Lewis Carroll, Henry Holiday and Joseph Swain's Tragicomedy
But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!
※ www.nicholassoames.org.uk (2018-12-06): Full speech
※ Youtube: The Snark reference starts at 00:09:03.
※ Twitter
2018-12-30, update: 2022-07-11
※ [top left]: Illustration to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark (1876) by Henry Holiday: The Vanishing (detail from lower left side depicting some weeds which seem to have some fun with each other)
※ [top right]: John Martin: The Bard (ca. 1817, detail from lower left side, retinex filtered and vectorized, then slightly horizontally compressed)
2018-02-17, updated: 2022-06-22
Retweeted by Musée Unterlinden (2017-12-27, 2022-06-20):
Another finding (bycatch from my Snark hunt):
2017-12-27, updated: 2022-06-20
Hello, Arne. Long time, no see. Time to go snark hunting again! #practicetweet pic.twitter.com/OmJXtUwIK9
— Sibilant Hussy (@AkselToll) September 23, 2014
As for the Snark music known to me, Arne Nordheim’s The Return of the Snark – For Trombone And Tape is among my favorites. Nordheim composed this 15 minutes piece in the year 1987. Gaute Vikdal plays the trombone.
The recording is part of the 7 CDs album Listen – The Art of Arne Nordheim. There are other recordings of Nordheim’s Snark compositions available in the Internet, like The Hunting of the Snark for Trombone only. But I like the Return most.
2018-11-02, update: 2022-04-04
more
2017-09-17, update: 2022-01-20
Here I inserted (2012-08-18) details from Henry Holiday’s Snark illustrations to the 1st Snark fit into Thomas Landseer’s illustration.
You can use the assemblage in compliance with license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Main artists: Conrad Martens & Thomas Landseer, Henry Holiday & Joseph Swain.
more | search “SnarkAssemblage”
2017-09-23, update: 2021-12-29
The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes—
A sentiment open to doubt.
[The New Belfry of Christ Church, Oxford], of the best of Dodgson’s Oxford squibs, a good humored but cutting attack on Dean Liddell (the father of Alice) and the wooden cube built to contain the Cathedral bells during operations to build a new tower. Though it can still be found today behind the stone walls of the tower, the wooden cube was always a temporary plan but Dodgson was impatient and the Governing body were slow.
Source: Cristies, 2009-12-04
The Bell in The Hunting of the Snark might be interpreted as a symbol for time and time pressure. But it also might have been used by C.L. Dodgson to continue lampooning Dean Henry Liddell‘s minimalistic “bonnet-box” project, a meekly geometric belfry to go up on the cathedral at Christ Church. In The New Belfry of Christ Church, a certain “D. C. L.” wrote:
§ 7. On the impetus given to Art in England by the new Belfry, Ch. Ch.
The idea has spread far and wide, and is rapidly pervading all branches of manufacture. Already an enterprising maker of bonnet-boxes is advertising ‘the Belfry pattern’: two builders of bathing-machines[MG025] at Ramsgate have followed his example: one of the great London houses is supplying ‘bar-soap’ cut in the same striking and symmetrical form: and we are credibly informed that Borwick’s Baking Powder and Thorley’s Food for Cattle are now sold in no other shape.
In The Belfry at Christ Church by E.G.W. Bill, edited by Michael Hall and published in Oxoniensia 2013 (Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society), I found this quote from a letter by C.L. Dodgson to The Pall Mall Gazette (1874-10-31):
During the restoration of the Cathedral, when the bells had been removed from the tower, which had become too weak to support them, it was proposed to hang them outside the cathedral in a wooden belfry, which we were assured would be quite inoffensive, as it would hardly be visible from any point of the compass. In an evil hour we consented, and the resulting erection, which cost about a thousand pounds, speedily made us famous for having inflicted upon Oxford the ugliest and most conspicuous monstrosity that probably she has ever seen. This, and the great expense already incurred, forced on us the conviction that we must now erect a stone bell-tower.
2018-05-24, update: 2022-11-22
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
Bycatch (found in 2013) from my Snark hunt:
2017-09-26, update: 2021-08-26
This is not about The Hunting of the Snark and not only about Tom Waits.
A large part of the interview with Justine Houyaux is about Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll).
2018-05-24, update: 2021-03-15
Today (2021-03-14) I learned about Brian Dewan, because he used my assemblage on the cover of his The Hunting of the Snark. His recording (2017) was aired in London and New York. The borrowing is fine with me, because for the assemblage I too borrowed illustrations. They were made by two 19th century artists.
The monsters already were there. But what did Gustave Doré see in the sky in Matthias Grünewald’s painting?
Look at walls splashed with a number of stains, or stones of various mixed colours. If you have to invent some scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of landscapes, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys and hills, in various ways. Also you can see various battles, and lively postures of strange figures, expressions on faces, costumes and an infinite number of things, which you can reduce to good integrated form. This happens on such walls and varicoloured stones, (which act) like the sound of bells, in whose peeling you can find every name and word that you can imagine.
Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas. The mind of the painter is stimulated to new discoveries, the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes and monstrous things, such as devils and similar things, which may bring you honor, because by indistinct things the mind is stimulated to new inventions.
Reprinted from the Oxford edition of Selections from the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, edited by Irma A. Richter. The selections are from da Vinci’s A Treatise on Painting (Trattato della pittura).
(Thanks to Jono Borden for asking.)
2017-12-29, updated: 2022-03-10
But perhaps Holiday’s ruff – and the pose of the Fit Five drawing – was inspired by the Elizabethan drama inherent in Millais’ Boyhood of Raleigh, (1869).
Louise Schweitzer, One Wild Flower (2012)
If you want to be on the safe side, just claim that the meaning of the Snark is elusive. But to the more courageous readers I recommend Louise Schweitzer’s doctoral thesis One Wild Flower.
2017-09-04, update: 2021-03-05
audio video items as of 2020-01-29
The CD cover in the top right corner is my design. You can use this Snark assemblage in compliance with license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Main artists: Conrad Martens & Thomas Landseer, Henry Holiday & Joseph Swain.
new search | Snark readings by LibriVox | Snark assemblage used by Librivox
2020-01-29, updated: 2021-01-31
