Author: Goetz Kluge

De Morgan’s Snark

The tweet below has a link to https://www.demorgan.org.uk/which-snark-came-first-the-tiles-or-the-poem/.

This week, we're celebrating De Morgan's tiles.

Our volunteer, Vanessa, has spent this week painstakingly researching the archives to prove which Snark came first, the De Morgan tile or the Lewis Carroll poem!

Find out on our bloghttps://t.co/MZxlUaQt2F pic.twitter.com/M4S4rR2C6u

— De Morgan Collection (@DeMorganF) September 1, 2020

François Tusques — La Chasse Au Snark

※ La Chasse Au Snark (studio version, 1968, 15:53)
※ Sa Triste Histoire Il S’Offrit à Dire (live version, 1969, 15:49)
※ Car Le Jubjub Etait Un Boojum, Voyez-Vous (Happening At La Vieille Grille 1967-8/Biennale de Paris 1971, 16:54)
※ Survint Un Silence Suprême (live version, 1968, 20:12)

Cover illustration: Tove Jansson
Links: jazzmusicarchives | YouTube

The Snark’s Significance

Henry Holiday: The Snark’s Significance, 1898-01-29 (The Academy, p. 128)

It is possible that the author was half-consciously laying a trap, so readily did he take to the inventing of puzzles and things enigmatic; but to those whok new the man, or who have divined him correctly through his writings, the explanation is fairly simple.

Mr.Dodgson had a mathematical, a logical, and a philosophical mind; and when these qualities are united to a love of the grotesque, the resultant fancies are sure to have a quite peculiar charm, a charm so much the greater because its source is subtle and eludes all attempts to grasp it.

Attached to Holiday’s article there also is a letter from Carroll/Dodgson.

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

Lorenzo and Isabella

Bycatch from my Snark hunt:

The, well, ambiguity of that “shadow”is known. Also there were some Freudian assumptions regarding what the salt could stand for. But so far I didn’t find any remarks on the impossibility of having a shadow being covered by white salt which isn’t covered by that shadow. To someone who learned physics that is a quite obvious question.

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2017-12-17, update: 2020-04-11

Seven Coats

021     There was one who was famed for the number of things
022         He forgot when he entered the ship:
023     His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
024         And the clothes he had bought for the trip.

025     He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
026         With his name painted clearly on each:
027     But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
028         They were all left behind on the beach.

029     The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because
030         He had seven coats on when he came,
031     With three pairs of boots–but the worst of it was,
032         He had wholly forgotten his name.

 
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2018-06-13, update: 2020-03-20

Mindprinting the Snark

In the page related to this blog post, I quoted a large part of the article Henry Holiday’s Hunting of the Snark art has subconscious order (2019-10-17) by Edmond Furter, where he applies his Mindprint concept.

I don’t understand the Mindprint concept yet and I don’t know whether I agree to Further’s views, probably because I still didn’t dig into his writings. But I added some hyperlinks into the quoted article. They lead you to entries in my blog snrk.de to which Furter might have referred when he wrote his article. Those links weren’t in the original article.

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Untangling the Knot

Untangling the Knot
An Analysis of Lewis Carroll’sThe Hunting of the Snark
by Sandra Mann, 2018

[…] The Hunting of the Snark is an allegory for the journey of life which Carroll crafted very carefully to include “difficulties” which he believed had come about because of human error. Life as a journey by boat had long been a favorite metaphor of Carroll’s. In this case the tale would not be of a sweet row on a placid river, but one of a voyage filled with fear and bewilderment and dread. And the moral, that despite our bewilderment, we would all be saved through God’s love and compassion in the end. […]

 
(Sandra Mann and Mary Hammond are pen names of Mary Hibbs.)

Failure?

https://bookbarnbbi.wordpress.com/2017/12/01/pick-of-the-darwin-room/:

[…] When [The Hunting of the Snark] was published in 1876 it was illustrated by Henry Holiday who, though a very talented artist, failed to capture the surreal nature of Carroll’s poem. The illustrations for this edition however, provided by Gormenghast author Mervyn Peake, are the perfect accompaniment. Peake’s drawings have an uneasy bubbling quality, blending with the silly and macabre feel of the words […]

Nothing against Mervyn Peake’s illustrations, but already this illustration (even without the yellow lines and dots which I added) might contain more elements of “surreal nature” than what you find in Mervyn Peake’s illustrations. I like those playful weeds (or animals?) in the lower left corner of Holiday’s illustration.

