Lewis Carroll (Great Britain, 27.1.1832 - 14.1.1898) - English children's writer, mathematician, logician.
Real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
Under the name Lewis Carroll, English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson became known throughout the world as the creator of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, one of the most popular books for children.
Born January 27, 1832 in Daresbury near Warrington (Cheshire) in the family of a parish priest. He was the third child and eldest son in a family of four boys and seven girls. As a boy, Dodgson invented games, composed stories and rhymes, and drew pictures for his younger brothers and sisters.
Dodgson's education until the age of twelve is handled by his father.
1844-1846 – studies at Richmond Grammar School.
1846-1850 – studies at Rugby School, a privileged educational institution closed type, which causes hostility in Dodgson. However, here he shows outstanding abilities in mathematics and classical languages.
1850 – enrolled at Christ Church College, Oxford University and moves to Oxford.
1851 – wins the Boulter Scholarship competition.
1852 – awarded first class honors in mathematics and second class in classical languages and ancient literatures. Thanks to his achievements, he is allowed to do scientific work.
1855 - Dodgson was offered a professorship at his college, the traditional condition of which in those years was taking holy orders and a vow of celibacy. Dodgson fears that due to his ordination he will have to give up his favorite activities - photography and going to the theater.
1856, among other things, was also the year Mr. Dodgson began his studies in photography. During his passion for this art form (he stopped filming in 1880 for unknown reasons), he created about 3,000 photographs, of which less than 1,000 have survived.
1858 – “The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically,” 2nd ed. 1868.
1860 – “Notes on Algebraic Planimetry” (A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry).
1861 - Dodgson is ordained deacon, the first intermediate step towards becoming a priest. However, changes in university status eliminate the need for further steps in this direction.
July 1, 1862 - on a walk near Godstow, on the upper Thames, with the children of Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church College, Lorina, Alice (Alice), Edith and Canon Duckworth, Dodgson tells a story that Alice - a favorite who has become the heroine of improvisations - asks to be written down. He does this over the next few months. Then, on the advice of Henry Kingsley and J. MacDonald, he rewrites the book for more wide range readers, adding a few more stories previously told to the Liddell children.
1865 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (first the English name Charles Lutwidge was Latinized into Carolus Ludovicus, and then both names were swapped and were again anglicized).
1867 – scientific work An Elementary Treatise on Determinants.
In the same year, Dodgson first and last time leaves England and makes a very unusual trip to Russia for those times. Visits Calais, Brussels, Potsdam, Danzig, Koenigsberg along the way, spends a month in Russia, returns to England via Vilna, Warsaw, Ems, Paris. In Russia, Dodgson visits St. Petersburg and its environs, Moscow, Sergiev Posad, and a fair in Nizhny Novgorod.
1871 - A sequel to Alice (also based on earlier stories and later stories told to the young Liddells at Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham, in April 1863) is published, entitled Through the Looking-Glass. Glass and What Alice Found There, year given 1872). Both books are illustrated by D. Tenniel (1820-1914), who followed Dodgson's exact instructions.
1876 – poetic epic in the nonsense genre “The Hunting of the Snark”.
1879 – scientific work “Euclid and His Modern Rivals”.
1883 – collection of poems “Poems? Meaning?" (Rhyme? And Reason?).
1888 – scientific work “Mathematical Curiosities” (Curiosa Mathematica, 2nd ed. 1893).
1889 – novel “Sylvie and Bruno”.
1893 - the second volume of the novel “Sylvia and Bruno” - “The Conclusion of Sylvie and Bruno” (Sylvie and Bruno Concluded). Both volumes are distinguished by the complexity of their composition and the mixture of elements of realistic narrative and fairy tale.
1896 – scientific work “Symbolic Logic”.
1898 – collection of poems “Three Sunsets”.
January 14, 1898 - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died at his sister's house in Guildford of pneumonia, two weeks shy of 66 years of age. Buried in Guilford Cemetery.
