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In several songs, East Belfast singer-songwriter Van Morrison recalls moments from his childhood when he would suddenly feel “lit up inside, with a sense of everlasting life,” with the most memorable of such moments taking place in his terraced home in Hyndford Street or as he walked the nearby, leafy Cyprus Avenue. Decades earlier, fellow East Belfast native C.S. Lewis had similar experiences of sudden ecstasy, with many taking place in his childhood home, Little Lea in Belmont, or in the neighboring Co. Down countryside. Lewis included detailed descriptions of these moments (and his theory regarding what they meant) in his “spiritual autobiography,” Surprised By Joy (1955). C.S. Lewis and Van Morrison are not the only Ulster Protestant writers to show an interest in both private and public moments of transcendence in their work. In this chapter, Lewis’s interest in transformational moments of “Joy” is linked to a tradition of Ulster Protestant ecstasy, as found in various works by Northern Irish writers from Protestant (or educationally/nominally Protestant) backgrounds. Centrally discussed are works not just by Van Morrison, but also Forrest Reid, Stewart Parker, Christina Reid, Marie Jones, Juliet Turner, and Lucy Caldwell.

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“Lit Up Inside”: C.S. Lewis’s Joy and Ulster Protestant Ecstasy

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • David Clare

摘要

In several songs, East Belfast singer-songwriter Van Morrison recalls moments from his childhood when he would suddenly feel “lit up inside, with a sense of everlasting life,” with the most memorable of such moments taking place in his terraced home in Hyndford Street or as he walked the nearby, leafy Cyprus Avenue. Decades earlier, fellow East Belfast native C.S. Lewis had similar experiences of sudden ecstasy, with many taking place in his childhood home, Little Lea in Belmont, or in the neighboring Co. Down countryside. Lewis included detailed descriptions of these moments (and his theory regarding what they meant) in his “spiritual autobiography,” Surprised By Joy (1955). C.S. Lewis and Van Morrison are not the only Ulster Protestant writers to show an interest in both private and public moments of transcendence in their work. In this chapter, Lewis’s interest in transformational moments of “Joy” is linked to a tradition of Ulster Protestant ecstasy, as found in various works by Northern Irish writers from Protestant (or educationally/nominally Protestant) backgrounds. Centrally discussed are works not just by Van Morrison, but also Forrest Reid, Stewart Parker, Christina Reid, Marie Jones, Juliet Turner, and Lucy Caldwell.