That’s not the only thing which that corner has to offer.

Another popular path (not) to understand The Hunting of the Snark has been stated more than three times: Some call Carroll’s poem “nonsense”. It isn’t.

Anyway, I don’t think that Holiday failed to convey to us graphically what Carroll meant. The price for his achievement perhaps was that Holiday’s illustrations are less eye pleasing than illustrations like Peake’s.

Holiday’s illustrations are as grotesque as Carroll’s poem.

 
2018-02-16, updated: 2020-02-01

“Edward VI and the Pope” on Twitter

EDWARD VI 1537-1553 was the long-awaited heir of King Henry VIII, the object of his father’s life long policy, to secure the Tudor dynasty.

His religious education was in the hands of Thomas Cranmer.

One result was Edward’s complete & thorough conversion to Protestant Reform. pic.twitter.com/z3NAidGbpq

— SPIRITUAL LIVES (@ken_kalis) December 21, 2019

2019-12-21

 

Thomas Cranmer, compiler of the first Book of Common Prayer, was burned at the stake #OnThisDay 1556 https://t.co/TnjHqhQEf0

— In Our Time (@BBCInOurTime) March 21, 2019

01
 

The Revd. C.L. Dodgson under his pen name "Lewis Carroll" wrote "The Hunting of the Snark". It also is about Thomas Cranmer. The illustrator Henry Holiday gave us quite clear hints: https://t.co/nSx3ValV65

cc: @monarchomach

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

02
 

About references from "The Hunting of the Snark" to Thomas Cranmer:
※ Angus MacIntyre (1994),
※ Goetz Kluge (2015 https://t.co/zMvRzqMjvO, 2018 https://t.co/BFTGACMfFA, @Bonnetmaker)
※ Mary Hammond (2017, @Hg4words)
※ Karen Gardiner (2018, @KarenGardiner19) pic.twitter.com/eAaCXDhmt0

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 17, 2019

03 (comment to 02)
 

"Edward VI and the Pope: An Allegory of the Reformation." (NPG London)

In this 16th century anti-papal propaganda painting Henry VIII is on the left side. Thomas Cranmer is 2nd from left in the upper row on the right side.

More: https://t.co/h24cchf4YTpic.twitter.com/Dsn8MEdj9u

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

04
 

In one of his illustrations (https://t.co/4vu78zj7Jr) to Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark", Henry Holiday alluded to the painting "Edward VI and the Pope".

More: https://t.co/hcIThF1al1 pic.twitter.com/INhRxoDly9

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

05
 

I think that also in another illustration (https://t.co/8RYeUCHtTn) to "The Hunting of the Snark" with a depiction of the Baker's 42 boxes (Cranmer's 42 Articles?), Holiday alluded to the depiction of iconoclasm in "Edward and the Pope".

More: https://t.co/eTIRJW9Moa pic.twitter.com/hTJnmslkvC

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

06
 

Margaret Aston wrote a wonderful book on the painting too. The King and the bedpost

— Justin Champion (@monarchomach) March 23, 2019

07
 

I read that book. It's a marvel. I tried to contact Margaret Aston, but I was too late. https://t.co/3FJuRjYPlZ pic.twitter.com/pMiuRgXMPv

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

08
 

https://t.co/FKhe3YPN6t

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

09
 

And the Bedpost ended up in "The Hunting of the Snark" as well. I think that Henry Holiday alluded not only to the "Edward VI and the Pope" painting but also to the painting to which "Edward VI and the Pope" alluded.
There perhaps is an chain of allusions. https://t.co/f7SReLHeXJ pic.twitter.com/fz0esGdShS

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

10
 

Correction: … the print to which "Edward VI and the Pope" alluded …

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 24, 2019

11
 

https://t.co/f7SReLHeXJ pic.twitter.com/nS2SlS86Dc

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

12 (2019-03-23)

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