Oxford in Wonderland
A colleague sent me this with the following note
Today on The Spirit of Things [RN - ie Radio National -ABC ] there was an interview with the author of a recent article (which he is turning into a book) on Alice In Wonderland, seeking to identify the characters. Below is the text of the article. What I found most interesting is how (it is suggested) Dodgson referred to the evolutionary debate of the time.
Oxford in Wonderland
David Day. Queen's Quarterly. Fall 2010. Vol. 117, Iss. 3; pg. 403, 22 pgs
[Alice Pleasance Liddell] is not the only little girl in that real boating party to appear in Wonderland. After nearly drowning, in a "Pool of Tears," Alice finds herself happily chatting with two strange talking birds as if "she had known them all her life." In fact, the birds are reincarnated Wonderland versions of her sisters. [Edith Liddell] has become the Eaglet, and Lorina is the Lory (or Lorikeet - a small parrot). Nor is this the last we will see of them; they reappear in the Dormouse's story of "three little sisters ... named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie." That is, "three Liddell sisters": Lorina Charlotte (initials L.C.), Alice (anagram of Lacie), and Edith (pet name Matilda).
The example he gave in Vanity Fair was to change "Head into Tail": HEAD-heal-teal-tell-tall-TAIL. Amongst other examples, he suggests: "evolve Man from Ape"; and "Fish into Bird." In Wonderland, the verbal evolution of "Boy into Pig" is obvious enough: BOY-bog-big-PIG. But [Lewis Carroll] also gives the reader another obscure hint when the Duchess chants a spell over the child which ends in "WOW! WOW! WOW!" This is a cryptic phonetic pun on the word "Doublets": "WOW!" spelled out aloud is: "Double-You Oh Double-You!"
It is not a huge leap from "Ch. Ch. Cat" to "Cheshire Cat," but this doesn't suggest which canon is the Cheshire Cat. However, Alice supplies us with a clue by rather formally addressing the cat as "CheshirePuss." Why the capital on Puss? Why "Puss" at all? Only one Ch. Ch. Canon "would like the name" as Alice suggests.
(3746 words)
Copyright Queen's Quarterly Fall 2010
From the beginning, it was apparent that beneath the fairy tale level of Mice's Adventures in Wonderland there was a strong element of autobiography and satire of mid-Victorian society. It was fairly obvious that the characters and places in Wonderland had a counterpart in Oxford. All of Lewis Carroll's biographers and literary critics delve to some degree into this kind of historical "Who's Who" of the Alice books. Some of these Carroll identified himself; others he was at pains to keep secret. Nevertheless, if we walk carefully in Alice's footsteps, some fascinating new characters will step into the light. It began "all in a golden afternoon" with a real boating excursion on July 4, 1862, on the Isis, a branch of the Thames River passing though Oxford, when two young college dons rowed and picnicked with three pretty adolescent girls on their journey upriverfrom Folly Bridge to Godstow village.
AS Lewis Carroll always acknowledged, the "real Alice" was Alice Liddell, the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church 'College, Oxford. The young college dons were the Reverend Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth. During the expedition, the three girls - Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell (aged 14, 10, and 8) - begged Dodgson to tell them a story. And so began the tale of a little girl named Alice who chased a rabbit down a hole and discovered Wonderland.
Alice
Alice Pleasance Liddell
(1852-1932)
But Alice is not the only little girl in that real boating party to appear in Wonderland. After nearly drowning, in a "Pool of Tears," Alice finds herself happily chatting with two strange talking birds as if "she had known them all her life." In fact, the birds are reincarnated Wonderland versions of her sisters. Edith has become the Eaglet, and Lorina is the Lory (or Lorikeet - a small parrot). Nor is this the last we will see of them; they reappear in the Dormouse's story of "three little sisters ... named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie." That is, "three Liddell sisters": Lorina Charlotte (initials L.C.), Alice (anagram of Lacie), and Edith (pet name Matilda).
The two adult members of the original boating expedition also appear in the "Pool of Tears" as the Duck and the Dodo. We have direct proof of their identity in the form of a copy of Wonderland signed by Carroll and presented to his friend, the Reverend Robinson Duckworth. Carroll's inscription reads: "From the Dodo to the Duck." Duckworth became the tutor to Queen Victoria's son Prince Leopold, and was eventually appointed Canon of Westminster.
Duck
Reverend Robinson Duckworth
(1834-1911)
The transformation of the Reverend Duckworth to the Duck is obvious enough, but that of the Reverend Charles Dodgson into the Dodo is a little more obscure. The children were familiar with the famous Oxford Dodo: both the seventeenth-century Ian Savery painting and the last surviving stuffed Dodo in the Ashmolean Museum. However, the real reason for Dodgson becoming a Dodo was to be found in a private self-mocking joke with the children who had often observed the stuttering author as he nervously introduced himself as "Mr DoDo-Dodgson."
