.S. Lewis and The Bright Shadow of Holiness by Gerard Reed
8. Surprised by Agape by Justin Wiggins
9. Lenten Lands by Douglas Gresham
10. Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis by David C. Downing
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/Arndt_Vladimir
Justin Wiggins is an author who works and lives in the primitive, majestic, beautiful mountains of North Carolina. He graduated with his Bachelor's in English Literature, with a focus on C.S. Lewis studies, from Montreat College in May 2018. His first book was Surprised by Agape, published by Grant Hudson of Clarendon House Publications. His second book, Surprised By Myth, was co-written with Grant Hudson and published in 2021. Many of his recent books (Marty & Irene, Tír na nÓg, Celtic Twilight, Celtic Song, Ragnarok, Celtic Dawn) are published by Steve Cawte of Impspired.
Wiggins has also had poems and other short pieces published by Clarendon House Publications, Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal, and Sweetycat Press. Justin has a great zeal for life, work, community, writing, literature, art, pubs, bookstores, coffee shops, and for England, Scotland, and Ireland.
