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C.S. Lewis Autobiography Packet
-Surprised by JOY

“They were not very far off but they were, to children, quite unattainable.
They taught me Longing… made me for good or ill, and before I was six
years old, a Blue Flower… Taught me that an unsatisfied desire is itself
more desirable than any other satisfaction.”
-C.S. Lewis “Surprised by Joy
In A Perfect Garden Activity
There would be... There wouldn’t be...
● A smile on everyone’s face ● No sad tears
● ●

Part B:
Question: How would Author C.S. Lewis define the theme of _______?
Answer:
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Part C:
Read a Quote from C.S. answering that same question, when he
reflected on the experience of the “Toy Garden” in his autobiography,
“Surprised by Joy”.
Instruction: Underline the parts that you feel answer the question:
How would C.S. Lewis define Joy?

“Once in those very early days my brother brought into the nursery the lid of a biscuit tin
which he had covered with moss and garnished with twigs and flowers so as to make it a toy
garden. That was the first beauty I ever knew. What the “real garden” (of my backyard) had
failed to do, the “Toy Garden” did. It made me aware of nature … as something cool, dewy,
fresh, exuberant....As long as I live my imagination of Paradise will retain something of my
brother's Toy Garden. “

“I call it Joy. 'Animal-Land' was not imaginative. The first (experience of Joy) is itself the
memory of a memory. As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there
suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the
memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his Toy Garden
into the nursery. It is difficult or find words strong enough for the sensation which came over
me; 'enormous bliss' of (being in a Perfect Garden) comes somewhere near it. It was a sensation,
of course, of desire; but desire for what?...Before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was
gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a
longing for the longing that had just ceased. It had taken only a moment of time (experiencing
Joy); and in a certain sense everything else that had ever happened to me was insignificant in
comparison.”

Question:
Did C.S. Lewis’ definition match yours? Yes or No? Write a sentence
reflecting on how similar your answers were:
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 Squirrel Nutkin Theme Activity

Question:
Was the feeling you felt in this story the same you felt when you
imagined being in your Perfect Garden, yes or no?
What was the same or difference? Write a one sentence reflection:
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Part B
Instructions:
Read the paragraph from C.S. Lewis. Underline the parts that answer the
Question: How did C.S. Lewis experience Joy for the second time.

“The second glimpse came through Squirrel Nutkin; it administered the shock, it was a trouble.
It troubled me with what I can only describe as the idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say
that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; and, as before,
the experience was one of intense desire. And (I) went back to the book (Squirrel Nutkin), not to
gratify the desire (that was impossible---how can one possess Autumn?) but to re-awake it. And
in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable
importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary
pleasure; something, as they would say now, 'in another dimension.'

Question: Describe why Lewis describes Joy like the “Idea of Autumn”? How
is this experience of Joy different from his first experience?
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 Tegner’s Drapa Activity
By W.H. Longfellow

I heard a voice, that cried,

"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And through the misty air
Passed like the mournful cry
Of sunward sailing cranes.

I saw the pallid corpse

Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.
Blasts from Niffelheim
Lifted the sheeted mists
Around him as he passed.

And the voice forever cried,

"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And died away
Through the dreary night,
In accents of despair.

Question: Who is Balder and what feeling and emotion does his name and this
poem give right away?
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Balder the Beautiful,

God of the summer sun,
Fairest of all the Gods!
Light from his forehead beamed,
Runes were upon his tongue,
As on the warrior's sword.
 All things in earth and air
Bound were by magic spell
Never to do him harm;
Even the plants and stones;
All save the mistletoe,
The sacred mistletoe!

Hoeder, the blind old God,

Whose feet are shod with silence,
Pierced through that gentle breast
With his sharp spear, by fraud
Made of the mistletoe,
The accursed mistletoe!

They laid him in his ship,

With horse and harness,
As on a funeral pyre.
Odin placed
A ring upon his finger,
And whispered in his ear.

They launched the burning ship!

It floated far away
Over the misty sea,
Till like the sun it seemed,
Sinking beneath the waves.
Balder returned no more!

So perish the old Gods!

But out of the sea of Time
Rises a new land of song,
Fairer than the old.
Over its meadows green
Walk the young bards and sing.

