Eschatological Snark


According to Karen Gardiner, “it would be unwise for anyone to imply that they have found the answer to the book’s mystery.” The book is Lewis Carroll’s and Henry Holiday’s The Hunting of the Snark (1876).

I started my Snark hunt in December 2008. Initially I probably had been quite unwise and thought that I had found the answer. That might explain the title The real story behind “The Hunting of the Snark” of an early post in The Lewis Carroll Forum. I am sorry for that botched exercise in self-irony. There is not just one single “real story” behind Carroll’s Snark poem. There are many answers.

Gardiner gave her warning to Snark hunters in her paper Life, Eternity, and Everything: Hidden Eschatology in the Works of Lewis Carroll, published on p.25~41 in THE CARROLLIAN, No. 31, mailed by the UK Lewis Carroll Society to me in June 2018.

As for “Article 42” in Thomas Cranmer’s 42 Articles and “Rule 42” in The Hunting of the Snark, the main argument of Gardiner’s June 2018 paper is “that Carroll’s frequent and unexplained use of the number 42, and in particular his development of Rule 42 in the preface of The Hunting of the Snark and Rule 42 in Alice’s trial scene highlight the doctrine of eternal punishment that Carroll was so concerned about.”«But if Rule 42 is not just a random number, preferred by some inexplicable reason by Carroll, but is actually a theological nod to a discarded article of faith, then the riddle may be solved. The rule may indeed be the oldest (that is, from 1553 rather than 1571) and so the King, in some senses, is correct. But Alice is also correct. This rule has already been rejected as unnecessary and flawed and therefore cannot be used by the court to justify ejecting her.

It is therefore this paper’s argument that Carroll’s frequent and unexplained use of the number 42, and in particular his development of Rule 42 in the preface of the

The issue was addressed in this Blog in December 2017: Eternal Disconnect.

As for Thomas Cranmer’s 42 Articles and the Baker’s 42 boxes in The Hunting of the Snark, Gardiner made me aware of Angus MacIntyre‘s comment (1994) “The Baker’s 42 Boxes are the original Protestant Articles of 1553, with Thomas Cranmer’s name on each.” Since 2010 I believe that too. Thanks to Karen Gardiner’s 2018 paper in THE CARROLLIAN and to Angus MacIntire’s suggestion I now know that linking the Baker in The Hunting of the Snark to Thomas Cranmer (among other references) is not such a weird idea after all.

Also Mary Hammond (a pen name of Mary Hibbs) recognized in 2017 that eternal damnation (Article 42 in the 42 Articles) was an issue which Carroll/Dodgson might have addressed in The Hunting of the Snark.

The Article 42 in the 42 Articles was of special interest to Carroll/Dodgson, who objected to the belief in an eternal punishment. I suggest that Carroll chose the “42” as one among several references to Thomas Cranmer, the author of the 42 Articles.

I started in December 2008 to be unwise with a single finding. But soon I understood, that there are many answers to Lewis Carroll’s and Henry Holiday’s textual and pictorial puzzles in The Hunting of the Snark. When Reverend Karin Gardiner wrote her paper, she did not refer to my findings related to Thomas Cranmer and his 42 Articles. But it is good to learn that also theologists write about religious aspects of The Hunting of the Snark.

more

 
2018-07-06, update: 2024-03-06

Knight Letter № 100

In July 2018, the members of the LCSNA (Lewis Carroll Society of North America) received the 100th Knight Letter.

Also in this issue, Goetz Kluge makes the case that a seventeenth-century engraving may have influenced Henry Holiday’s last illustration for The Hunting of the Snark. Goetz’s excellent blog about all things Snark is at http://snrk.de/

Preface to the Knight Letter № 100, LCSNA, 2018
 

 
On pages 55~56 you find a few lines which I wrote about the Baker and Thomas Cranmer in The Hunting of the Snark.

There also is an accompanying web page.
In the end, the Baker met the Boojum. As an allusion to Thomas Cranmer, the hero in Carroll’s Snark tragicomedy had been named “Baker” and also got some “hot” nicknames. Carroll went to the limits of black humor: The Baker got baked.