Mathematician Dodgson
Dodgson's mathematical works did not leave any noticeable mark on the history of mathematics. His mathematical education was limited to knowledge of several books of the “Elements” of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, the foundations of linear algebra, mathematical analysis and probability theory; this was clearly not enough to work at the “cutting edge” of mathematical science of the 19th century, which was experiencing a period of rapid development (the theory of the French mathematician Galois, non-Euclidean geometry of the Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky and the Hungarian mathematician Janusz Bolyai, mathematical physics, qualitative theory of differential equations, etc.) . Dodgson’s essentially complete isolation from scientific world: apart from short visits to London, Bath and his sisters, Dodgson spent all his time in Oxford, and only in 1867 his usual way of life was disrupted by a trip to distant Russia (Dodgson outlined his impressions from this trip in the famous “Russian Diary”). IN Lately Dodgson's mathematical legacy is attracting increasing attention from researchers who are discovering his unexpected mathematical discoveries that have remained unclaimed.
Dodgson's achievements in the field of mathematical logic were far ahead of their time. He developed a graphical technique for solving logical problems, more convenient than the diagrams of the mathematician, mechanic, physicist and astronomer Leonhard Euler or the English logician John Venn. Special art Dodgson achieved the so-called “sorites” in his solution. Sorites is logic problem, which is a chain of syllogisms in which the withdrawn conclusion of one syllogism serves as the premise of another (in addition, the remaining premises are mixed; “sorites” in Greek means “heap”). C. L. Dodgson outlined his achievements in the field of mathematical logic in the two-volume “Symbolic Logic” (the second volume was recently found in the form of proofs in the archive of Dodgson’s scientific opponent) and, in a simplified version for children, in the “Logic Game”.
Writer Lewis Carroll
The unique originality of Carroll's style is due to the trinity of his literary gift of thinking as a mathematician and sophisticated logic. Contrary to the popular belief that Carroll, along with Edward Lear, can be considered the founder of “nonsense poetry,” Lewis Carroll actually created a different genre of “paradoxical literature”: his characters do not violate logic, but, on the contrary, follow it, taking logic to the point of absurdity.
The most significant literary works Carroll Lewis's two fairy tales about Alice are rightfully considered - "Alice in Wonderland" (1865) and "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Seen There" (1871), usually called "Alice Through the Looking-Glass" for brevity. Bold experiments with language, many subtle logical and philosophical questions touched upon in fairy tales about Alice, polysemy (“polysemanticism”) of statements characters and situations make Carroll’s “children’s” works the favorite reading of the “gray-haired sages.”
Features of Carroll's unique style are clearly noticeable in other works of Carroll: “Sylvie and Bruno”, “The Hunting of the Snark”, “Midnight Problems”, “The Knot Story”, “What the Turtle Said to Achilles”, “Allen Brown and Carr”, “ Euclid and his modern rivals,” letters to children.
L. Carroll was one of the first English photographers. His works are distinguished by naturalness and poetry, especially photographs of children. On the famous international exhibition photographs "The Human Race" (1956) by English photographers of the 19th century was represented by a single photograph by Lewis Carroll.
In Russia, Carroll has been widely known since the end of the last century. Fairy tales about Alice have been repeatedly (and with varying degrees of success) translated and retold into Russian, in particular by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. But one of best translations carried out by Boris Vladimirovich Zakhoder. The stories invented by Carroll are loved not only by children, but also by adults.
Birth of the pseudonym "Carroll Lewis"
Magazine publisher and writer Edmund Yates advised Dodgson to come up with a pseudonym, and in Dodgson's Diaries an entry appears dated February 11, 1865: “Wrote to Mr. Yates, offering him a choice of pseudonyms:
1) Edgar Cutwellis [the name Edgar Cutwellis is obtained by rearranging the letters from Charles Lutwidge].
2) Edgard W. C. Westhill [the method of obtaining a pseudonym is the same as in the previous case].
3) Louis Carroll [Louis from Lutwidge - Ludwick - Louis, Carroll from Charles].
4) Lewis Carroll [by the same principle of “translation” of the names Charles Lutwidge into Latin and the reverse “translation” from Latin into English].”
The choice fell on Lewis Carroll. Since then, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson signed all his “serious” mathematical and logical works with his real name, and all his literary works with a pseudonym, stubbornly refusing to recognize the identity of Dodgson and Carroll.
In the indissoluble union of the modest and somewhat prim Dodgson and the flamboyant Carroll, the former clearly lost to the latter: the writer Lewis Carroll was a better mathematician and logician than the Oxford “don” Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
The works of Lewis Carroll
A significant number of books and pamphlets on mathematics and logic indicate that Dodgson was a conscientious member of the learned community. Among them - Algebraic analysis of the fifth book of Euclid (The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically, 1858 and 1868), Notes on Algebraic Planimetry (A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry, 1860), An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, 1867 ) and Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879), Mathematical Curiosities (Curiosa Mathematica, 1888 and 1893), Symbolic Logic (1896).