Build it again,
 O ye bards,
Fairer than before!
Ye fathers of the new race,
Feed upon morning dew,
Sing the new Song of Love!

The law of force is dead!

The law of love prevails!
Thor, the thunderer,
Shall rule the earth no more,
No more, with threats,
Challenge the (One who is) Meek.

Sing no more,
O ye bards of the North,
Of Vikings and of Jarls!
Of the days of Eld
Preserve the freedom only,
Not the deeds of blood!

Part B:
Summarize the feeling the poem brought you and what the
poem is talking about.
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Question: How is the emotion you experienced in this poem

different from the feeling and emotion you experienced in the
“Perfect Garden” exercise and the “Squirrel Nutkin” story?
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Part C:
Instructions: Underline any part of the paragraph where C.S.
Lewis answers the question, “What is Joy”.

“The third glimpse came through poetry. I had become fond of Longfellow's Saga: fond of it in a
casual shallow way for its story and its vigorous rhythms. But then, and quite different from
such pleasures, and like a voice from far more different regions, there came a moment when I
idly turned the pages of the book and found the unrhymed translation of Tegnner's Drapa and
read: I heard a voice that cried Balder the beautiful Is dead, is dead--- I knew nothing about
Balder; but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky, I desired with almost
sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, severe, pale,
and remote) and then, as in the other examples, found myself at the very same moment already
falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it."

Question:
How did Lewis describe his third feeling of Joy?
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 The 3 Spectrums of C.S. Lewis’ JOY
Lewis Defines JOY:

“In a sense the central story of my life is about nothing else...

The quality common to the three experiences... is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself
more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must
be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one
characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it
will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his
power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and
Pleasure often is.”

“Real joy seems to me almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony,” he writes.
“It jumps under one’s ribs and tickles down one’s back and makes one forget meals and keeps
one (delightedly) sleepless on nights. It (Joy) shocks one awake when the other (Pleasure) puts
one to sleep. In my opinion: One second of Joy is worth 12 hours of Pleasure.”
Question: According to Lewis, here, what are the the five things that
Joy is UNLIKE:
1. 2. 3. 4.
5.
Question: Explain why this sentence, “JOY is an unsatisfied desire which is itself
more desirable than any other satisfaction.” is a good way to describe how
Lewis, overall, defined Joy?
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Part B
Use the Quotes from C.S. Lewis on the Worksheets: Perfect Garden, Squirrel Nutkin
Theme, and Tegner Drapa. Use each quote to define Distinctive Qualities for each of
the 3 Spectrums of Joy. Afterwards, explain how each quality, Enormous Bliss, Autumn,
and Regions of Northern Sky, is like Desire or Longing?

“Enormous Bliss” “Autumn” “Regions of

The Toy Garden Squirrel Nutkin Northern Sky”
Balder is Dead!

Quotes and
Distinctive Qualities

How is it like a .
Longing Desire
or Joy?
 Longing
“They were not very far off but they were, to children, quite unattainable.
They taught me Longing… made me for good or ill, and before I was six
years old, a votary of the Blue Flower.”
-C.S. Lewis “Surprised by Joy”

Votary: A Votary is person, such as a monk or nun, who has made vows of
dedication to religious service. Lewis is saying at 6 years old he had become like a
monk to the feeling of “Longing” which he symbolized as a “Blue Flower”.

Where did C.S. Lewis get his image of “Blue Flower” from, his image for Longing.

The Blue Flower

By Henry Van Dyke

“The parents were abed and sleeping. The clock on the wall ticked loudly and lazily, as
if it had time to spare. Outside the rattling windows there was a restless, whispering
wind. The room grew light, and dark, and wondrous light again, as the moon played
hide-and-seek through the clouds. The boy, wide-awake and quiet in his bed, was
thinking of the Stranger and his stories.
“It was not what he told me about the treasures,” he said to himself, “that was not the
thing which filled me with so strange a longing. I am not greedy for riches. But the Blue
Flower is what I long for. I can think of nothing else. Never have I felt so before. It
seems as if I had been dreaming until now or as if I had just slept over into a new world.
“Who cared for flowers in the old world where I used to live? I never heard of anyone
whose whole heart was set upon finding a flower. But now I cannot even tell all that I
feel sometimes as happy as if I were enchanted. But when the flower fades from me,
when I cannot see it in my mind, then it is like being very thirsty and all alone. That is
what the other people could not understand.
“Once upon a time, they say, the animals and the trees and the flowers used to talk to
people. It seems to me, every minute, as if they were just going to begin again. When I
look at them I can see what they want to say...