Dodo
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
(Lewis Carroll)
(1832-1898)
These Wonderland characters were mostly harmless parodies of a private nature that might have been fabricated by the author for any ordinary child. But, Alice Liddell was no ordinary child, and Oxford was at the very core of Victorian Britain's academic, ecclesiastic, and political life. Most of the other characters in Wonderland are satirical caricatures of some of the most significant figures of Victorian society. And as the daughter of the most influential educator of the age, Alice Liddell knew nearly all of them personally.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a time capsule of life in midnineteenth -century Oxford, and this was a critical era in the university's evolution. Liberal reforms swept away many aspects of medieval privilege and patronage, and a new system was introduced by which merit was measured in terms of academic achievement alone.
It was Alice Liddell's father, the Dean of Christ Church College, who was the chief architect of these sweeping reforms. More than anyone, Dean Liddell was responsible for separating the powers of church and state and clearing the way for modern secular universities. In the midst of all this was Charles Dodgson, a junior mathematics don. His academic superior was the liberal Dean Liddell. His ecclesiastic superior was Samuel Wilberforce, the conservative Bishop of Oxford and a ferocious opponent of the program of reform.
Dodgson-Carroll was a reactionary conservative who persistently conspired against virtually every one of the liberal progressive acts initiated by Dean Liddell. Although consistently on the wrong side of history, through Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Carroll has his readers unwittingly engaged in a satire of most of the major social and political issues of his time.
One of the historic turning points in human inteEectual history in this new era took place a few hundred yards from Lewis Carroll's residence. This was the famous 1860 Oxford Darwinian Debate in which the bombastic anti- Evolutionist Wilberforce was verbally eviscerated by the rational pro-Evolutionary Thomas Henry Huxley. Known as "Darwin's Bulldog," Huxley's victory became emblematic of the triumph of progressive rational science.
In Wonderland, Carroll's satire of the Darwin debate takes place in the strange smoke-filled Kitchen of the Ugly Duchess. The Oxford counterpart of the Duchess' Kitchen is one of the grand sites of the university: Cardinal Wolsey's Great Kitchen. Built during the reign of Henry VIII, Oxford's Great Kitchen has a massive hearth for roasting entire pigs and, like the Duchess' Kitchen, was frequently filled with smoke.
The Great Kitchen was also the one part of the university that was directly under the authority of the Bishop of Oxford. Samuel Wilberforce, the son of the anti-slavery movement's "Great Emancipator" William Wilberforce, was known to parliamentarians and political pundits as "Soapy Sam" because of his brash and illogical debating style. He was the perfect model for the logic-chopping, moralizing, and argumentative Ugly Duchess.
Although consistently on the wrong side of history, through Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Carroll has his readers unwittingly engaged in a satire of most of the major social and political issues of his time.
Ugly Duchess
Bishop of Oxford
Samuel Wilberforce
(1805-1873)
In this fantastic "Kitchen of Creation," one can imagine these insane cooks mixing up a mad biological soup. Evolution is gone berserk. Uniformed fish and frog footmen seem to have just stepped out of the primordial ooze. A constantly shape-shifting baby appears to demonstrate "survival of the fittest" by preferring beatings to affection. Strangest of all, Alice's attempt to nurse this child results in a strange backward form of evolution: from a boy into a pig.
This surreal idea of a boy evolving into a pig is a typical Carrollian conundrum. Carroll is playing a word game. It was a game of verbal evolution which he himself invented (and later published in Vanity Fair) entitled "Doublets." In this game two words of the same length are chosen, and the player must make one word evolve into another by means of "missing-link words" created by changing a single letter to form each new link-word.
The example he gave in Vanity Fair was to change "Head into Tail": HEAD-heal-teal-tell-tall-TAIL. Amongst other examples, he suggests: "evolve Man from Ape"; and "Fish into Bird." In Wonderland, the verbal evolution of "Boy into Pig" is obvious enough: BOY-bog-big-PIG. But Carroll also gives the reader another obscure hint when the Duchess chants a spell over the child which ends in "WOW! WOW! WOW!" This is a cryptic phonetic pun on the word "Doublets": "WOW!" spelled out aloud is: "Double-You Oh Double-You!"
The Cook is the famous natural scientist Sir Richard Owen, who served as the bishop's adviser. It was Owen who "cooked up" the arguments against Huxley and Darwin for Wilberforce. Unfortunately, much to Owen's irritation, the bishop entirely failed to comprehend some of his most basic theories.
