Sunday Poetry XVIII -- Through the Looking Glass: CARROLL'S TERMINAL POEM

For its appearance and lilt that suggest but the purest of simplistic beauties, and its genius technique and allusions, this poem is perhaps Lewis Carroll's greatest piece of poetry.  It also represents everything that Carroll thought and felt of/for Alice Pleasance Liddell, the inspiration, subject, and protagonist of the two Alice books.  While it is certainly the opposing end-paper to Looking-Glass's introductory poem, it is, I believe, far more doleful, and in that regard, much more reminiscent of the melancholy winter outside the windows of chapter 1, kissing at the panes, but forever distant.  The first poem appropriately and artfully introduces the book, and also sets well the tone of this new distance yawning between him and his Alice; the closing poem indeed closes it all, shuts the book, but dog-ears the corner.  After the crowning, after the fireworks, after her waking, he steps back, sits, and allows himself the nostalgia of watching her distantly, under the clouds.

Of course, the poem is most famous for being an acrostic featuring Alice Liddell's full name.  Notice also that "Alice" begins the central line of the poem, and more, this is where she is moving "phantomwise," "under skies."  Some believe that the meter, if not the tercets (which serve the 21 letters of Alice's name), and the renewed reminiscence of rowing, matches the anonymous verse of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."  If you hold this thought and go all the way back and reread "All in a Golden Afternoon," you'll see that the girls there are referred to, appropriately, as a "merry" crew, but this masterpiece is far from merry.  He longs for the past, when things were so.

Finally, consider the last line.  Hold it up against the Red King and Alice's predicament remembered at the end of the final chapter.  What do you think?

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —

Lingering in the golden gleam —

Life, what is it but a dream?

Through the Looking Glass II -- DEAR ALICE A-DISTANCED

This poem, I think, is Carroll's very best "literary" work.  Here he is at his most vulnerable, least satiric, and here it is that he most skillfully and sincerely uses the greatest of his lyrical strength.  It is subtle, lulling, and peaceful, despite the winter storming beyond the "pleasance" of this sitting room.

I don't like to reduce a poem to a chart, especially one so lovely as this, but in this context such is the most efficient way to connect thought to stanza.  If you have comments or questions, reference them by stanza.

1 Child of the pure unclouded brow       And dreaming eyes of wonder! Though time be fleet, and I and thou      Are half a life asunder, Thy loving smile will surely hail The love-gift of a fairy-tale.	If we take this as a continuation from Wonderland and those final words offered by Alice’s older sister (really Carroll), then this idealization makes sense.  Remember, though only 6 months pass (exactly 6) between the fictional events two books, 6 years have pass between their publication dates, and in reality, Alice, who was 10 when she requested that Wonderland be written, is now actually 19.
2 I have not seen thy sunny face,      Nor heard thy silver laughter; No thought of me shall find a place      In thy young life's hereafter - Enough that now thou wilt not fail To listen to my fairy-tale.	Carroll is pretty meek now, and he seems to assume that he’s made less of an impression than he actually has; however, as he knows Alice as a person,   and what with her child-like mind, despite her forgetfulness of him—i.e.his assumption (accurate) that she’s moved on in her life, and he’s not part of the new one now she’s older—so he knows she will be adequately interested in the new story to read it, and that she will be amused.
3 A tale begun in other days,      When summer suns were glowing - A simple chime, that served to time      The rhythm of our rowing - Whose echoes live in memory yet, Though envious years would say 'forget'.	The summer days not only reference the eponymous golden afternoon in July, but the sunny, un-jaded days of youth.  He’s confident that this particular past is indelible, no matter what’s going on now—or not going on—between them; and those “envious years” are easily those first after they were separated by fiat of Mrs. Liddell.
4 Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,      With bitter tidings laden, Shall summon to unwelcome bed      A melancholy maiden! We are but older children, dear, Who fret to find our bedtime near.	No matter the Freudians, this bed is not the wedding bed, but a reference to the generalized Christian belief  that death is but a sleep: temporary, passive, innocuous.
5 Without, the frost, the blinding snow,      The storm-wind's moody madness - Within, the firelight's ruddy glow,      And childhood's nest of gladness. The magic words shall hold thee fast: Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.	This is the setting that begins chapter 1 of Looking-Glass: winter, indoors, before the fireplace.
6 And though the shadow of a sigh      May tremble through the story, For 'happy summer days' gone by,      And vanish'd summer glory - It shall not touch with breath of bale The pleasance of our fairy-tale.	As he introduces the setting in 5, so he introduces the tone here in 6: this is the belated, melancholy epilogue of the love story—not unrequited, but only outgrown.  He points out that despite the distance and the “winter” (compared to summer's youth) –especially whose weather will surely run throughout the story, though only in tone, not precipitation and temperature— “it shall not touch with breath of bale” (think “baleful,” which is the correlating adjective) the “pleasance,” which, interestingly, is Alice’s middle name, whom he specifically introduces as he did tone and setting, of the tale.

Alice (Liddell) Hargreaves, all grown up.