Gradually the boy lost himself in sweet fancies, and suddenly he found himself again, in
the charmed land of sleep. He wandered in far countries, rich and strange; he traversed
wild waters with incredible swiftness; marvellous creatures appeared and vanished; he
lived with all sorts of men, in battles, in whirling crowds, in lonely huts. He was cast into
prison. He fell into dire distress and want. All experiences seemed to be sharpened to
an edge. He felt them keenly, yet they did not harm him. He died and came alive again;
he loved to the height of passion, and then was parted forever from his beloved.”

The Princess
By Tennyson

“The splendour falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear, how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!”

Question: What feelings are produced when you hear and read these passages?
Do they produce the feeling, or “Longing” to go to places that are mentioned
within these passages?
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Here is the rest of the “Blue Flower” story

It seemed as if he were walking alone through the deep woods. Seldom the daylight
shimmered through the green veil. Soon he came to a rocky gorge in the mountains.
Under the mossy stones in the bed of the stream, he heard the water secretly tinkling
downward, ever downward, as he climbed upward.
The forest grew thinner and lighter. He came to a fair meadow on the slope of the mountain.
Beyond the meadow was a high cliff, and in the face of the cliff an opening like the entrance
to a path. Dark was the way, but smooth, and he followed easily on till he came near to a
vast cavern from which a flood of radiance streamed to meet him.

As he entered he beheld a mighty beam of light which sprang from the ground,
shattering itself against the roof in countless sparks, falling and flowing all together into a
great pool in the rock. Brighter was the light-beam than molten gold, but silent in its rise,
and silent in its fall. The sacred stillness of a shrine, a never-broken hush of joy and
wonder, filled the cavern. Cool was the dripping radiance that softly trickled down the
walls, and the light that rippled from them was pale blue.

But the pool, as the boy drew near and watched it, quivered and glanced with the ever-
changing colours of a liquid opal. He dipped his hands in it and wet his lips. It seemed
as if a lively breeze passed through his heart.

He felt an irresistible desire to bathe in the pool. Slipping off his clothes he plunged in. It
was as if he bathed in a cloud of sunset. A celestial rapture flowed through him. The
waves of the stream were like a bevy of nymphs taking shape around him, clinging to
him with tender breasts, as he floated onward, lost in delight, yet keenly sensitive to
every impression. Swiftly the current bore him out of the pool, into a hollow in the cliff.
Here a dimness of slumber shadowed his eyes, while he felt the pressure of the loveliest
dreams.

When he awoke again, he was aware of a new fulness of light, purer and steadier than
the first radiance. He found himself lying on the green turf, in the open air, beside a little
fountain, which sparkled up and melted away in silver spray. Dark-blue were the rocks
that rose at a little distance, veined with white as if strange words were written upon
them. Dark-blue was the sky, and cloudless.
 All passion had dissolved away from him; every sound was music; every breath was
peace; the rocks were like sentinels protecting him; the sky was like a cup of blessing full
of tranquil light.

But what charmed him most, and drew him with resistless power, was a tall, clear-blue
flower, growing beside the spring, and almost touching him with its broad, glistening
leaves. Round about were many other flowers, of all hues. Their odours mingled in a
perfect chord of fragrance. He saw nothing but the Blue Flower.

Long and tenderly he gazed at it, with unspeakable love. At last he felt that he must go a
little nearer to it, when suddenly it began to move and change. The leaves glistened
more brightly, and drew themselves up closely around the swiftly growing stalk. The
flower bent itself toward him, and the petals showed a blue, spreading necklace of
sapphires, out of which the lovely face of a girl smiled softly into his eyes. His sweet
astonishment grew with the wondrous transformation.

All at once he heard his mother’s voice calling him, and awoke in his parents’ room,
already flooded with the gold of the morning sun.