Children interested Dodgson with youth; As a boy, he invented games, composed stories and poems, and drew pictures for his younger brothers and sisters. Dodgson’s unusually strong attachment to children (and girls almost ousted boys from his circle of friends) puzzled his contemporaries, while the latest critics and biographers do not cease to multiply the number of psychological investigations of the writer’s personality.
Of Dodgson's childhood friends, the most famous were those with whom he became friends earlier than anyone else - the children of Liddell, the dean of his college: Harry, Lorina, Alice (Alice), Edith, Rhoda and Violet. Alice was a favorite, and soon became the heroine of the improvisations with which Dodgson entertained his young friends on river walks or at home, in front of the camera. He told the most extraordinary story to Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell and Canon Duckworth on July 4, 1862 near Godstow, on the upper Thames. Alice asked Dodgson to write down this story on paper, which he did over the next few months. Then, on the advice of Henry Kingsley and J. MacDonald, he rewrote the book for a wider range of readers, adding several more stories previously told to the Liddell children, and in July 1865 he published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Continued, also from early stories and later stories told to the young Liddells at Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham, in April 1863, appeared at Christmas 1871 (1872) under the title Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Both books were illustrated by D. Tenniel (1820–1914), who followed Dodgson's exact instructions.
Both Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass talk about events that happen as if in a dream. Breaking down the narrative into episodes allows the writer to include stories that play on common sayings and proverbs, such as “the smile of the Cheshire Cat” or “the mad hatter,” or play on situations in games such as croquet or cards. Through the Looking Glass has a greater unity of plot compared to Wonderland. Here Alice finds herself in a mirrored world and becomes a participant in a chess game, where the White Queen's pawn (this is Alice) reaches the eighth square and turns into a queen herself. This book also features popular nursery rhyme characters, notably Humpty Dumpty, who interprets “made-up” words in “Jabberwocky” with a comically professorial air.
Dodgson was good at humorous poetry, and he published some of the poems from the Alice books in the Comic Times (a supplement to the Times newspaper) in 1855 and in Train magazine in 1856. He published many more poetry collections in these and other periodicals, such as College Rhimes and Punch, anonymously or under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (the English name Charles Lutwidge was first Latinized to become Carolus Ludovicus, and then the two names were reversed and were again anglicized). This pseudonym was used to sign both books about Alice and the collections of poems Phantasmagoria (Phantasmagoria, 1869), Poems? Meaning? (Rhyme? And Reason?, 1883) and Three Sunsets (1898). The poetic epic in the genre of nonsense, The Hunting of the Snark (1876), also became famous. The novel Sylvie and Bruno (Sylvie and Bruno, 1889) and its second volume, The Conclusion of Sylvie and Bruno (Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, 1893) are distinguished by the complexity of their composition and the mixing of elements of a realistic narrative and a fairy tale.
The wonderful world of Lewis Carroll has enchanted both adults and children for almost one hundred and fifty years. Books about Alice are read all over the world. And even more surprising is their creator, a serious mathematician and pedant on the one hand and a dreamer, best friend children - on the other.
Carroll's books are a fairy tale intertwined with reality, a world of fiction and the grotesque. Alice's journey is a path along which the imagination of a person freely glides, free from the burdens of “adult” life, which is why the characters encountered along the way and the adventures experienced by Alice are so close to children. Alice's universe, created in a momentary impulse, shocked the whole world. Probably none piece of art in the world does not have as many readers, imitators and haters as the works of Lewis Carroll. Sending Alice down the rabbit hole, the author did not even imagine where his imagination would lead the little heroine, and certainly did not know how his fairy tale would resonate in the hearts of millions of people.
Alice's journey to Wonderland and the mysterious Through the Looking Glass takes place as if in a dream. The travels themselves can hardly be called a logically complete narrative. It is rather a series of bright, sometimes absurd, sometimes funny and touching events and memorable meetings with characters. New literary device– fragmentation of the narrative into episodes – allowed us to reflect the color British life, take a fresh look at traditional English hobbies like croquet and card games, play with popular sayings and proverbs. Both books contain many nursery rhymes, the characters of which later became very popular.
