Fancy

Lewis Carroll, the master of playful nonsense, turns his wit to a universal human delusion: the gap between what we imagine and what actually exists. 'Fancy' is a sly, rhyming meditation on how we construct elaborate fantasies about people we've never met, only to discover that reality disappoints (or surprises) us in entirely different ways. Written in Carroll's characteristic bouncing rhythm and gentle mockery, the poem catalogs the absurd expectations we build in our heads versus the mundane truth that awaits us. It's the kind of verse that makes you laugh because you recognize yourself in it, every time you've pictured someone famous, someone online, someone you were about to meet, and built an entire castle in the air around them. Carroll delivers this gentle ribbing with such charm that it feels less like being caught and more like being let in on a delightful secret. The poem endures because the phenomenon it describes has only grown more relevant in an age of curated avatars and digital personas.