Famous as the anatomist who coined the word "dinosaur," Owen was an influential but extremely disagreeable character. In Darwin, Owen and Wilberforce had a common enemy; however, Owen was no friend of the bishop, and basically disputed with Darwin over the recipe of the primal soup.
Cook
Sir Richard Owen
(1804-1882)
AFTER leaving the Duchess' Kitchen, Alice encounters the Cheshire Cat. Carroll's game of Doublets goes some way to explaining the Cheshire Cat's ability to vanish bit by bit from "Tail to Head." However, it does not explain the ancient English riddle of the grin: "to grin like a Cheshire Cat" was an expression that pre-dated Carroll by at least a century.
Nor does it help with the question of his identity. The Cheshire Cat is the smiling Sphinx of Wonderland whose identity has long been a mystery. But cats at Oxford are not hard to find. The Christ Church College coat of arms is adorned with four guardian cats' heads. As there are Christ Church colleges at both Cambridge and Oxford, in order to differentiate one from the other, Oxford uses the abbreviation Ch. Ch. Consequently, Carroll and his colleagues commonly referred to themselves as Ch. Ch. Men; while the canons became known as the Ch. Ch. Cats - the watchful guardians of the university.
It is not a huge leap from "Ch. Ch. Cat" to "Cheshire Cat," but this doesn't suggest which canon is the Cheshire Cat. However, Alice supplies us with a clue by rather formally addressing the cat as "CheshirePuss." Why the capital on Puss? Why "Puss" at all? Only one Ch. Ch. Canon "would like the name" as Alice suggests.
Cheshire Cat
Canon Edward Bouverie Pusey
(1800-1882)
The Cheshire Cat was the Reverend Dr Edward Bouverie Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew and Lewis Carroll's mentor. Canon Pusey was the ecclesiastical and political focus of ultra-conservatism at Oxford. And just as the Cheshire Cat was the Duchess' Cat, so Pusey was under the authority of Oxford's Duchess, Bishop Wilberforce. As a friend of Carroll's High Church father, Canon Pusey also grantedthrough the old system of privilege and patronage - the young CarrollDodgson entry into Christ Church.
In one of his anonymously published satires, wherein people take on geometric identities, Carroll "investigates the locus of EBP [Edward Bouverie Pusey): this was found to be a species of Catenary, called a Patristic Catenary." Today the term Patristic Catenary (meaning "chain of the fathers" of the church) is obscure, but it was not so in Carroll's time. Canon Pusey was famously the greatest authority on the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, and widely celebrated as the ultimate Patristic Catenary.
Even more revealingly, in geometry, a catenary is a curve made by a chain suspended between two points at different levels, such as one finds in a suspension or catenary bridge. With this clue, Carroll has not only provided us with proof of the identity of Wonderland's Cheshire Cat, but the shape of a catenary is almost perfectly described by Alice as "a grin without a cat!"
And finally, with this, Carroll gives us a mathematician's solution to the ancient unsolved riddle hidden behind the Cheshire Cat's grin.
"RIDDLE: Wimt kind of cat can grin?"
"ANSWER: A Catenary."
JUST as Darwinian evolution was the target of Carroll's satire in the Duchess' Kitchen, it was the rise of the Christian Socialist Movement that was parodied at the table of the Mad Tea Party. Most Christian Socialists were authors of socially conscious novels and Christian tracts, and belonged to a Cambridge society known as the "Apostles."
As a caring Christian, Lewis Carroll had some sympathy for their views, but as a conservative he found their impassioned public debates quite hare-brained and rather dangerous to the stability of the nation. In making them participants of a Mad Tea Party, Carroll aligns them with the disastrous consequences (as Carroll saw it) of the Boston Tea Party.
In a phonetic pun he frequently used, Carroll argued this was an M.T. (Mad Tea) Party of empty (M.T.) promises. When Alice is offered wine, she is told there is none and comes to understand that this is a party without substance or "spirit": a further allusion to the Christian Socialists, who were all avowed teetotalers; and thus literally a party of tea drinkers.
Mad Hatter
Reverend Charles Kingsley
(1819-1875)
The Mad Hatter is Charles Kingsley. The most famous of the Christian Socialists, Kingsley was the author of numerous popular socially conscious novels. His vivid portrayal of working class squalor in the clothing trade in novels like Alton Locke awakened the middle classes to the tragic human consequences of the Industrial Revolution.