According to critics, Lewis Carroll was especially good at humorous poems. He published his poetry separately in popular periodicals such as The Times, Train, and College Rhimes. A luminary of mathematical science, the author of serious scientific works, he did not dare to publish his “frivolous” works under his own name. Then Charles Latwidge Dodgson turned into Lewis Carroll. This pseudonym appeared on both books about Alice’s adventures and on numerous collections of poems. Lewis Carroll is also the author of The Hunting of the Snark, a poem in the heat of the absurd, and the novels Sylvia and Bruno and The Conclusion of Sylvia and Bruno.
Carroll's creations are a mixture of parody and fairy tale. Traveling through the pages of his works, we find ourselves in an incredible world of fantasy, so close to both our dreams and the realities of our everyday life.
Lewis Carroll, real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Dodson). Date of birth: January 27, 1832. Place of birth: the quiet village of Dersbury, Cheshire, UK. Nationality: British to the core. Special signs: asymmetrical eyes, the corners of the lips are turned up, deaf in the right ear; stutters. Occupation: Professor of Mathematics at Oxford, deacon. Hobbies: amateur photographer, amateur artist, amateur writer. Emphasize the last one.
Our birthday boy, in fact, is an ambiguous personality. That is, if you represent it in numbers, you get not one, but two - or even three. We count.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832 - 1898), who graduated with honors in mathematics and Latin, in subsequent years a professor at Oxford University, as well as the curator of the teaching club (with the quirks inherent in status and institution!), a prosperous and exceptionally respectable citizen of Victorian society, who sent in his life more than a hundred thousand letters written in clear, neat handwriting, the pious deacon Church of England, the most talented British photographer of his time, a gifted mathematician and innovative logician, many years ahead of his time - this is it.
Lewis Carroll, the beloved author of the classic works Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking-Glass (1871) and The Hunting of the Snark (1876), was a man who spent three-quarters of his free time with children, able to tirelessly tell children fairy tales for hours, accompanying them with funny drawings, and, going for a walk, loading his bag with all kinds of toys, puzzles and gifts for the children he might meet, a kind of Santa Claus for every day - that's two.
Perhaps (only perhaps, and not necessarily!), there was also a third one - let’s call him “Invisible”. Because no one has ever seen him. A man about whom, immediately after Dodgson’s death, a myth was specially created to cover up a reality that no one knew.
The first can be called a successful professor, the second an outstanding writer. Carroll III is a complete failure, Boojum instead of Snark. But it was a failure at the international level, a sensational failure. This third Carroll is the most significant, the most brilliant of the three, he is not of this world, he belongs to the world of the Looking Glass. Some biographers prefer to talk only about the first, Dodgson the scientist, and the second, Carroll the writer. Others pointedly hint at all sorts of quirks of the third (about whom almost nothing is known, and what is known is impossible to prove!). But in fact, Carroll - like a liquid terminator - was all of his hypostases at once - although each of them with its entire being refuted the others... Is it any wonder that he had his own oddities?
The irony of fate, or the yellow wig
The first thing that comes to my mind when Lewis Carroll is mentioned is, oddly enough, his love for little girls, including Alice Liddell, a seven-year-old beauty with wide with open eyes, the rector’s daughter, who, thanks to Carroll, turned into fairy-tale Alice.
Carroll, indeed, was friends with her for many years, including after she successfully married. He took many wonderful photographs of little and big Alice Liddell. And other girls I know. But “owls are not what they seem.” As the queen of Russian Carroll studies, N.M., notes in her study. Demurova, the well-known version of Carroll’s “pedophilism” is, to put it mildly, a gross exaggeration. The fact is that relatives and friends deliberately fabricated a lot of evidence about Carroll’s supposedly great love for children (and girls, in particular) in order to hide his overly active social life, which included many acquaintances with “girls” of quite mature age - behavior that at that time absolutely unforgivable for either a deacon or a professor.
Having selectively destroyed much of his archive immediately after Carroll’s death and created a heavily “powdered” biography, the writer’s relatives and friends deliberately mummified the memory of him as a kind of “Grandfather Lenin” who really, really loved children. Needless to say, how ambiguous such an image has become in the twentieth century! (According to one of the “Freudian” versions, Carroll developed his own reproductive organ in the image of Alice!) The writer’s reputation, ironically, fell victim to a word of mouth conspiracy, precisely created with the aim of protecting his good name and presenting him in a favorable light before his descendants...
