Lewis Carroll, Henry Holiday and Joseph Swain's Tragicomedy
In this image one of the elements has been marked (orange frame) which Henry Holiday borrowed from a 17th century painting (by an anonymous artist). This might be a bit different from the borrowing described by T. S. Eliot in 1920. In the example shown here, the borrowing of the pictorial allusion is inconspicuous. It doesn’t enrich Holiday’s illustration. It’s only purpose might be that of a signpost pointing to another work of art.
more.
2017-09-27, update: 2019-02-25
Help! I am seeing pigs!
In some of his illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, Henry Holiday alluded to The Image Breakers, a 16th century print made by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. I see at least one of Holiday’s pigs in that print (spoiler) and also something which Henry Holiday could have turned into a Moritz bass tuba.
2019 is the year of the pig. Does that make me see pigs everywhere, or did Henry Holiday see that pig in Gheeraert’s print too?
Actually, I have to confess that I saw the pig already in 2009. But I didn’t mark it then:
2019-02-14
Wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year with this misericord of a pig playing the bagpipes in @riponcathedral! #YearOfThePig pic.twitter.com/cBqHUCWXoE
— National Churches Trust (@NatChurchTrust) February 5, 2019
More fun to be found with pigs in Lewis Carroll’s (whose dad was a resident canon at Ripon) “Hunting of the Snark” poem. Original book drawing included pigs playing musical instruments. A coincidence that they are fashioned similar to the Cathedral’s misericords? pic.twitter.com/oh7cqSuc5T
— Gail McMillan (@ww_gail) February 5, 2019
What was that? You wanted a pig sitting on a barrel playing a lyre while three of his companions dance to the music? OK, here you go… pic.twitter.com/Cey0RM08c2
— Ian Groves 🇪🇺 (@LandscapeIan) August 24, 2017
his hopeful relative joined a band in the early 13th century – what is his/her instrument of choice?
(Psalter – BL, Lansdowne MS 420, f. 12v)https://t.co/bNM4GOE0nK#PolonskyPre1200 pic.twitter.com/U4vecl8LY4— Tuija Ainonen (@AinonenT) February 5, 2019
Update 2019-06-11
— JulesGirlGuiding (@JulesRPardoe) June 11, 2019
You find many renderings of John Martin‘s The Bard in the Internet. I think that in this comparison the left one is the right one and that the right one is not John Martin’s.
In Henry Holiday’s illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark there are several references to John Martin’s original painting. Some are funny, some are spooky.
2018-10-24, update: 2019-02-09
2017-11-25, update: 2019-02-06
Sad to read Mahendra Singh’s In Memoriam: Doug Howick in the 101st Knight Letter of the LCSNA. Doug passed away in June 2018. The last mail I received from him were his Easter greetings in March 2018.
"The Hunting of the Snark" is a great film
Directed and (mostly) Animated by Michael Sporn pic.twitter.com/Gyk4q54KlH
— Animated Golem (@AnimeGolem) July 13, 2018
2019-01-15
Slaying the Snark: what nonsense verse tells us about reality
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.
2018-02-09, update: 2018-12-30: Reference to Elizabeth Sewell
2018-12-30, updated: 2022-08-01
Could this be a pictorial reference by Alfred Parsons to The Hunting ot the Snark?
I am struggling with this one.
2017-08-29, updated: 2018-12-25
It’s National Poetry Month? Nonsense!
[…] April 9, 2018
[Author: Matt Dilworth] mdilwort[…] Yet nonsense poems, and Carroll’s in particular, often carry significant political undertones. For example, in Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”, he tackles vivisection and the role of anthrocentrist activities in scientific pursuit. […]
2018-04-29, shifted to the top 2018 posts: 2018-12-21
http://snrk.de will be automatically redirected to https://snrk.de, so you can keep your old links and bookmarks.
SnarkedMay.svg.7z | SnarkedMay6000.jpg
Michael Keating, University of Aberdeen
The Brexit process started in March 2017 with the triggering of Article 50, allowing two years to complete the process. The main story since then has been of postponing difficult decisions in the hope that something would turn up. Ministers have insisted they have a mandate from the people but have struggled to agree on what it entails in practice. Negotiations within the UK government have been as difficult as those with the EU. …
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.
See also: http://www.chinchin-records.com/bajka—in-wonderland
If you get the complete album, then you also have the original poem being sung to you.
Even while the blinding bandage lies,
Daughter of a Judge, upon thine eyes,
If the scales thou wield with care
Truth and Justice will declare
Hunting Snarks is innocent and wise!
Inscribed (1876-09-02) with an allusion to Justicia by Lewis Carroll into an edition (now owned by NYU) of The Hunting of the Snark owned by Charlotte Edith Denman, daughter of George Denman.
Source of the acrostic poem:
Rare, Uncollected, Unpublished & Nonexistent Verse of Lewis Carroll, Collected and Annoted by August A. Imholz, Jr. & Edward Wakeling, p. 30, LCSNA 2018, ISBN 978-0-930326-11-1.
The book is available to LCSNA members only.
THE BELLMAN in real life! Ivan, one of the load-in crew at Gateshead is the spitting Image of Lewis Carroll’s Bellman from the Hunting Of The Snark. He allowed me to take and post this shot. He’s only got an invisible bell! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/PbreXCtj3s
— Mike Batt (@Mike_Batt) October 20, 2018