Among these victims of the clothing trade were the hatters. Widespread use of mercury in the shaping of hats resulted in dementia, which often manifested itself in uncontrollable trembling and raving speech patterns like those of Wonderland's Mad Hatter. Although "Mad as a Hatter" was a common expression long before Carroll's time, one can easily appreciate why the ultra-conservative Carroll would wish to portray the excitable socialist Kingsley as a ranting and raving Mad Hatter.
Kingsley was one of the few clergymen to introduce evolutionary ideas into his novels, and in his perennial children's classic The Waterbabies - read by Carroll before writing Wonderland - one illustration is of Sir Richard Owen (Wonderland's Cook) examining a "Waterbaby" in a test tube alongside his opponent Thomas Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog."
March Hare
Reverend Julius Charles Hare
(1795-1855)
The Tea Party's March Hare is lulius Hare, a leading Christian Socialist theological writer. Hare was a prolific author, who - like the March Hare - was so painfully fond of "hairsplitting" digressions that he found it necessary to append a 200-page footnote to one of his publications. It appears that Carroll may have been "splitting heirs" in this characterization: Julius had an equally eccentric Christian Socialist brother, Augustus William Hare, and a nephew, Augustus Cuthbert Hare, an exact contemporary of Carroll's at Oxford.
Dormouse
Reverend Frederick Denison Maurice
(1805-1872)
The Dormouse - as the third member of the Mad Tea Party - was also a famous Christian Socialist: lohn Frederick Denison Maurice, who eventually became the Cambridge Professor of Moral Philosophy. Through his thoughtful sermons and his writing, Maurice became an immensely respected Christian thinker, and founder of both the Apostles and (with Kingsley) the Christian Socialists.
Maurice's "other worldly" and mildtempered nature seems well-reflected in his portrayal as narcoleptic Dormouse. The animal's sleepiness is explained by the fact that the Dormouse is a nocturnal rodent whose name is derived from the French dormier: and thus is literally a "sleeping mouse."
Maurice believed that theology should be a source of unity, not division, but like Wonderland's Dormouse stuffed into the tea pot, he found himself in hot water when his superiors charged him with heresy for his refusal to accept the church doctrine of Eternal Damnation.
AFTER the Mad Tea Party, Alice enters Wonderland's Royal Garden and the Queen's Croquet Ground. Everyone and everything behaves strangely here, but somehow they also seem familiar. This is because the Royal Gardens are Oxford University's Gardens of Academe, and the above-ground counterpart of the Queen's Croquet Ground is the croquet lawn of Alice's own home at the Deanery of Christ Church College.
It was in the Deanery Garden while gazing out a window in the college library that Carroll first caught sight of Alice and her sisters playing croquet. And it was in that garden that he first approached them, and eventually arranged to photograph Alice and her two sisters wearing their best summer dresses and holding croquet mallets.
King of Hearts
Alice's Father, Dean Henry George Liddell
(1811-1898)
The King and Queen of Hearts are, without doubt, Alice's parents: Henry George Liddell and Lorina Hannah Liddell. As Dean of Christ Church, Henry George Liddell was the confidant of both Prime Ministers Disraeli and Gladstone. He was also on intimate terms with Queen Victoria and her family: he had been chaplain to both Albert, tiie Prince Consort, and Edward, the Prince of Wales.
The brother of an earl, Dean Liddell was also one of the foremost Greek scholars of his day, and co-author of the authoritative Liddell-Scott Greek-English Lexicon. Furthermore, architecturally he transformed Oxford by carrying out the most ambitious building program in its history. Although sometimes mtimidating and aristocratic in his bearing, he was noted for his kindly nature. Like the King of Hearts, he was generally seen as well-meaning but - like many academics - somewhat vague as an administrator.
Queen of Hearts
Alice's Mother, Lorina Hannah Liddel
(1826-1910)
The Queen of Hearts was obviously Alice's mother, Lorina Hannah Liddell. Mrs Liddell was very beautiful when young. However, as she gave birth to ten children and grew older, she became stouter and temperamentally rather overbearing. The Deanery hosted parties for visiting prime ministers, archbishops, aristocrats, and royalty. Consequently, like Wonderland's royal family under the authority of the Queen, the Liddells were very much seen as "Oxford's royal family," firmly under the authority of Mrs Liddell.
Certainly, Lewis Carroll was not the first to observe how Mrs Liddell often "held court" at the Deanery. There was a well-known jingle - not of Carroll's composition -that made its rounds at Oxford:
I am the Dean and this is Mrs Liddell
She plays the first, and I the second fiddle.
She is the Broad; lam the High:
And we are the University.