Through the Looking Glass I -- AN INTRODUCTION TO THIS READING

"Lewis Carroll," by Hubert von Herkomer

If you followed along with the reading of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at all, you will have noticed a string of points and observations somewhat less typical than usual Alice inspections.  Of course, I can't resist the best of Carroll's jokes and observations, but my primary motive was (and so it will be for Looking-Glass) to look at Carroll's relationship with Alice as it appears in/through the text, which is often transparent in this regard, but periodically verging on opaque.  The frequency of such revelatory moments in Wonderland, however, is much less than it is in Looking-Glass, which, aside from being simply better written, is much deeper in it metaphors, pathos, and poetry.  And this makes sense.  While Wonderland was a write-up, at Alice Liddell's request (she was 10 at the time, despite her 7-year-old appearance in the book), of the stories Carroll frequently told the Liddell sisters on their outings, Looking-Glass was not motivated by request and rather gained its inspiration from a general downturn of Carroll's life.

Six years pass between the publication of the two books.  By this time, Carroll is no longer spending time at all with the Liddells (after a falling-out that began just the October after the summer outing which inspired Carroll's introductory poem, "All in the Golden Afternoon," as well as Alice's request to Carroll) and, more significantly in the moment, his father has recently died.  While I am not a Carrollian (not well-enough read), and my general scholarship abilities and opportunities often lacking (I'm stretched for time and often can't focus my literary energies for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time), I can say with some confidence that this latter turn for the worse (which subsequent emotions Carroll did not negotiate  at all well) is quite likely to have triggered a nostalgia for better times, which most certainly included a relapse of infatuation (asexual and of childish innocence) for Alice Liddell.  My primary evidence is, at best, weak, and would never be sufficient to merit the terms "conclusive proof," but stems from the beautiful and already-mentioned poetry of this second Alice book, as it holds up behind the actual events of the man's life.

As before, I'm not planning on spending inordinate amounts of time and space (though such is certainly possible, and has been done by tens of thousands of others) on all the typical footnotes available (see Martin Gardner's annotations, which are excellent, by the way, and upon which I frequently rely for assembling many of my questions and observations).  However, while my object is found (hopefully) on a deeper, more subjective/speculative level, there are a lot of footnotes that are simply indispensable, either because they're just so much fun, necessary for understanding the Victorian context, or otherwise fundamental in "getting" the questions I post.

TWO NOTES ON THE "READING QUESTIONS":  1 -- the questions I post are not always questions, but often quotations or descriptions from the text which I find interesting or leading and merit discussion; 2 -- I don't always know the answers or if even such answers are possible or exist, and hope the discussion will lead toward satisfactory conclusions.

Alice in Wonderland XV -- chapter 11 & 12: ALICE GROWS UP

Portrait of Alice Liddell,
by Charles Dodgson

The trial is the final scene before Alice awakes and book ends.  While there are some points of interest through the course of the trial, the real discussion begins at its completion with the few paragraphs of epilogue of the older sister's dream of Alice's dream.  It is here in this final moment that Carroll makes another anonymous appearance, this time seemingly to wave goodbye.

1. Wonderland is not a large place.  Nearly all of its characters are present in the trial, or appeared, also recently, at the croquet game.
2. Alice imagines the the animals out of the juror box will not survive, as surely as goldfish out of their bowl will not survive.  This is very much like the creatures of Wonderland and the "bowl" of Alice's dream.
3. Alice's growth through the second half of chapter 11 and through the end of the trial in chapter 12 is unmotivated by any contrivances of the dream.  She is growing on her own.  As Carroll controls the elements of the dream and Alice is growing independently of it and him, might this not symbolize the very maturing of Alice that Carroll dreads?  The Dream--his dreams of her, his wish for a different reality--will inevitably conclude.
4. In Carroll's eye, is Alice perhaps the guilty one--the one who committed, and as unwittingly as any Wonderland creature, the crime? tarts and hearts, and whoever stole them?
5. (42 is a bit of a magic number for Carroll and other writers, including Douglas Adams.)
6. The verses read by W. Rabbit (or maybe Herald/Harold?) is the second layer of parody of a near-thoroughly buried original song (below), the first of which was published by Carroll as "She's All My Fancy Painted Him."
7. Notice that in Tenniel's final illustration (of which there are 42, by the way) W. Rabbit has lost his costume, and the cards, with the exception of a few noses, have lost their personifications.
8. What is the determining factor (for it's not the trial) that wake's Alice?
9. Alice's older sister, I think, is channeling Carroll here at the end.  She re-dreams (remembers fondly, really) Alice's experiences and adventures, and is generally idealized by her.  Remember, this book was written as a gift for Alice.  The dream seems to me to be a dramatization of time spent together by Alice and Carroll.  Unfortunately, and no matter how beautiful, wonderful, confusing, or terrible, dreams end; and dreams like this tend to end most commonly when their subject grows up.  The beauty of a pleasant dream is that it is forever idealized (like Carroll's own idealization of it through the here-unnamed older sister) by she who had it.  Alice will remember it fondly forever, regardless of what may or may not happen through her future within reality.  (Interestingly, the way its all put together, and appropriately so, the dream is more Carroll's than Alice's, yet it is Alice who ends it.)

from John Shaw's booklet 

(I don't know more about it than this)

She's all my fancy painted her,

She's lovely, she's divine,

But her heart it is another's,

She never can be mine.

Yet loved I as man never loved,

A love without decay,

O, my heart, my heart is breaking

For the love of Alice Gray.

Drawing by Carroll in his hand-penned
copy of Alice's Adventures Underground

This portrait of Alice
was pasted into the
original book over
the drawing above.