Connections
In the preface to the Snark, Carroll, making fun of his recycling for the third time the first stanza of "Jabberwocky", remarks that "this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock", and goes on to explain how to pronounce borogoves and slithy toves (words which do not appear in the text of the Snark). Eight nonsense words from the "Jabberwocky" that do appear are bandersnatch, beamish, frumious, galumphing, jubjub, mimsiest (which appeared as mimsy in "Jabberwocky"), outgrabe and uffish. In a letter to a friend, Carroll described the domain of the Snark as "an island frequented by the Jubjub and the Bandersnatch—no doubt the very island where the Jabberwock was slain".
The Boojum, as Gardner notes, will pop up some twenty years later (1893) in a surprising passage of Sylvie and Bruno Concluded that sharply contradicts all the previous evasions and outright denials in Carroll's letters:
- "Once upon a time there was a Boojum -" the Professor began, but stopped suddenly. "I forget the rest of the Fable," he said. "And there was a lesson to be learned from it. I'm afraid I forget that, too".
While it is hardly surprising that a writer reuses some of his own inventions now and then, it is noteworthy that the themes of Carroll's poems ("Jabberwocky", "The Mouse's Tale", "The Pig-Tale", "The Mad Gardener's Song") run through all of his major works like, to borrow Gardner's expression, "demented fugues". In the Barrister's dream (Fit 6), for example, the Snark not only serves as jury (like Fury in regard to the Mouse in Alice) but acts as the counsel for the defence as well, besides finding the verdict and passing the sentence.
Read more about this topic: The Hunting Of The Snark
Famous quotes containing the word connections:
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—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
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“Our business being to colonize the country, there was only one way to do it—by spreading over it all the associations and connections of family life.”
—Henry Parkes (1815–1896)