Incidentally, in parallel to my little note (p. 55~56 in the Knight Letter № 100) on the Baker’s hot names and on Henry Holiday’s pictorial reference to Thomas Cranmer’s burning, a paper «Life, Eternity and Everything, Hidden Eschatology in the Works of Lewis Carroll» suggesting textual references from The Hunting of the Snark to Thomas Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles has been published in The Carrollian (July 2018, № 31, p.25~41), a journal of the Lewis Carroll Society in the UK. The author, Karen Gardiner, is an Anglican priest. She also addresses the objections of Revd. C.L. Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) against the dogma addressed by Article № 42 of Thomas Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles.

Angus MacIntyre (1994), myself (2010, 2015, 2015), Mary Hibbs (2017), as well as Karen Gardiner (2018), we all suggested independently from each other that there are such references to Thomas Cranmer and his Forty-Two Articles (the Baker’s forty-two boxes). We arrived there coming from different starting points and different backgrounds. As for me, I initially just looked for Lewis Carroll’s (C.L. Dodgson’s) textual references as guidance for finding pictorial references in Henry Holiday’s illustrations.

 
Seven Coats | 42 Boxes

 
(MG064)

PS: A friend told me that the caterpillar (here without hookah) on the front page of the 100th Knight Letter is a Hickory Horned Devil.

2018-07-28, update: 2023-07-07

Museé Unterlinden Retweets


 

Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512–1516:
※ Left: "Saint Anthony and Saint Paul the Hermit Meeting".
※ Right: "The Temptation of St. Anthony".pic.twitter.com/XY20NSYTl1

— Snark Sesquicentennial (@Snark150) July 4, 2019

※ Left: Henry Holiday – Illustration to the chapter "The Beaver’s Lesson" in Lewis Carroll’s "The Hunting of the Snark" (1876)
※ Right: Matthias Grünewald – from "The Temptation of St. Anthony" (1515), detail in mirror view.https://t.co/AAUH0jaA29pic.twitter.com/1digygD5fQ

— Snark Sesquicentennial (@Snark150) July 4, 2019

Two renderings of a segment from Matthias Grünewald‘s "Temptation of St. Anthony" (part of the Isenheim Altarpiece), where on the right side copy a part of the rendering has been low-pass filtered and decolorized.https://t.co/DbMwJYTC0n pic.twitter.com/ArSFRVDUVH

— Snark Sesquicentennial (@Snark150) July 4, 2019

※ Top: Matthias Grünewald: Detail from "Visit of Saint Anthony to Saint Paul" (1512–1516)
※ bottom: Henry Holiday: Detail from an illustration to the chapter "The Beaver’s Lesson" in Lewis Carroll’s "The Hunting of the Snark".https://t.co/DOVm5L2DiBpic.twitter.com/TKMPD6mvWS

— Snark Sesquicentennial (@Snark150) July 4, 2019

2022-06-20

 
Liked:

Segments from
※ (in mirror view) one of Gustave Doré's illustrations to Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote" (1863),
※ Matthias Grünewald's "Temptation of St Anthony", c. between 1475 and 1480, Isenheim Altarpiece, Musée Unterlinden (@MUnterlinden), Colmar, France. pic.twitter.com/29HSJrbDE1

— Sesquicentennial Snark (@Snark150) April 17, 2021

Correction (Isenheim altarpiece): 1512 and 1516, not between 1475 and 1480.

— Sesquicentennial Snark (@Snark150) April 22, 2021


 
2019-07-04, uptated: 2022-06-20

Hunting the CoV

Projects 16800-16803,16805-16808

Cause: covid-19

This is the first COVID19 project from our lab. We are assembling the envelope protein, which is an ion channel important for viral function. Learning about how it forms can inform the design of molecules that will prevent proper assembly.

List of Contributors

This project is managed by Dr Lucie Delemotte at KTH /SciLifeLab.

URL: https://www.biophysics.se/index.php/projects/delemottelab/

2020-07-03
(Project: https://statsclassic.foldingathome.org/project?p=16805. I pasted the text into the image.)

 

Proteins are not stagnant—they wiggle and fold and unfold to take on numerous shapes. We need to study not only one shape of the viral spike protein, but all the ways the protein wiggles and folds into alternative shapes in order to best understand how it interacts with the ACE2 receptor, so that an antibody can be designed. Low-resolution structures of the SARS-CoV spike protein exist and we know the mutations that differ between SARS-CoV and 2019-nCoV. Given this information, we are uniquely positioned to help model the structure of the 2019-nCoV spike protein and identify sites that can be targeted by a therapeutic antibody. We can build computational models that accomplish this goal, but it takes a lot of computing power.

