Author: Goetz Kluge

The Jabberwock

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky#Reception:

[…] [Jabberwocky] has also been interpreted as a parody of contemporary Oxford scholarship and specifically the story of how Benjamin Jowett, the notoriously agnostic Professor of Greek at Oxford, and Master of Balliol, came to sign the Thirty-Nine Articles, as an Anglican statement of faith, to save his job. […]

Stephen Prickett (2005): Victorian Fantasy, Baylor University Press, p. 113, ISBN 1-932792-30-9

Unlike Benjamin Jowett, the Rev. Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) didn’t sign, but managed to save his job nevertheless without being ordained as a priest.

 

Jabberwocky

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

 
See also:
※ https://poemanalysis.com/lewis-carroll/jabberwocky
※ Vogon poetry
※ Chamutal Noimann, Empowering Nonsense: Reading Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” in a Basic Writing Class (2014)
※ Etching of Saint George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello (c. 1470). But there also are other inspiring sources:

Christian’s fight with Appollyon in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress,
London: Carington Bowles, 1781.
(Source: John Bunyan Society)

 

Games (unfortunately not available anymore from the app shop):
Jabberwocky, Confounded, app for iOS by Christopher Gross

 

Music:
composer: Zoë Tweed, rendition: Sylva Winds
(flute: Yi-Hsuan Chen, bassoon: Guylaine Eckersley, oboe & voice: Drake Gritton,
clarinet: Rowan Jones, french horn: Zoë Tweed)

 
composer: Ben Ponniah, rendition: Peter Noden

 

Sometimes mediocre and sometimes pretty great, it’s always noisy in my car. Happy Thanksgiving! With apologies to Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith. And of course to Lewis Carroll. pic.twitter.com/vVIoP96PDe

— Jill Watson (@pie4jill) November 25, 2022

 

Muppets

 

2018-04-06, update: 2023-12-01

Laws of Propriety

The Butcher in the 5th fit of The Hunting of the Snark:

“The method employed I would gladly explain,
　While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain —
　But much yet remains to be said.

“In one moment I’ve seen what has hitherto been
　Enveloped in absolute mystery,
And without extra charge I will give you at large
　A Lesson in Natural History.”

In his genial way he proceeded to say
　(Forgetting all laws of propriety,
And that giving instruction, without introduction,
　Would have caused quite a thrill in Society).

 
Comic Arithmetic, Rule III, Subtraction

Subtraction teaches to “take from” or to find the difference of two numbers; having taken too much in, and slept out; to find the difference in sovereigns and shillings between that and sleeping at home according to the “conventional laws of virtuous propriety.” (Vide Miss Martineau.)

 
2023-11-23

Crossing the Line

  • [left]: Illustration The Crew on Board by Henry Holiday to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark (1876)
  • [right]: Crossing the Line (1839), based on a print by Thomas Landseer, after Augustus Earle. You will find the print in Robert Fitz-Roy’s Narrative of the surveying voyages of HMS Adventure and Beagle, Vol II (1839).

This is one of the comparisons where am not so sure whether Holiday alluded to the work of another artist. If he did, then you might wait a little bit before you look at my spoiler where I marked possible(?) clues given to us by Holiday.
 

2017-11-08, updated: 2023-11-08

My 1st Snark Trophy

My first Snark encounter was in 2005. Then, after almost four years, I entered the Snark hunting grounds in December 2008. http://www.artandpopularculture.com/User:Goetzkluge could give you an idea where I was in 2010.

The image shows illustrations by Henry Holiday (from The Hunting of the Snark, 1876) and Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (Allegory of Iconoclasts, aka The Image Breakers, around 1567): In the “mouth” of Gheeraerts’ “head” a praying priest is depicted. The shape of the priest also is visible in the “mouth” of Holiday’s vanishing “Baker”.

There is more — with acknowledgments to Mahendra Singh, to John Tufail and to the Internet.

And there are more big heads.

Articles in this blog about Henry Holiday’s illustration to the chapter The Vanishing.

 
2017-08-28, updated: 2023-11-03

Henry Holiday and the maker or Bonnets and Hoods

Watch those fingers: The photo has been “photoshopped” (by Henry Holiday or Joseph Swain?) already many years before I worked on it using GIMP. Holiday’s tinkering with the little finger and the thumb of his left hand might be a “Victorian craze“.

The image shows Henry Holiday and segments of one of Henry Holiday’s illustrations (cut by Joseph Swain) to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. The segments show the Bonnetmaker and a bonnet.