White Rabbit
Dr Henry Wentworth Acland
(1815-1900)
Within the Royal Court, Alice discovers her guide into Wonderland, the White Rabbit, is also the Royal Herald. The White Rabbit is undoubtedly Alice Liddell's family physician, Dr Henry Wentworth Acland. Dr Acland was Oxford's Regius Professor of Medicine. Like the White Rabbit, Dr Acland seemed to know everybody at all levels of society. He had been the personal physician of Alice, the Dean and Mrs Liddell (King and Queen of Hearts), the Bishop of Oxford (the Ugly Duchess), and - at one time - Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales. Yet, he also went on his rounds treating ordinary citizens and the poor, and was - like the White Rabbit - often seen checking his pocket watch and adjusting his spectacles, before rushing off to his next appointment.
Dr Acland was also a noted anatomist and a social reformer who in the wake of numerous epidemics in Oxford developed an obsession with public sanitation and underground sewage systems. Consequently, like the White Rabbit, Dr Acland was frequently seen literally climbing down into holes in the ground on his regular inspection of drainage tunnels. One couldn't hope for a better model for Wonderland's underground guide.
THE heraldic beasts of the Royal Gardens are the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon. As guardians of the "Gardens of Academe," they are also parodies of a pair of monstrous schoolmasters. One of these, the Mock Turtle, is a non-existent creature, the product of the absurd logic-chopping: if turtle soup is made from turtles, then mock turtle soup must be made from mock turtles. Except mock turtle soup is actually made with veal, which explains Tenniel's illustration of the Mock Turtle with a calf's head, hooves, and tail.
Mock Turtle
Reverend Henry Parry Liddon
(1829-1890)
So far as the Mock Turtle's identity, there is no doubt. On several occasions Carroll revealed the Mock Turtle as his friend and colleague the Reverend Henry Parry Liddon. Here, Carroll gives us another example of his addiction to appallingly bad puns: a turtle is an animal with a "Lid-On." For twenty years Liddon was the canon of St Paul's Cathedral where, by means of his charismatic and emotive oration, he had a popular following, and frequently moved his parishioners to tears. By comparison, in Wonderland the Mock Turtle only seems capable of moving himself to tears. One cannot help but think that it amused Carroll to portray Liddon the great orator as a "literary trope"; that is, a creature that only exists as a figure of speech.
Gryphon
Literary critics can suck the pure enjoyment out of any written work. This is a perfect example.
The obvious question:
Who gives a rat's ass? (Other than the poor critic who suggests it all, proving that he has nothing better to do with his life....)
Rich
I enjoyed it immensely. And so did many radio national listeners.
I think one of things you have missed in life is the absolute enjoyment of literature. And this is why Dodgson Has more to say than Tolkien.
Literature is part of our history and tells are who we are:
Nursery Rhyme & History
Jack and Jill Rhyme
Jack and Jill story - The French (history) connection!The roots of the story, or poem, of Jack and Jill are in France. Jack and Jill referred to are said to be King Louis XVI - Jack -who was beheaded (lost his crown) followed by his Queen Marie Antoinette - Jill - (who came tumbling after). The words and lyrics to the Jack and Jill poem were made more acceptable as a story for children by providing a happy ending! The actual beheadings occurred in during the Reign of Terror in 1793. The first publication date for the lyrics of Jack and Jill rhyme is 1795 - which ties-in with the history and origins. The Jack and Jill poem is also known as Jack and Gill - the mis-spelling of Gill is not uncommon in nursery rhymes as they are usually passed from generation to generation by word of mouth.
Or this one
Humpty Dumpty Rhyme
Nursery Rhyme & History
The imagery of Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty was a colloquial term used in fifteenth century England describing someone who was obese. This has given rise to various, but inaccurate, theories surrounding the identity of Humpty Dumpty. The image of Humpty Dumpty was made famous by the illustrations included in the 'Alice through the looking glass' novel by Lewis Carroll. However, Humpty Dumpty was not a person pilloried in the famous rhyme!
The History and Origins of the Rhyme
Humpty Dumpty was in fact believed to be a large cannon! It was used during the English Civil War ( 1642 - 1649) in the Siege of Colchester (13 Jun 1648 - 27 Aug 1648). Colchester was strongly fortified by the Royalists and was laid to siege by the Parliamentarians (Roundheads). In 1648 the town of Colchester was a walled town with a castle and several churches and was protected by the city wall. Standing immediately adjacent the city wall, was St Mary's Church. A huge cannon, colloquially called Humpty Dumpty, was strategically placed on the wall next to St Mary's Church. The historical events detailing the siege of Colchester are well documented - references to the cannon ( Humpty Dumpty) are as follows:
Or this one
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Read more here
Nursery Rhymes lyrics, origins and history
All of the lyrics to the most traditional nursery rhymes with their origins, history and meanings. The most popular nursery rhymes are Jack and Jill, ...