Yes, even during his lifetime, Carroll had to “conform” and hide his versatile, active and sometimes even stormy life under an impenetrable mask of Victorian respectability. Needless to say, it’s an unpleasant task; for such a principled man as Carroll, this was undoubtedly a heavy burden. And yet, it seems, a deeper, more existential contradiction was hidden in his personality, besides the constant fear for his professorial reputation: “oh, what will Princess Marya Aleksevna say.”
Here we come close to the problem of Carroll the Invisible, Carroll the Third, who lives on the dark side of the Moon, in the Sea of Insomnia.
They say Carroll suffered from insomnia. In 2010, perhaps, a kitschy full-length film will finally be filmed and released, the main character of which will be Carroll himself. The film, which is supported by such masters of cinema as James Cameron and Alejandro Jodorowsky, should be called "Phantasmagoria: The Vision of Lewis Carroll", and it is being directed by - who do you think? - none other than... Marilyn Manson! (I wrote more about this.)
However, even if Carroll was indeed tormented by insomnia at night, he also could not find peace during the day: he constantly needed to keep himself busy with something. In fact, Carroll invented and wrote so much during his life that you are simply amazed (again, one involuntarily recalls grandfather Lenin, who was also distinguished by his literary prolificacy!). But at the center of this vigorous creativity was conflict. Something weighed on Carroll: something prevented him, for example, from getting married and having children, whom he loved so much. Something turned him away from the path of the priest, which he had set out on in his youth. Something simultaneously undermined his faith in the very foundations of human existence and gave him the strength and determination to follow his path to the end. Something huge, like the whole world revealed to our eyes, and incomprehensible, like the invisible world! What it was, we can now only guess, but there is no doubt about the existence of this deepest “abyss”.
So, for example, in the passage that Carroll (on the advice of J. Tenniel, the artist who created the “classic” illustrations for both books about Alice) removed during the final editing, contains a bitter complaint about the double - not to say “two-faced” life that he had to lead under social pressure. I will quote the poem in full (translated by O.I. Sedakova):
When I was gullible and young,
I raised my curls, took care of them, and loved them.
But everyone said: “Oh, shave them off, shave them off,
And get a yellow wig as soon as possible!”
And I listened to them and did this:
And he shaved his curls and put on a wig -
But everyone shouted when they looked at him:
“To be honest, this is not what we were expecting at all!”
“Yes,” everyone said, “he doesn’t sit well.
He’s so unbecoming of you, he’ll forgive you so much!”
But, my friend, how could I save? –
My curls couldn’t grow back...
And now, when I am not young and gray,
And the old hair on my temples is gone.
They shouted to me: “Come on, you crazy old man!”
And they pulled off my ill-fated wig.
And yet, wherever I look.
They shout: “Rude! Dude! Pig!"
Oh my friend! What kind of insults am I used to?
How I paid for the yellow wig!
Here he is, " visible to the world laughter and tears invisible to the world" by Carroll-invisible! The following is a clarification:
“I sympathize with you very much,” said Alice from the bottom of her heart. “I think if your wig fit better, they wouldn’t tease you like that.”
“Your wig fits perfectly,” muttered Bumblebee, looking at Alice with admiration. - That's because your head shape is suitable.
There can be no doubt: a wig is, of course, not a wig at all, but a social role in general, a role in this crazy performance, which, in the good old Shakespearean tradition, is played out on the stage of the whole world. Carroll - if, of course, we take it on faith that in the image of Bumblebee Carroll portrayed himself, or his “dark” half (remember Carroll’s famous self-portrait, where he sits in profile - yes, yes, this is the Moon, the dark side of which will never exist visible!) - so, Carroll is tormented by both the wig and the lack of curls, as well as the beauty and lightness of childhood - these perfectly fitting “wigs” of lovely little girls.
This is the “one but fiery” passion that torments the deacon: he doesn’t want sex with little girls at all, he wants to return to childhood, idealized in the image of seven-year-old Alice with “eyes wide shut,” who is naturally immersed in her own Country miracles! After all, little girls don't even have to jump in rabbit hole to leave the adult world somewhere out there, far away. And the world of adults, with all its conventions - is it worth spending your life on? And in general, what is this whole world really worth? social life etc., Carroll asks himself. After all, people are generally strange creatures who walk with their heads up all the time and spend half their lives lying under the covers! “Life, what is it but a dream?” (“Life is just a dream”) - this is how the first fairy tale about Alice ends.