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw57000/Henry-Holiday?LinkID=mp59053 Henry Holiday (photo rendered in mirror view) by Unknown photographer albumen print, 1870s 5 3/4 in. x 3 5/8 in. (145 mm x 93 mm) Given by Royal Institute of British Architects: London: UK, 1940 Photographs Collection NPG x18530The Bonnetmaker drawing could be a little self portrait, a cameo of Henry Holiday in The Hunting of the Snark. The photo is a portrait perhaps taken by Joseph Swain or a self portrait. Henry Holiday was in his mid thirties when he illustrated Carroll’s Snark tragicomedy, and the National Portrait Gallery dated a portrait photo of Henry Holiday (NPG x18530) with “1870s”, where the face shown in that photo does not look too different from the face in the assembly shown above.

 
Such little self portraits in drawings have a long tradition.

In German there is the term “Assistenzfigur”. That is a person positoned in the background or beside the main person or main object depicted in a painting. You may think of such a person as the static version of a “film extra” in a movie. She or he serves a a kind of helper or assistant. Sometimes one of these extras is the artist who made the painting. In German we call such an image in the image an “Assistenzselbstbildnis” or “Assistenzselbstbild” or “Selbstbildnis in Assistenz”. Perhaps the first known self-portraits in assistance where a kind of signature of the artist.

The “self-portrait in assistance” first became available since the 14th century to master builders and sculpturer, shortly after that in Italy also to fresco painters, and since the 15th and 16th century also to painters of large altar- and panel paintings; see Raupp, S. 8

Source (in German): Footnote on p. 162 in Suzanne Valadon – Identitätskonstruktion… (2001) by Valeska Doll referring to Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnissen und Künstlerdarstellungen in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert (1984) by Hans-Joachim Raupp.

In that matter there also are references to Raupp in Melanie Munduch: Die Selbstbildnisse Luca Giordanos (2012)

 

#Assistenzselbstbildnis: ex Twitter

For diskussion of the finger “photoshopping”: ex Twitter

Original post: 2017-09-28. Update: 2023-10-13

Greens

Some Snark meanings might not have been what Lewis Carroll thought of, but he left lots of space for even more meanings than you can think of. I, for example, associate growing greens with high electricity bills. Others have other ideas, which might be better.

“The Hunting of the Snark” by Lewis Carroll: It’s said of the Snark, “You may serve it with greens.” As the author is a mathematician, this means Green’s Theorem being applied as a minor step, and the Snark stands for a theorem that is fiendishly difficult to prove.

😉 Markian Gooley, 2020-07-17 😉

 
2020-06-18, update: 2023-10-09

Camels, Weasels and Whales

What you “see” depends on what choices pareidolia (or the prince) offers to you.

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By th’ mass and ’tis: like a camel indeed.
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet: Or like a whale.
Polonius: Very like a whale.

– From Hamlet (1603) by William Shakespeare, Act III, Scene 2

I found these lines in the article See faces in the clouds? It might be a sign of your creativity by René Müri and Nicole Göbel.

Links:
※ Playing with Pareidolia
※ On Borrowing
※ Noses

 
2023-10-10

It Looks Furry

This is from an exTwitter thread:

No Spring til now: Mary Throckmorton, Lady Scudamore, painted by Marcus Gheeraerts in 1614. What was that message about, I wonder? pic.twitter.com/aBE2TxD6oa

— Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) January 20, 2019

exquisite. what is she hiding/nursing?

— Christine Bagot (@cm_bagot) January 20, 2019

That's what I was wondering. It looks… furry

— Aphra Pell (@AphraPell) January 20, 2019

Could be a flohpelze or zibellino – could she have been pregnant at the time?

— Sally Hickson (@HalcyonSilks) January 20, 2019

To some those scarfs might look "furry". @AphraPell, it is interesting that you say that, because perhaps that's what Henry Holiday "saw" when he got inspired by Gheeraerts for an illustration to Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark". — https://t.co/DhiHH0Usu0 pic.twitter.com/PtwlHPhmDE

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) January 20, 2019

2/2 Catherine Killigrew, Lady Jermyn, beautifully painted also in 1614 by Marcus Gheeraerts. It’s his day today. pic.twitter.com/l7RDGIEycB

— Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) January 19, 2019

inspiration by re-interpretation

 
2019-01-20, updated: 2023-10-05

不佳

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away —
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

2021-12-23: Illustration mostly by Henry Holiday

How would Chinese call the Boojum?

