Alice in Wonderland XIV -- chapter 10: STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT

I've said before that this isn't my favorite chapter, and I hope Alice found it tremendously entertaining, else for my money it's a relative failure (by comparison, and all old grudges left aside, I find far less of value here than in "The Caucus Race," which I finally recognize to have failed for years to adequately appreciate).  As entertainment--silliness for silly's sake--there's not much here for the modern reader, and little more than mockery of lessons for its once-readers; regarding substance, there may be something to parse from it, but, well ... I'll be honest with myself: there's little more than none, and only very slightly more than the offering of respite from the lunatic gravity of the Court.  Thoughts?

1. "Alice began to say 'I once tasted--' but checked herself hastily, and said 'No, never':  Is this a hint of character arc after all, albeit rather weak (see the 3rd and 4th comments HERE)?
2. Carroll's relationship with dancing was a little like his relationship with any given Institution--or at least the "World of Grownups"; he generally recoiled from the constraints of rules and did what he wanted, or otherwise mocked it later.
3. Once again, what do you make of the relationship between the source poetry, "The Spider and the Fly," and the parody?
4. Earlier in the book, Alice went with a "porpoise."  What is it now?  (Of course, this answer depends at least somewhat upon whether or not you believe she has found the Garden.)
5. What do you make of Alice's line, "I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning, but it's no used going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then"?  

The Spider and the Fly
by Mary Howitt
"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the spider to the fly.

"'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.

The way into my parlour is up a winding stair;

And I've got many curious things to show you when you are there."

"On, no, no," said the little fly, "to ask me is in vain,

For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."

* Carroll's spin is not the same poem that appeared in the original manuscript.


The Sluggard
by Isaac Watts

'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain,

"You have wak'd me too soon, I must slumber again."

As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed,

Turns his sides and his shoulders and his heavy head.

"A little more sleep, and a little more slumber;"

Thus he wastes half his days, and his hours without number,

And when he gets up, he sits folding his hands,

Or walks about sauntering, or trifling he stands.

I pass'd by his garden, and saw the wild brier,

The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher;

The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags;

And his money still wastes till he starves or he begs.

I made him a visit, still hoping to find

That he took better care for improving his mind:

He told me his dreams, talked of eating and drinking;

But scarce reads his Bible, and never loves thinking.

Said I then to my heart, "Here's a lesson for me,"

This man's but a picture of what I might be:

But thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding,

Who taught me betimes to love working and reading.


Star of the Evening

by James M. Sayles

Beautiful star in heav'n so bright,

Softly falls they silv'ry light,

As thou movest from earth afar,

Star of the evening, Beautiful star.

(Chorus)

Beautiful star,

Beautiful star,

Star of the evening, beautiful star.

In Fancy's eye thou seem'st to say,

Follow me. come from earth away.

Upward thy spirit's pinions try,

To realms of love beyond the sky.

Shine on, oh star of love divine,

And may our soul's affection twine

Around thee as thou movest afar,

Star of the twilight, beautiful star.

* This song (yes, it was a song originally, and with music also by the same) was sung to Carroll by the Liddell sisters on August 1, 1862, as he records in his journal.  While I can't find much to be had by a cross-comparison between the original and the parody, I think there is significance somewhere between the nostalgic significance of the original and the manner in which its parody is sung by the Mock Turtle.  Additionally, consider the following:


On stars:  "Beautiful Star" is the second of two star songs mimicked by Carroll.  Recognizing simply that Carroll uses them at all (and his nostalgia connects more firmly to this second than the first) and what those originals may have meant for him, I can't conscionably employ "lampoon" to label his new renditions (I don't have any problem, however, labeling Carroll's rewrites of Watts' stuff as total derisive mockery).  I'll skip all the rhetoric: What if the central symbol of both, the star, is Alice?  Examine these two poems in their entirety and assume this metaphor.

The other star poem, whose original I failed to quote, shows up in "A Mad Tea-Party":


The Star

by Jane Taylor
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark:
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveller in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Alice in Wonderland XII -- chapter 9: MORALITY LESSO/ENS

In such a reading as this of Alice in Wonderland, it's clear that a great deal of the reader is inscribed on/to the subtext.  I mentioned before that it's not always important what the author intended (if indeed he/she intended a subtext at all) at the writing of the text, but that an interpretation needs to temper itself at least somewhat against who the author is, and not go directly and flagrantly astray.  That said, I think there's a great deal we can learn--or guess, really--about Carroll as a person and how he viewed Alice, himself, and his relationship with her via these books.  I think it's important to remember that this first of two was written for Alice's entertainment and pleasure (more on the second when we get there).  If we assume he was successful, we can also learn a lot about Alice, whom Carroll likely knew better than most anyone else, as well as a--though likely at least partially skewed--perspective on what Alice thought of Carroll, or how Carroll hoped/wanted Alice to see him.

1. Alice assumes that a person's temperament is at least somehow connected to what they eat or are exposed to (nurture over nature).  This being the case, it makes sense perhaps that the baby boy was so ill-tempered, augmented of course by the ill temper of the others in the kitchen with him, affected as they all were surely by the airborne pepper.  It's only upon leaving the source of "hotness" that he calms and turns into a pig.  Maybe boys are simply polar creatures: hot-tempered or piggish.  So what happens when they're fed candy?
2. "When I'm a Duchess...."
3. Does the finding of morals in everything separate children from adults, or join or distance Carroll from Alice?  Does he moralize his tale or leave it to the reader to find the automatically intrinsic morals?  (Carroll said in his "The New Belfry of Christ Church Oxford," "Everything has a moral if you choose to look for it.  In Wordsworth a good half of every poem is devoted to the Moral: in Byron, a smaller portion: in Tupper, the whole.")
4. The making of the world go round is most commonly done in literature and song by Love.  So what of Minding One's Own Business (and might there be a riddle in the connection between it and Love amounting to "much the same thing")?
5. "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves."  Sense and Sound is Carroll's own development.
6. Once again, from a child's perspective, adults are all mad; their words are gibberish, their morals bologna, and their motives an utter conflux of misappropriations.  I love the literal realization of this here in the scene Alice shares with the Duchess.  By combination of this and a nightly observation of my family's house cat, Jesse (who feels it her duty to, in turn, accompany my children, in turn--the first until she falls asleep, at which point she offers a perfunctory lick to the face, and then moves to the second), the evident sanity of the Cheshire Cat has come to make a little more sense.  Adults often have a hard time with cats, because cats are independent, disobedient, haughty, etcetera--seemingly insane, really (I like my cat for this very reason: I don't have do anything but feed it!).  However, kids love cats.  Kids get cats.  At least my kids do.  I did when I was a kid.  There's nothing mysterious or insane about cats from a child's perspective.
7. The Gryphon is the emblem of Oxford's Trinity College.  It is also the mythical guardian of ancient goldmines and is meant as a symbol of utmost vigilance.  Finally, medievally it was a common symbol of the union between God and man (how so, I'm not really sure, but there you go).

New thought (new to me, anyway): The griffin pulls a chariot carrying Beatrice in Dante's Purgatorio, and the final lines of Paradiso run thusly (Longfellow translation): "Here vigor failed the lofty fantasy: / But now was turning my desire and will, / Even as a wheel that equally is moved, // The Love which moves the sun and the other stars."  This final line follows the same pattern as the Duchess' "Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"  Now that I'm looking, there are striking parallels between The Divine Comedy and the Alice books.  There are tours, guides, episodes underground, fits, bizarreries, torments, ecstasies, and so on.  Especially, there is a female character highly idealized by the author.  Thoughts?