Professor Dodgson's head
TRINITY:
You came here because you want
find out the answer to the hacker's main question.
NEO:
Matrix... What is the Matrix?
(conversation in a nightclub)
To the point of gnashing of teeth, the highly spiritual Carroll was tormented by the idea of an existential, esoteric breakthrough into the “present,” into Wonderland, into the world outside the Matrix, into the life of the Spirit. He (like all of us!) was that ill-fated “eternity hostage to time in captivity,” and he was extremely aware of this.
Carroll's character was characterized by an unbending determination to realize his dream. He worked all day long, without even stopping to eat a normal meal (during the day he “blindly” snacked on cookies) and often spent long sleepless nights doing his research. Carroll, indeed, worked like crazy, but the purpose of his work was precisely to bring his mind to perfection. He was painfully aware of himself being locked in the cage of his own mind, but he tried to destroy this cage, not seeing a better method, with the same means - the mind.
Possessing a brilliant intellect, a professional mathematician and a capable linguist, Carroll tried precisely with the help of these tools to find a way out, that very forbidden door into wonderful garden which would lead him to freedom. Mathematics and linguistics are two areas in which Carroll conducted his experiments, esoteric and scientific at the same time - depending on which side you look at. Dodgson published about a dozen books on mathematics and logic, leaving his mark on science, but he strived for much deeper results. Playing with words and numbers was for him a war with the reality of common sense - a war with which he hoped to find eternal, endless, imperishable peace.
According to contemporaries, Deacon Carroll did not believe in eternal torment of hell. I dare to suggest that he, moreover, admitted the possibility of going beyond the limits of human syntax already during his lifetime. Exit and complete transformation into another reality - a reality that he conventionally called Wonderland. He admitted - and passionately desired - such liberation... Of course, this is just a guess. Within Christian tradition, to which, without a doubt, Deacon Dodgson belonged, this is unthinkable, however, for example, for a Hindu, Buddhist or Sufi, such a “Cheshire” disappearance is quite natural (like the disappearance in parts or in whole - for the Cheshire Cat himself!).
It is a fact that Carroll tirelessly conducted experiments on a kind of “breakthrough of the Matrix.” Having abandoned the logic of common sense and using formal logic as a lever that “turns the world upside down” (or rather, the usual combinations of words that people use to describe this world, out loud and to themselves, during reflection), Carroll “scientifically groped” for a much deeper logic.
As it turned out later, in the 20th century, in his mathematical, logical and linguistic studies, Professor Dodgson anticipated later discoveries in mathematics and logic: in particular, “game theory” and the dialectical logic of modern scientific research. Carroll, who dreamed of returning to childhood by turning back time, was in fact ahead of the science of his era. But he never achieved his main goal.
The brilliant, perfect mind of Dojon, a mathematician and logician, suffered, unable to overcome the abyss that separated him from something fundamentally incomprehensible to reason. That existential abyss that is bottomless: you can “fly, fly” into it. And the aging Dodgson flew and flew, becoming increasingly lonely and misunderstood. This abyss has no name. Perhaps this is what Sartre called “nausea.” But since the human mind tends to attach labels to everything, let’s call it an abyss. Snark-Boojuma. This is the gap between the human consciousness striving for freedom and the inhumanity of its environment.
Those around him (part of the environment) considered Dojohn-Carroll a man with quirks, a little out of his mind. And he knew how crazy and bizarre everyone else was - people who "think" in words while they play "royal croquet" in their own heads. “Everyone here is out of their minds, both you and me,” says Cheshire Cat Alice. Reality, when you apply reason to it, becomes even crazier. It becomes, deconstructed, the world of “Alice in Wonderland.”