  • Boojum can be approximately transcribed with 不佳 (bù jiā). The pronouncation in English is explained to Chinese people in fanyi.baidu.com.
  • I also found 布经 (bù jīng) as a Chinese transcription.
  • As for vanishing away, one also could consider to use 不见 (bù jiàn).
  • I call the beast 不佳不见 (bù jiā bù jiàn).

在他想说的话中间，
在他的笑声和喜悦中，
他轻轻地突然消失了—
因为斯纳克变成了
一个不佳不见，你看

在他想說的話中間，
在他的笑聲和喜悅中，
他輕輕地突然消失了—
因為斯納克變成了
一個不佳不見，你看

 
So what is a Snark and what is a Boojum?
Lewis Carroll wrote about The Hunting of the Snark:

As to the meaning of the Snark, I’m very much afraid I didn’t mean anything but nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I’m glad to accept as the meaning of the book. The best that I’ve seen is by a lady (she published it in a letter to a newspaper), that the whole book is an allegory on the search after happiness.

  • Snark: Neither the usage in the year 1866 nor the contemporary usage of the term help to understand the meaning of Carroll’s “Snark”. According to Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark has at least one meaning: The pursuit of happiness. To Carroll, that pursuit could be about the Anglican path to happiness. That path is “meagre and hollow, but crisp“, because it is void of any catholic decor and superstition. The dispute about how to achieve happiness is not always comfortable, but it is necessary, because for different people there always are different paths to happiness. In civilized societies the Snark helps us to find a path which optimizes our happiness. As people and their environments keep constantly changing, the Snark hunt will never end.
  • Boojum: I think that Lewis Carroll and Henry Holiday’s tragicomedy (a “tragedy” in Holiday’s opinion) is about how walking the meagre and hollow, but crisp path (Snark) towards happiness (whatever that might be) can turn into terrible fights with very sad ends (Boojum). Unfortunately, also in the 21st century too often good Snark hunters “softly and suddenly vanish away”. They and their work “disappear”, erased by those who walk along the path of the Boojum. It seems that this will never end as well.
            In a nutshell: In my view, a Boojum is a monster or a monstrous process. Once you encounter it (for example at the violent end of a fierce controversy), then you might softly and suddenly vanish away. Thomas Cranmer’s fate is just one out of many examples for how Boojum works.

 
2017-12-17, update: 2023-09-25

Questions

 

  1. Did Henry Holiday visit Coursham Court before 1876?
  2. Are there letters in the waves, or is it asemic writing or are those lines in the waves just in Henry Holiday’s back cover illustration just something like meaningless hatching?
  3. What is the earliest publishing date of a facsimile reproduction of Charles Darwin’s “Tree of Life” sketch in newspapers, magazines, books etc?
  4. Are there 9 or 10 Snark hunters?
  5. Could jubjub be the sound of a chronometer?
  6. In the 1st Snark stanza the Bellman is “supporting each man on the top of the tide by a finger entwined in his hair”. What does it mean if the hair is the Bellman’s hair?
  7. Could there be a pictorial references to The Hunting ot the Snark in a print by Alfred Parson depicting Charles Darwin’s study?

There probably will be more questions. How about asking them in groups.io/g/TheHuntingOfTheSnark?

 
2023-09-24

What I tell you three times is true!

001    “Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
002        As he landed his crew with care;
003    Supporting each man on the top of the tide
004        By a finger entwined in his hair.

005    “Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
006        That alone should encourage the crew.
007    Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
008        What I tell you three times is true.”

329    “’Tis the voice of the Jubjub!” he suddenly cried.
330        (This man, that they used to call “Dunce.”)
331    “As the Bellman would tell you,” he added with pride,
332        “I have uttered that sentiment once.

333    “’Tis the note of the Jubjub! Keep count, I entreat;
334        You will find I have told it you twice.
335    ’Tis the song of the Jubjub! The proof is complete,
336        If only I’ve stated it thrice.”

 
Referring to Edith Wharton’s biography of Theodore Roosevelt (MG007), Kelly Ramsdell Fineman told us …

… that President Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Wharton were huge fans of the Snark. On one visit to the White House, Wharton learned of the following exchange that occurred between the President and the Secretary of the Navy (undoubtedly unaware of Carroll’s poem, or at least unaware that Roosevelt was quoting):

During discussion, Roosevelt said to the secretary of the Navy,

“Mr. Secretary, what I tell you three times is true!”

The Secretary replied stiffly,

“Mr. President, it would never for a moment have occurred to me to impugn your veracity.”

