Lewis Carroll and his Interpreters

Abstract

How did it happen that the Reverend Charles Dodgson, thirty years of age, lecturer on geometry at Christ Church, Oxford, hitherto remarkable chiefly for his precision, on a single July afternoon, while rowing up the Isis with a brother don and three little girls, parthenogenetically gave birth t o one of the most famous stories o f all time? asks Florence Becker Lennon. (Victoria Through the Looking Glass, p. 3.) Yes, how did it happen that in the Victorian Age are served, formal college don surprised and delighted both adult and childish hearts with the nonsensical caprices of a little girl named Alice? This story of Alice was quite out of keeping with the times. In the nineteenth century, children's literature was devoted mostly to teaching dismal and fearsome morals. Little people were reading such moral treatises as "Useful Lessons for Little Misses and Masters", and "Paul Pennylove's Poetical Paraphrase of the Pence Table", and in the realm of verse they were compelled to gain inspiration from such as this: When up the ladder I would go (How wrong it was I now well know) Who cried, but held it fast below? MY SISTER Once too I threw my top too far, It touched thy cheek , and left a scar: Who tried to hide it from Mamma? MY SISTER Or children were compelled to learn awesome lessons like, "Oh, dear Mamma, if I had done as you bade me I should not have had all this pain," or, "But I cannot call her back; and when I stand by her grave, and whenever I think of her manifold kindness, the memory of that reproachful look she gave me will bite like a serpent and sting like an adder." Now suddenly a new kind of story, called Alice in Wonderland, appears. It has no moral, but is brim full of fun, a real childish boy and girl fun. And this new ~ind of story is a success, a great success. Why? Probably the answer to this question lies in the author of the story, Lewis Carroll. The author was a man who delighted in doing things backward and even lived his life backward. Some writers say he never was a real little boy until he had become a grown man. Perhaps after he had become a grown man and began to be a little boy in heart he knew what real little children would want. Perhap s there was another reason why he succeeded in writing such a successful children's story. Let us study this Lewis Carroll, examine his literary works, and find what others think of him. We ought to come t o some conclusion about h ow a lecturer on g eometry could produce some of the most famous stories of all time.