Which Image Triggered C. S. Lewis’s Enthusiasm for Wagner’s Ring Cycle?

Abstract

In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis recounts a seminal moment that occurred quite early in his life but had an enormous impact on his spiritual development....He saw one of Rackham’s paintings and at the same time read the words Siegfried and The Twilight of the Gods. This triggered an intense experience of Joy—the first since his childhood days—and established his lifelong fascination with Norse mythology....The actual source of Lewis’s teenage encounter with Northernness appears to have eluded biographers thus far. After an exhaustive search, I have only been able to find one issue of a contemporary literary journal that contains the combination of said illustration and the words Siegfried and The Twilight of the Gods.