www.rhymes.org.uk/ - Cached - Similar
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John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
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And to finnish the humpty dumpty connection
A shot from a Parliamentary cannon succeeded in damaging the wall beneath Humpty Dumpty which caused the cannon to tumble to the ground. The Royalists, or Cavaliers, 'all the King's men' attempted to raise Humpty Dumpty on to another part of the wall. However, because the cannon , or Humpty Dumpty, was so heavy ' All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again!' This had a drastic consequence for the Royalists as the strategically important town of Colchester fell to the Parliamentarians after a siege lasting eleven weeks. Earliest traceable publication 1810.
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There are examples of such stories that do reflect historical facts - but the piece on Dodgson is not one of them - it is all supposition. It is nothing more than another example of Bible Code reading.
Rcih
Rich,
It is certainly not ALL supposition. But there may well be some informed guessing: But this is certainly factually
....
Rich,
Alice in Wonderland was written in 1865, 5 years after Origin of the Species. It would not be at all surprising if some of this was satire on evolution. Certainly some of the characters are well known Others can be surmised.
As you know Dodgson was a gifted mathematician who have got a first at Oxford, went on to become a lecturer there. Much of it is undoubtedly a satire of some the characters. We know for example that Alice was the daughter of the Dean under whom Dodgson lectured at Christs College, Oxford. Much of this is well known. There is some argument about how much of Alice Liddell in Alice.
.
From wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Liddell
Alice Liddell (right) with sisters circa 1859 (photo by Lewis Carroll)
On 4 July 1862, in a rowing boat travelling on the Isis from Folly Bridge, Oxford to Godstow for a picnic outing, 10-year-old Alice askedCharles Dodgson (who wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll) to entertain her and her sisters, Edith (age 8) and Lorina (age 13), with a story. As the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed the boat, Dodgson regaled the girls with fantastic stories of a girl, named Alice, and her adventures after she fell into a rabbit-hole. The story was not unlike those Dodgson had spun for the sisters before, but this time Liddell asked Mr. Dodgson to write it down for her. He promised to do so but did not get around to the task for some months. He eventually presented her with the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground in November 1864.
....
Alice Liddell was the fourth child of Henry Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and his wife Lorina Hanna Liddell (née Reeve). She had two older brothers, Harry (born 1847) and Arthur (born 1850, died of scarlet fever in 1853), and an older sister Lorina (born 1849). She also had six younger siblings, including her sister Edith (born 1854) with whom she was very close.
At the time of her birth, Liddell's father was the Headmaster of Westminster School but was soon after appointed to the deanery of Christ Church, Oxford. The Liddell family moved to Oxford in 1856. Soon after this move, she met Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who encountered the family while he was photographing the cathedral on 25 April 1856. He became a close friend of the Liddell family in subsequent years (see Relationship with Lewis Carroll below).
There are examples of such stories that do reflect historical facts - but the piece on Dodgson is not one of them - it is all supposition. It is nothing more than another example of Bible Code reading.Rcih
-richw9090
Martin Gardener is well known to Readers of Scientific American. Here is wiki
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 – May 22, 2010)[1][2] was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature (especially the writings of Lewis Carroll),philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, theNotes of a Fringe-Watcher column in Skeptical Inquirer from 1983 to 2002, and published over 70 books.[3]
Now here is Martin Gardner on Alice in Wonderland. This is taken from the introduction to his own Illustrated Edition:
Character allusions
In The Annotated Alice Martin Gardner provides background information for the characters. The members of the boating party that first heard Carroll's tale show up in Chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale"). Alice Liddell herself is there, while Carroll is caricatured as the Dodo (because Dodgson stuttered when he spoke, he sometimes pronounced his last name as Dodo-Dodgson. The Duck refers to Canon Duckworth, the Lory to Lorina Liddell, and the Eaglet to Edith Liddell (Alice Liddell's sisters).[4]
Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of Benjamin Disraeli.[citation needed] One of Tenniel's illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass depicts the character referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets as a fellow passenger riding on the train with her), as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat.[5] The illustrations of the Lion and the Unicorn also bear a striking resemblance to Tenniel's Punch illustrations of Gladstone and Disraeli.[6]
The Hatter is most likely a reference to Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer known in Oxford for his unorthodox inventions. Tenniel apparently drew the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's.[7] The Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. These are the Liddell sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina Charlotte), Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda), and Lacie is an anagram of Alice.[8]
The Mock Turtle speaks of a Drawling-master, "an old conger eel", who came once a week to teach "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils". This is a reference to the art critic John Ruskin, who came once a week to the Liddell house to teach the children drawing, sketching, and painting in oils. (The children did, in fact, learn well; Alice Liddell, for one, produced a number of skilled watercolours.)[9]
The Mock Turtle also sings "Beautiful Soup". This is a parody of a song called "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star", which was performed as a trio by Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell for Lewis Carroll in the Liddell home during the same summer in which he first told the story of Alice's Adventures Under Ground.[10]
The last was quote in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland
But let us not stop there.
