The Significance of the Accomplishments of Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) is the
author of the Alice in Wonderland Books, and many other short stories and poems. He
was a writer, photographer, mathematician, and teacher. He is most famous for the
consistent nonsensical theme of his works, especially at a time, and in a place when such
nonsense was not normally tolerated.
While Carroll’s works were extraordinarily uncouth, they actually had much
meaning, depth and symbolism. His poem, “The Jabberwocky”, was an attempt to
parody Anglo-Saxon poetry. All of Alice’s adventures, and all the people she met in
Wonderland were parodies of Victorian Society. While in Wonderland, Alice recites to
herself several poems that she learned
back in England:
“How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
“How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!” (Peterson,
JSTOR)
and
“How doth the busy little bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.
“In works of labour or of skill
I would be busy too,
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.” (Peterson, JSTOR)
Carroll, c. 1865
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lewis_Carroll_Self_Po
rtrait_1856_circa.jpg
Both are commentaries on Victorian England. The first poem is about greed and
deception, while the second describes the nature of labor, and seems to have an almost
anti-Marxian tone about it—a very common economic persuasion of Victorian England.
Other literary works by Carroll include, “The Walrus and the Carpenter”, “The
Hunting of the Snark”, “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles” and “A Tangled Tale”.
While much less known for his work as a mathematician and photographer, Carroll
has been praised as both. As a photographer, he is best known for his portraits of young
girls, especially the Liddel girls, daughters of a coworker: Edith, Lorina, and Alice.
Alice was the eventual inspiration for the character of his novels. He photographed his
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subjects artistically, and had them dress up as characters, or other people. This was
considered a new art form at the time. As a mathematician, Carroll published several
scholarly books on geometry, matrix algebra, mathematical logic, and
recreational mathematics. He also tutored math at Oxford University.
His appreciation of logic eventually lead to an early version of the
popular game known today as Scrabble.
Carroll was also an almost obsessive letter writer. He is said to
have penned 98,721 letters in 37 years. Some of the letters were to
actual people, such as Alice Liddel, while others were to no one in
particular; Alice in Wonderland was actually a very long story written
for Alice and her sisters.
Carroll lived and wrote in a time with very strict social
expectations, and very low tolerance for the nonsense characteristic of
Carroll’s works. Despite his seemingly sprawling and strange plots
Alice Liddel
and conceptions, he actually created a brilliant parody of the society
photographed as a
which he found so many faults in. His works have been embraced
beggar girl
by generations of children and have intrigued many adults as to the
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underlying messages that children may not pick up.
wiki/File:Alicebeggar.png
Sources:
Carroll, Lewis. Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea, 1987. Print.
Hudson, Derek. Lewis Carroll. London: Greewood, 1972. Print.
Peterson, Calvin R. “Time and Stress: Alice in Wonderland.” JSTOR. N.p., n.d.
Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
"Lewis Carroll." Gale Biography in Context. Cengage Learning, 2010. Web. 7
Mar. 2011.
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Monday, March 7, 2011 2:00:05 PM ET