The life story of Dodgson-Carroll is a story of search and disappointment, struggle and defeat, as well as that special disappointment-defeat that comes only after victory at the end of a long, life-long search. Carroll, after a long struggle, won his place in the sun, and the sun went out. “For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see” - with this sentence (offer of one’s head, or (de-) capitulation) ends Carroll’s last famous work - the nonsense poem “The Hunting of the Snark.” Carroll got a Snark, and that Snark was Boojum. In general, Carroll's biography is the story of Snark, who *was* Boojum. Carroll's failure was three people: Morpheus, who did not find his Neo, Trinity, who also did not find his Neo, and Neo himself, who never saw the Matrix as it is. The story of a liquid terminator that no one loved or understood well, and who dissolved into oblivion. A story that doesn't leave you indifferent.
Carroll got involved in a fight that no reasonable person could win. Only when (and if! And this is a big If!) thoughts are transcended, states known as intuition appear beyond the mind. Carroll was just trying - intuitively feeling that he needed it - to develop such a superpower in himself, to pull himself out of the swamp by his hair. Intuition is higher than any and all intellect: the mind and intellect operate with the help of words, logic and reason (in which Carroll achieved significant heights) and are therefore limited. Only the state of super logic and intuition surpasses reasonable logic. While Carroll used his mind, he was a good mathematician, an innovative logician, and a talented writer. But when the “golden city” stood before him - Wonderland, the Radiant Himalayas of the Spirit - he wrote under the inspiration of something superhuman, and these glimpses of the Supreme can be seen even through the translation: Carroll, like a dervish, spins in his mystical dance, and before ours Words, numbers, chess pieces, poems flash with a mental (and sometimes thoughtless!) gaze; finally, gradually, the very texture of the world, the lines of the Matrix, begins to emerge... Is it possible to demand more from a writer? This is his gift to us - something that he could only allow to happen - our dear Uncle Carroll, visionary mathematician, theatrical deacon, humorous prophet in an awkward yellow wig.
Everyone, of course, is well aware of the outstanding, very peculiar English writer Lewis Carroll (his real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). But Lewis Carroll's talents were by no means limited to literature. Some will probably remember that he was also a mathematician, who lectured at Oxford for a quarter of a century, and a deacon of the Church of England. But few people remember that Lewis Carroll was also a photographer. Not just enthusiastic, but selflessly passionate and almost fanatical.
And this was at a time when amateur photography was just emerging and was a sign of some strangeness, because in those years it required more effort from the amateur photographer than other professional photography requires today. But first things first.
Alexandra "Xie" Kitchen.
Surprisingly, Lewis Carroll's interest in photography was caused by... lack of activities. In 1856, already a teacher at Oxford, he writes in his diary: “I wrote to Uncle Skeffington, asking him to get me a photographic apparatus, since I want to find something for myself besides reading and writing.” And in the spring of that year, he, together with his colleague and also an amateur photographer Reginald South, went to London and purchased a camera.
The Liddell sisters in Chinese attire.
The purchase cost 15 pounds - a very significant amount for a young teacher. In addition, all sorts of now forgotten accessories were needed - baths, flasks, beakers, as well as magnesium for flash and a wide variety of reagents for development and fixation.
And the camera itself was by no means small and could not be used without a special tripod. In general, “the only fun,” as Carroll himself called it, required a certain self-denial.
Alice Liddell at the age of 7, 1859. (Prototype of the character Alice from the book "Alice in Wonderland")
However, Lewis Carroll was engaged in photography for twenty-four years! He managed to drive all his many friends to white heat, because, according to recollections, he was modest and shy in ordinary life, Lewis turned into a completely unbearable person, as soon as he picked up a camera, he was so obsessed with his hobby. But this hobby left descendants with many magnificent photographs, which still look very worthy today, although those were the romantic years of photography, when the rules and artistic decisions were formed mainly by practice.
Lewis Carroll specialized in portrait photography, and preferred to use them as models famous characters(he even tried to get permission to photograph Queen Victoria) or children. Over a quarter of a century, there have been many girl models, but the most famous, of course, is Alice Liddell - the same one who became the prototype of Alice from Lewis Carroll's main book.
Alice aged 7, 1860.
Alice was the daughter of one of the deans of Oxford, Henry Liddell, whom Carroll met in the same 1856. At the time, Alice was 4 years old and the fourth of Liddell's five children.
Alice Liddell
Lewis Carroll soon became a family friend, and Alice began to appear in his photographs, being naturally laid-back and artistic at the same time.
The Liddell sisters (Edith, Lorina and Alice).
She herself later recalled: “Much more interesting than being photographed was to gain access to a dark room and watch him develop large glass plates.” For a child it must have seemed like real magic.