"Mathematician Keith Devlin asserted in the journal of The Mathematical Association of America that Dodgson wrote Alice in Wonderland in its final form as a scathing satire on new modern mathematics that were emerging in the mid-19th century.[20]"
Now think about this
"Most of the book's adventures may have been based on and influenced by people, situations and buildings in Oxford and at Christ Church, e.g., the "Rabbit Hole," which symbolized the actual stairs in the back of the main hall in Christ Church. A carving of a griffon and rabbit, as seen in Ripon Cathedral, where Carroll's father was a canon, may have provided inspiration for the tale.[17]"
"Since Carroll was a mathematician at Christ Church, it has been suggested[18][19] that there are many references and mathematical concepts in both this story and also in Through the Looking-Glass; examples include:
......
- "In chapter 2, "The Pool of Tears", Alice tries to perform multiplication but produces some odd results: "Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!" This explores the representation of numbers using different bases and positional numeral systems: 4 x 5 = 12 in base 18 notation, 4 x 6 = 13 in base 21 notation, and 4 x 7 could be 14 in base 24 notation. Continuing this sequence, going up three bases each time, the result will continue to be less than 20 in the corresponding base notation. (After 19 the product would be 1A, then 1B, 1C, 1D, and so on.)"
.....
- "In chapter 7, "A Mad Tea-Party", the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse give several examples in which the semantic value of a sentence A is not the same value of the converse of A (for example, "Why, you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!"); in logic and mathematics, this is discussing an inverse relationship."
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- "Also in chapter 7, Alice ponders what it means when the changing of seats around the circular table places them back at the beginning. This is an observation of addition on the ring of integers modulo N."
Read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland#cite_note-6
The griffon and the rabbit in Ripon Cathedral where Dodgson's father was canon.
I once went to a lecture at Columbia University - can't remember what Department hosted it, perhaps Classics. It was on the use of the Gargoyle as an architectural element in Europe.
At one point, speaking of some particularly large gargoyles on the top of a building being shown on a slide, the woman giving the lecture commented on the use of "larger than life-sized gargoyles". I started laughing. But no one else did - and they all looked at me oddly. Not one of them caught the absurdity.
Somehow this discussion remined me of that incident.
Rich
I can understand the point you are making.
But I also get a lot of pleasure when authors provide insights that go beyond the surface intentions of their art. In cricket there is type of spin bowling that is called a 'googly'. The cricket ball looks as if it is going to go one way, but goes another. Matt Groening bowls googlies superbly each week in The Simpsons.
It gives me great pleasure to find hidden meanings in something as simple and delightful as Alice in Wonderland.
I'd agree with your post above whole-heartedly, Dorids - if you actually agreed with it. But you don't. You mean something almost diametrically opposed to what you actually wrote:
"But I also get a lot of pleasure when authors provide insights that go beyond the surface intentions of their art." But in the cases you shown us, the author never provided anything - the author has given you no insights. YOU have brought those insights to the reading of the specific work. You don't get them from the reading, you bring them to it. I'd even agree if you wrote "But I also get a lot of pleasure when authors inspire insights that go beyond the surface intentions of their art."
At the end you seem to change directions and admit that it gives you "great pleasure to find hidden meanings in something as simple and delightful as Alice in Wonderland."
Yes it does, as it does for me as well.
Tolkien had it exactly right, when he wrote that anyone who finds hidden specific meanings in his work, specifically LOTR, brings those meanings to the work. He made this comment, I think, in the introduction to the first American edition of LOTR; I've not ever been able to find it since. He was talking in this case about certain literary critics who were identifying Mordor as Nazi Germany, Sauron as Hitler, etc. I think he would have had less trouble accepting a literary critic who identified (in his or her own mind) Nazi Germany with Mordor. "As" speaks to the intent of the author, which we can never know, unless the author decides to tell us, and I don't know many authors commonly identified as great who have done so - it would trivialize their work. "With" speaks to the intent of the reader.