 

Already Shakespeare applied the Bellman’s Rule. It is stated in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, line #7 and line #335. I said it in Lua – wrote it in Python and Scratch, I made that indeed, but I wholly forgot (when finally done), that Haskell is what you need! So, here is an example for how to implement that rule:

#! /usr/bin/haskell
import Data.List
someAssertions :: [String]
someAssertions =
  ["I am a very stable genius!"
  ,"There are 10 Snark hunters."
  ,"There are 9 Snark hunters."
  ,"There are 10 Snark hunters."
  ,"I am a very stable genius!"
  ,"Brexit promises will be kept!"
  ,"Brexit promises will be kept!"
  ,"Brexit promises will be kept!"
  ,"6 * 7 = 39"
  ,"6 * 7 = 39"
  ,"There are 10 Snark hunters."
  ,"6 * 7 = 42"
  ,"I am a very stable genius!"
  ,"There are 10 Snark hunters."
  ,"6 * 7 = 39"
  ,"There are 10 Snark hunters."
  ]
atLeastThrice :: [String] -> [String]
atLeastThrice assertions =
  [head grp | grp <-
    group $ sort assertions, length grp >= 3]

Result (if loaded and executed in GHCi):

*Main> atLeastThrice someAssertions
["6 * 7 = 39","Brexit promises will be kept!","I am a very stable genius!","There are 10 Snark hunters."]

 

Checking my Haskell implementation of “What I tell you three times is true” using ChatGPT:Here is an implementation of "What I tell you three times is true" in Haskell: atlLeastThrice :: [String] -> [String] atLeastThrice assertions = [head grp | grp <- group $sort assertions, length grp >= 3] Thank you for providing the implementation in Haskell. Yes, your & implementation looks correct. The "group" function groups the same elements in the list together, then you are filtering out the groups that have less than three elements, and finally returning the head of each group (which is the repeated assertion).

 

PS: It’s not easy. Truth isn’t truth.

 
2017-12-16, update: 2023-09-24

Tree of Life

In this image, Charles Darwin’s tree of life sketch of the evolutionary tree (c. July 1837, Notebook B, 1837-1838, page 36) is compared to some “weeds” in the lower left corner of Holiday’s illustration. The sketch was not used in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

To my knowledge, the earliest publishing of a facsimile from Darwin’s hand drawing occurred in the 20th century. A “tree” was published in Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. But that was an image arranged by a typographer, not Darwin’s sketch from his Notebook B. Darwin did not keep his notebook B secret after the publication of On the Origin of Species, but I do not know of any presentation of his sketch before 1876. Thus, the resemblance between the “weed” and Darwin’s evolutionary tree probably may be purely incidental.

Are any earlier publishing dates for facsimile reproductions of his drawing known before 1876?

I am searching the earliest publishing date of that image e.g. in newspapers, magazines, books etc. Can you give me any hints?

In the illustration, there is no clear resemblance between Darwin and the Banker, who, however, is carrying a tuning fork. On his expedition with the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin used such an instrument for experiments with spiders.
 

Links:

 
2018-12-09, updated: 2023-09-22

 
There is more which went into Holiday’s illustration.

10 Assumptions About The Hunting of the Snark

Annotations to “10 Interesting Facts About The Hunting of the Snark“ (Rose Theatre, 2017-09-21)

  1. One out of several (but perhaps less important) reasons to write the Snark might have been that Carroll wrote his tragicomedy The Hunting of the Snark to bring much needed escape and light while nursing his seriously ill godson and cousin Charlie Wilcox who eventually died from tuberculosis.
     
  2. Part of the Snark ballad is Carroll’s story that he was walking on a hillside near Guildford, alone, one bright summer day (1874-07-18 , allegedly not so bright in reality), when suddenly there came into his head one line of verse — one solitary line — “For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.” With more that 500 lines the book was published in 1876. He ended up with more chapters (fits) than initially planned. This of course also affected the illustrator Henry Holiday and the engraver Joseph Swain. The sequence of making the illustrations is described in the centennial edition of The Hunting of the Snark published by William Kaufmann in 1981.
     
  3. Carroll left the meaning of the Snark deliberately vague refusing to answer questions about its meaning. He stated that whatever good meanings are in the book, he was glad to accept an of them as the meaning of the book. The best that in his viev he had seen was by a lady (she published it in a letter to a newspaper), that the whole book is an allegory on the pursuit of happiness.
     
  4. The poem was published on April 1st 1876 (the date chosen being April Fools Day and before Easter, which was a good time to sell the book). The first print was 10,000 copies and the book has rarely if ever been out of print since.
     