Hallam Tennyson, 1857. Son of the famous English poet Lord Alfred Tennyson
Over the years of his creative work, Lewis Carroll managed to become one of the outstanding photographers of his generation, perhaps the first to introduce naturalness, ease and everyday subjects into portrait photography (especially children's portraits).
Which was not so easy, because the photographic equipment of that time only allowed long exposures, so it was necessary to convince the child to freeze in a relaxed position for 15-20 seconds. A very non-trivial task. But the result, judging by the surviving photographs, was worth it.
Kathleen Tidy, 1858.
Lewis Carroll spent almost a quarter of a century taking photographs, but in 1880 he suddenly stopped taking photographs entirely. What caused this is still not known exactly.
Alice Jane Donkin.
He himself died eighteen years later, and all the children's portraits he made, according to his will, were distributed to the families of the models.
Alice Liddell (1870)
Lewis Carroll short biography outlined in this article.
Lewis Carroll short biography
Lewis Carroll(real name Charles Lutwidge Hodgson) is an English writer, mathematician, logician, philosopher, deacon and photographer.
Was born January 27, 1832 in Daresbury (Cheshire), in large family English priest. He was given a double name, one of them - Charles belonged to his father, the other - Lutwidge, inherited from his mother. Since childhood, Lewis has demonstrated extraordinary intelligence and intelligence. Elementary education he received at home.
At the age of 12 he entered a small grammar private school near Richmond. He liked it there, but in 1845 he had to go to Rugby School
In 1851, he entered one of the best colleges in Oxford, Christ Church. Studying was easy for him, and thanks to brilliant mathematical abilities he was awarded lectures at the college. These lectures brought him a good income, and he worked there for the next 26 years. In accordance with the college's charter, he was required to take the rank of deacon. Write short stories and he began writing poetry while still a student. Gradually his works gained fame. He came up with a pseudonym by modifying his real name, Charles Lutwidge, and changing the words in places. Soon such serious English publications as Comic Times and Train began to publish it.
The prototype of Alice was 4-year-old Alice Liddell, one of the five children of the new dean of the college. Alice in Wonderland was written in 1864. This book became so popular that it was translated into many languages of the world and filmed more than once.
Limits home country the scientist left only once in his life, and in this he retained his originality, traveling not to popular countries such as Switzerland, Italy, France, but to distant Russia in 1867.
Lewis Carroll is an atypical figure in the photographic world mid-19th century century. Children were his favorite subject, and for those whom he photographed, the process was pleasure, not torture (according to the recollections of the same Alice Liddell, who became the prototype of the heroine of the famous plot of one of the most famous children's books). While setting up his camera, Carroll never ceased to entertain his little sitters with interesting stories and make them laugh. He came up with a non-standard setting, built lively pictures and dressed the girls in costumes that he made himself, borrowed from friends or from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He also constantly experimented with composition. the best photos Carroll is characterized as an inventive artist who was not afraid of unconventional moves. He has photographs taken both in the studio and outdoors. His children smile, laugh, feel sad, frown, pretend to be asleep, play, read, stand on windowsills and look out from behind trees. Carroll was familiar with the work of contemporary photographers of the English artistic intelligentsia, such as the already mentioned Railider and Cameron or Henry Robinson and Lady Howarden. However, it cannot be said that he was influenced in any way by them. He developed his own style.
The laughing model is also quite a rare occurrence for a 19th century photographic portrait. Children in Carroll's photographs generally often express vivid emotions, despite the rather long exposure time. Not every adult model could maintain the expression of a living and immediate feeling for 10-20 seconds.
Perhaps what intrigues the modern viewer in these photographs is the unusual for the 19th century (according to our understanding) freedom with which the children behave. The photographs are full of dynamics, the girls show emotions, often look directly at the viewer, and this look does not always seem innocent. That is, in Carroll’s photographs we see living children, not very similar to sedate little ladies and gentlemen, positioned against a painted backdrop and taking standard poses in a portrait studio. Perhaps if adults were present in the photographs, they would be perceived differently. Alice in Wonderland, for whom no one is watching, is guided by her own thoughts about correct behavior, changes roles, reasons, asks, teaches, argues, finds herself in the most unexpected places and can even easily change in size. Lewis Carroll's little girlfriends behave as the course of the game suggests, which they would not play with every adult.