Rich
I'd agree with your post above whole-heartedly, Dorids - if you actually agreed with it. But you don't. You mean something almost diametrically opposed to what you actually wrote:"But I also get a lot of pleasure when authors provide insights that go beyond the surface intentions of their art." But in the cases you shown us, the author never provided anything - the author has given you no insights. YOU have brought those insights to the reading of the specific work. You don't get them from the reading, you bring them to it. I'd even agree if you wrote "But I also get a lot of pleasure when authors inspire insights that go beyond the surface intentions of their art." At the end you seem to change directions and admit that it gives you "great pleasure to find hidden meanings in something as simple and delightful as Alice in Wonderland."Yes it does, as it does for me as well.Tolkien had it exactly right, when he wrote that anyone who finds hidden specific meanings in his work, specifically LOTR, brings those meanings to the work. He made this comment, I think, in the introduction to the first American edition of LOTR; I've not ever been able to find it since. He was talking in this case about certain literary critics who were identifying Mordor as Nazi Germany, Sauron as Hitler, etc. I think he would have had less trouble accepting a literary critic who identified (in his or her own mind) Nazi Germany with Mordor. "As" speaks to the intent of the author, which we can never know, unless the author decides to tell us, and I don't know many authors commonly identified as great who have done so - it would trivialize their work. "With" speaks to the intent of the reader.Rich-richw9090
You are quite wrong Rich, I am afraid. In an earlier post you found the gargoyle comment amusing: it makes me think that you are very literal. I suspect you would detest a paleontologist who would arrive at conclusions without seeing the evidence at first hand, without even touching the bones. I see that as a kind of snobbery.
I do not find any hidden meanings in Tolkien myself, although there maybe. I just find it a great fairy tale. But novels are something different again. One cannot read the Russian novelists such as Dostoevsky or Solzhenitsyn, French novelisst Balzac or Hugo, the English novelists Dickens or Orwell, or the Americans Hemmingway or Faulkner without realizing they provide insights into the world around them: important insights that improve our lives as much as any of the physical sciences
Novels are about the world. If I may be so bold, I find a kind snobbery in some people that is prevalent, but not limited to, the scientific world. It is particularly true of those who believe in hands on science and evidence. They seem to think that a treatise on some scientific thing is superior to the a treatise on the classics, or in this case an analysis of Alice in Wonderland. They would regard scientific work far above the work of an artist. Einstein in their view is superior to Picasso, Newton superior to Beethoven. They are horrified at the idea that the impressionists or the cubists were scientists on canvass. Novels are merely entertainment for them- great fun but not a real scientific work. Not proper analysis. They could not see Hemmingways For Whom the Bell Tolls or Hugo's Les Miserables as every bit as important as Einstein" Special Theory of Relativity.
Now this is not true of all scientists. There are whole issues of journals such as Nature devoted to the work of artists.
However, I did find that kind of snobbery among some economists too. A remember a colleague finding it hilarious that someone would do a Ph D in jellyfish or would study old bones and fossils as though the past mattered. They regarded a regression on the consumption function far more important then uncovering the fossil of a species that became extinct a million years ago.
You seem to think, or do think, that the thoughts are brought by "critics", as you put it, to the work in the classics and in the work of those who study literature, thoughts not embodied in the work itself. You like to put these people down by calling them "critics". Some of those who use that term "critics"could never see that Martin Gardner was first and foremast a scientist, bringing the tools of science to the work of Dodgson in this case.
Do these analysts bring their thoughts to their work. Yes, but no more than a paleontologist brings thoughts to the analysis of the bones and fossils with which he or she works.
Whether Martin Gardner, a mathematician like Dodgson, is right or wrong about Alice in Wonderland is judged on the same criteria that a paleontologist or any other scientist uses. Whether Martin Gardener is right or wrong is judged on the evidence - not on whether he brings ideas to his work. The same for Dickens, Balzac, Hemmingway, Faulkner, and so on. I sincerely hope all scientists bring ideas to their work.
It is a said indictment of our world that applied science is valued more than pure science, and both are valued more than the Arts. A very sad indictment indeed.
Literary critics are a very specialized sort of people - those who spend their time telling us, with absolute certainty, what the intent of the author was - something they can never know, unless the author has told us directly. Worse still, they couch it in terms of "the meaning" of the book/painting/etc. The meaning is entirely in the reception by the reader or viewer or listener. What you are talking about is more "literary history", or perhaps "literary anthropology". To examine the work of an author in its historical and cultural setting is very different from what the literary critics I'm talking about do. To recognize those settings, both on the part of the author, and on the part of the reader/viewer/listener, is valuable - in fact, it is probably the main thing of value which such works can provide us, other than the pure enjoyment of their existence, which is, in and of itself, often more than enough justification for identifying the particular work as "great".