  5. Unlike Carroll’s many other fantastical creatures, we never see the Snark and its appearance remains a mystery. His lifelong friend, the famous illustrator Henry Holiday proposed something which to Carroll was a “delightful monster“. But Carroll nevertheless refused to allow his lifelong friend to include his drawing of a Boojum turned Snark in the original edition. The Snark only was allowed to applear in the Barrister’s dream.
     
  6. Snarks are harmless. You even may fetch a Snark home, but keep the greens ready.
    WARNING: If a Snark turns into a Boojum and you get too close to one, you will “softly and suddenly vanish away.”
     
  7. The Bellman is an expert on Snarks and knows how to describe Snarks.
     
  8. The Jubjub appeared in Carroll’s Jabberwocky. Some think that the Jubjub might be a pun on the word jug-jug, an English word expressing one of the notes of a nightingale. I believe (and may be wrong with that) that the noisy beast has something to do with jubjubbing chronometers
     
  9. Acording to the Rose Theatre, Snark clubs dedicated to ‘the glorification of the Snark and its creator’ still flourish and meet to recite the poem. The band of declared Snarkists included W.H. Auden, Willa Cather, John Galsworthy, A.P. Herbert, Elspeth Huxley and C.S. Lewis.
     
  10. Some believe that the Baker might be a self-deprecating self-portrait in which Carroll pokes fun at his well-known forgetfulness. I don’t think so. The Baker has 42 boxes of luggage. I think he forgot them like Thomas Cranmer forgot his Forty-Two articles for a while. Incidentally, Carroll was 42 years old when he wrote Snark.

 
2020-08-21, update:2023-09-19

Article 42 in the 42 Articles

The helmsman used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, “No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm,” had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words “and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one.“ So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.

Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark, Preface

#42. All men shall not be saved at the length. They also are worthy of condemnation, who endeavour at this time in restore the dangerous opinion that all men, by they never so ungodly, shall at length be saved, when they have suffered pains for their sins a certain time appointed by God’s justice.

Article 42 in Thomas Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles

As far as I understand, some Christians define eternal damnation as being separated from God for ever. (Even as an atheist I am capitalizing that first letter. I respect others’ beliefs.) That sounds like what “Rule 42” of the Bellman’s “Naval Code” (capitalized first letters as in Carroll’s Snark) says.
        Thomas Cranmer’s 42th Article about eternal damnation didn’t make it into the 39 Articles of the Anglicans, but the debate continued. The Deacon C.L. Dodgson was opposed to the dogma of eternal damnation.
        In 1994, Angus MacIntyre suggested (The Reverend Snark, Jabberwocky 23, p. 51~52): “The Baker’s 42 Boxes are the original Protestant Articles of 1553, with Thomas Cranmer’s name on each.” I learned about MacIntire’s suggestion in an article by Karen Gardiner, an Anglican priest. In June 2018 she suggested that in The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll/Dodgson addressed the Article 42 in Thomas Cranmer‘s Articles (Life, Eternity, and Everything: Hidden Eschatology in the Works of Lewis Carroll, July 2018, p.25~41 in THE CARROLLIAN, No. 31).
        My approach to a possible reference in The Hunting of the Snark to the 42 Articles was different. It started with discovering a pictorial reference in one of Henry Holiday’s Snark illustrations to Thomas Cranmer’s burning. If I look back at what came into my mind in the year 2014, it was Henry Holiday who made me curious to learn more about the articles 27, 41 and 42 and whether they might have been an issue for the Dodgson, the Deacon.

 

There is a reference to this blog page in Karen Gardiner’s PhD thesis A New Evaluation: The Theological Influence of F. D. Maurice on the Imaginative Works of Lewis Carroll (2022-09).

  • The version referenced on 2022-05-24 is in archive.org.
  • The correct link is “snrk.de/article-42-in-the-42-articles/”. It doesn’t end with “-​-articles/”. Luckily the web server knows where to find the right page.

 
2018-07-08, updated: 2023-09-18

Original Manuscript Found Among Brexit Impact Study Tables

Here is the manuscript (it’s so-so). And there is a secret road map used by the British government to navigate through the Brexit.

 
What I tell you three times is true:

349　​“The thing can be done,” said the Butcher, “I think.
350　​The thing must be done, I am sure.
351　​The thing shall be done! …”

Getting the Brexit done:

https://youtu.be/2N2kp1r-WkI

 

Links:

 
2017-11-14, update: 2023-09-10

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