(Source: https://foldingathome.org/2020/02/27/foldinghome-takes-up-the-fight-against-covid-19-2019-ncov/.)

 
=== Linux ===
I run folding@home (F@H) on two computers. One operates under MS Windows, the other one is a five years old computer with a Linux operating system. That old computer became very slow due to mitigations against Intel CPU vulnerabilities, so I didn’t use it anymore. But I reactivated it for F@H operated under a bare bone Linux OS. As that computer doesn’t do anything else than folding, I disabled the Intel CPU protection by starting the kernel with “mitigations=off”. (Don’t do that if you use your computer on the network for other tasks besides folding.) It works for kernels at and above version 5.2 and increases the speed (and the F@H point count) significantly. If your computer boots into Linux with GRUB, add mitigations=off to the settings in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.

=== Teams ===
As part of the “gamification” concept of F@H, your protein model folding computer collect points during folding. (It’s just for fun. Competition is in our genes, F@H plays with that.) You can join teams in order to get to the top in a ranking of teams together with other contributors. By default you are in a Zero team. That’s fine. You don’t have to change anything if you just want to help folding protein models.
        Some contributors join teams of organizations (e.g. companies) in order to let these organizations look good. That’s fine too. There are various kind of teams.
        You also easily can create your own team. Due to my obsession, I of course created a The Hunting of the Snark team. (So far it consist of only one member, but as of already is among the top 10% of all teams.)
        Curecoin: The top team is the Curecoin team. There you not only get points, you also get some kind of currency. It’s not my thing. One reason for me not to join Curecoin is that the blockchain technology applied would add additional workload to my computer. On the other side, Curecoin isn’t bad either. The Curecoin team has even more points than the Zero team, but much less work units. I think, that is because many contributors in that team run computers with powerful CPUs and GPUs. They get work units done faster than less powerful machines, and the points computation algorithm of F@H acknowledges that. (Thanks to the required number crunching power, blockchain technologies helped the market for graphics cards and GPUs a lot.) Personally I don’t like Curecoin, but as always: Use it if you like it and if you know what you are doing. (Links: Am Rechner nebenher die Welt retten | http://ftreporter.com/all-you-need-to-know-about-Curecoin/)

=== Caveats ===
Depending on the setting (Light/Medium/Full) of FAHcontrol, your computer can get quite hot. The older one of my computers does 24 hours/day folding in a cool room in the basement. It consumes a power of 26 Watts. The F@H setting is “Full”. It’s a fan-less mini computer, so no tear&wear of an internal fan needs to be considered. But there is an external fan. The computer won’t get damaged by the heat, because it adapts the CPU clock frequency in a way which doesn’t let it get too hot. In winter it won’t reach maximum temperature anyway. But in summer its temperature limits will get tested, even though the ambient temperature will stay below the 50°C maximum. So I added an external fan (14W). My other computer is a laptop computer. I chose the “Light” setting (which means that the GPU will not be used for folding).
        Super contributors use gaming computers with powerful CPUs and GPUs. And some show off impressive cooling machinery. Those gamers know what they are doing and can run F@H with maximum performance.

=== TeamViewer ===
I remote controlled up to three computers with TeamViewer. I don’t do that anymore. TeamViewer might think that you use that application commercially.

=== Smartphones ===
F@H does not run on smartphones, but there is a project for such devices. The Vodaphone “DreamLab” is a proprietary app. Of course it only runs during charging. I recommend to read the privacy statement.

=== Scams ===
Due to Covid19, F@H became much more popular, so take care not to install malware like fake applications which e.g. steal passwords. Don’t panic, but wherever scams are possible, you’ll have to deal with them. F@H is no exception. Possible scams are no reason not to contribute to F@H, but be aware of scams, e.g. foldingathomeapp.exe is malware! If you want to be on the save side, only install F@H software from foldingathome.org and don’t touch anything else.

=== Snark Hunters ===
There are quite a few Snark related contributors to F@H (2020-08-27)

=== Join ===
You can share computer time too.

