Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
1921
Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
1921
The poem that gave English words like "chortle" and "galumphing," plus every other verse from Alice's tumble down the rabbit hole. Carroll's nonsense operates on a peculiar principle: it sounds like pure chaos until you look closer, when it reveals the architecture of Victorian moral verse turned inside out. "How Doth the Little Crocodile" mocks the earnest self-improvement poems children were forced to memorize, while "The Walrus and the Carpenter" serves up a darkly comic tale of oysters consumed with butter and bread. "Jabberwocky" remains the most famous invented-language poem in English, its made-up words somehow more vivid than real ones. These are verses meant to be performed, recited at parties, passed between friends who know them by heart. They have stayed alive for over a century because they operate on two frequencies at once: the surface is delightful absurdity, but underneath runs a mathematician's logic in service of pure play.
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“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).””
— Lewis Carroll
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?””
— Lewis Carroll
“I wonder if the snow the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.””
— Lewis Carroll
“I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then””
— Lewis Carroll
“Why it's simply impassible!Alice: Why, don't you mean impossible?Door: No, I do mean impassible. Nothing's impossible!””
— Lewis Carroll
“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.””
— Lewis Carroll
“Curiouser and curiouser.””
— Lewis Carroll
“Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!"Well, now that we have seen each other," said the unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.””
— Lewis Carroll
“Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.””
— Lewis Carroll
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Carroll, Lewis. Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Lex, lex-books.com/book/songs-from-alice-in-wonderland-and-through-the-looking-glass-5fddc418-5c93-4f52-8778-5f6bb4b83c56.Carroll, L. (1921). Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/songs-from-alice-in-wonderland-and-through-the-looking-glass-5fddc418-5c93-4f52-8778-5f6bb4b83c56Carroll, Lewis. Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/songs-from-alice-in-wonderland-and-through-the-looking-glass-5fddc418-5c93-4f52-8778-5f6bb4b83c56.
