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What Do You Think of this following Ditty from Carrol?


GammaGlobulin

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Dear Friends,

 

Was there ever a better ditty than this?

 

All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?
Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict ‘to begin it’:
In gentler tones Secunda hopes
‘There will be nonsense in it!’
While Tertia* interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.
Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast––
And half believe it true.
And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
‘The rest next time––’ ‘It is next time!’
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out––
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.
Alice! A childish story take,
And, with a gentle hand,
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
In Memory’s mystic band,
Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers
Pluck’d in a far-off land.

 

=====

What does it even mean"

 

PLUCK'D in a far-off land?

 

Didn't the writer actually mean....

FKD in a far-off land?

 

Just wondering about Wonderland.

 

Best regards,

Gamma

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, zzaa09 said:

A twist of cognitive dissonance. 

Per usual. 

Here, again, is just another example of the misunderstanding of my beloved Festinger, and his wonderful theory.

 

Some people don't know Festinger Theory from Festus Theory...from Cognitive Dissonance in it's pure Scientific Sense.

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, CharlieH said:

Flowers can be "plucked" which is the meaning and intention, "wreath of flowers
Pluck’d" 

 

Any other interpretation GG is purely from your fertive imagination ????

Not only furtive, but blessedly fertile imagination. 

 

By the way, Charlie, thank you for your recent good encouragement concerning maintaining flexibility of my joint(s). 

 

After three years in lockdown, I am beginning to look and feel like Mr. Potter, in his wheelchair, bless his soul. 

 

Speaking of Lionel Barrymore, wasn't it a scream when his grandniece, Drew, flashed Letterman? 

 

 

Merry Christmas, Charlie.

No Christmas would be the same without a Barrymore in the picture.

 

 

 

Edited by GammaGlobulin
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Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Lewis Carroll, Mathematician, Logician and Pioneer Photographer was very fond of constructing stanza type poems. This one, according biographies, is, as with Alice and Wonderland, stem from LC's photographs and friendship with the three Liddell sisters, of which one was named Alice. However some writers have suggested that his continued photographing of the three sisters was 'unhealthy' and therefore as Alice and Wonderland stemmed from the relationship, the adventures of Alice are unhealthy too. But I have read nothing in the biographies that suggest anything untoward and accordingly others suggest the LC was trying to capture the 'innocence' of children.

As a side note, even at the age of 13 LC was quite accomplished;

I have a fairy by my side

which says I must not sleep

When once in pain I loudly cried

it said 'you must not weep'.

After several other 'must not' lines, finally

'What may I do' at length I cried

Tired of the painful task

The fairy quietly replied

and said 'You must not ask'

This poem has a moral to it.

The poem in the OP, I think (though not sure) is meant to be a kind of introduction to the Logic and Non-Logic of the Adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

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10 minutes ago, TKDfella said:

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Lewis Carroll, Mathematician, Logician and Pioneer Photographer was very fond of constructing stanza type poems. This one, according biographies, is, as with Alice and Wonderland, stem from LC's photographs and friendship with the three Liddell sisters, of which one was named Alice. However some writers have suggested that his continued photographing of the three sisters was 'unhealthy' and therefore as Alice and Wonderland stemmed from the relationship, the adventures of Alice are unhealthy too. But I have read nothing in the biographies that suggest anything untoward and accordingly others suggest the LC was trying to capture the 'innocence' of children.

As a side note, even at the age of 13 LC was quite accomplished;

I have a fairy by my side

which says I must not sleep

When once in pain I loudly cried

it said 'you must not weep'.

After several other 'must not' lines, finally

'What may I do' at length I cried

Tired of the painful task

The fairy quietly replied

and said 'You must not ask'

This poem has a moral to it.

The poem in the OP, I think (though not sure) is meant to be a kind of introduction to the Logic and Non-Logic of the Adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

Everybody already knows what you just found out. 

 

Beethoven was a scoundrel, too. 

 

Some say that Herbert Von Karajan was a member of the Nazi Party. 

 

Need we mention Wagner? 

 

Are you saying that the Jews should stop listening to Wagner? 

 

Or, are you saying that we do not know that Carrol was probably a pedophile? 

 

Out with it, Man! 

 

 

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12 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Everybody already knows what you just found out. 

 

Beethoven was a scoundrel, too. 

 

Some say that Herbert Von Karajan was a member of the Nazi Party. 

 

Need we mention Wagner? 

 

Are you saying that the Jews should stop listening to Wagner? 

 

Or, are you saying that we do not know that Carrol was probably a pedophile? 

 

Out with it, Man! 

 

 

It's not 'what I just found out.' I like to biographies. On LC I have both ordinary and mathematical biographies. And no I don't know that LC was/was not a paedophile and it was just a point I was making for those who may have read a negative view of the character. Beethoven, Karajan, Wagner are not in the OP so stop trolling.

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