F@H Team 263865 | COVID19 | Wikipedia |Twitter | Facebook (en) | Facebook (de)

2020-03-31, update: 2021-10-27

Mike Batt: The Composing of the Snark

LCSNA Fall Meeting, 2021
WCLD Radio Alice
2021-10-16
«Mike Batt presents “The Composing of the Snark”: Does setting Snark to music involve more forks and hope, or smiles and soap? Mike Batt takes us behind the music and details the creation of his concept album and West End stage musical The Hunting of the Snark

Mike’s session is scheduled
from 18:50 UTC to 19:25 UTC.

More: https://lewiscarroll.org/event/lcsna-fall-2021-meeting/.

 
2021-10-16


 
Mike Batt‘s presentation now is available on YouTube:

2021-10-21

Snark Radio Play

Sadly, it’s not online anymore.

 


https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06sbrxh/clips (2020-01-02):

Tony Robinson narrates this fresh adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic masterpiece following a strange assortment of characters on their quest for an elusive beast.

Led by a bell-ringing Captain, this motley crew must brave terrifying danger in their chaotic pursuit of a creature known as Snark. Accompanied by specially composed music and songs, this surreal tale questions whether anything is really what it seems. …

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.

Streaming: 2020-01-02 – 2020-01-31

Credits:
– Narrator: Tony Robinson
– Bellman: Eric Potts
– Baker: Paul Barnhill
– Butcher: Everal A Walsh
– Barrister: Jonathan Keeble
– Snark (in the Barrister’s dream): Jonathan Keeble
– Beaver: Stephen Hoyle
– Music and songs (composer): Katie Chatburn
– Music (performers):
    – Katie Chatburn
    – Dorry Macaulay
    – Kathryn Williams
    – Stephen Cordiner
    – Jasper Wilkinson
– Director: Charlotte Riches
– Author: Lewis Carroll

 
2020-01-02, update: 2020-05-15

Gags and Serious Stuff

This is worth a follow: a twitter account that offers astonishing insights into Henry Holliday’s illustrations for The Hunting of the Snark. Turns out there are dozens of visual gags in them, detectable only by the enlightened! https://t.co/UIpgTujDvs

— UofG Fantasy (@UofGFantasy) April 13, 2020

Thank you. Gags, yes. But also serious stuff. Henry Holiday thought «L.C. forgot that “the Snark” is a tragedy» (https://t.co/RaClCCPoij). I don't know whether Carroll knew about the hint (https://t.co/kV1kqhERrD) to Thomas Cranmer's burning in Holiday's illustration to fit#8. pic.twitter.com/sHOfL8y3oz

— Snark Sesquicentennial (@Snark150) April 13, 2020

Nose is a Nose is a Nose

A Snark article in the Knight Letter
(with lots of help from the editors Chris Morgan and Mark Burstein)


Source: Knight Letter (ISSN 0193-886X), Fall 2017, Number 99

When I wrote this article, I failed to mention that already in 1973 Elizabeth Sewell pointed out in The Field of Nonsense that a line in Carroll’s poem has a similarity to a line in a limerick by Edward Lear (MG058). I am sorry for not having mentioned that.

I posted my article online with permission of the Knight Letter editors. In the online copy, I fixed the wrong URL kl.snr.de. It’s kl.snrk.de. Furthermore, four additional images have been attached to my online version.

read more

 


2009


2018-02-09, update: 2018-12-30: Reference to Elizabeth Sewell

 
2018-12-30, updated: 2022-08-01

Martin Gardner’s Snark Annotations

Today I start to refer to Martin Gardner’s annotations to The Hunting of the Snark in a more systematical way. Admittedly, I should have done that much earlier. I didn’t read the annotations carefully enough. As an example, Martin Gardner annotated (MG058) to The Hunting of the Snark that Elizabeth Sewell pointed out in The Field of Nonsense (1973) that a line in Carroll’s poem has a similarity to a line in a limerick by Edward Lear. I found that in Google.

I should have mentioned Elizabeth Sewell in my article Nose is a Nose is a Nose in the LCSNA Kight Letter № 99, Fall 2017, p. 30~31.

MG058” stands for the 58th annotation in the annotated Snark and links to articles and blog entries which contain issues to which Gardner had referred. In this case it is about Lewis Carroll’s and Edward Lear’s waistcoat poetry.

MG0” leads you to all entries in snrk.de which refer to issues addressed by Martin Gardner.

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