Structure
The poem has some aspects characteristic of much of Carroll's poetry: it utilizes technically adept meter and rhyme, grammatically correct phrasing, logical chains of events—and largely nonsensical content, frequently employing made-up words such as "Snark". It is by far his longest poem; unlike Alice, which is prose with occasional poems within the text, the Snark rhymes from start to end. The poem is divided into eight sections or "fits" (a pun on fit, meaning a part of a song, and fit, meaning a seizure or convulsion—hence, "An Agony in 8 Fits"):
- The Landing
- The Bellman's Speech
- The Baker's Tale
- The Hunting
- The Beaver's Lesson
- The Barrister's Dream
- The Banker's Fate
- The Vanishing
Read more about this topic: The Hunting Of The Snark
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“... the structure of a page of good prose is, analyzed logically, not something frozen but the vibrating of a bridge, which changes with every step one takes on it.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.
The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.”
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)