Lewis Carroll (January 27, 1832 - January 14, 1898) was an English children's writer, mathematician, and logician.
Real name - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, (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 the 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 siblings.
Dodgson was educated by his father until the age of twelve.
1844-1846 - studies at the Richmond Grammar School.
1846-1850 - studies at Rugby School, a privileged boarding school that Dodgson dislikes. However, here he shows outstanding ability in mathematics and classical languages.
1850 - enrolled at Christ Church College, Oxford University and moved to Oxford.
1851 - Wins the Boulter Scholarship.
1852 - honored with first class distinction in mathematics and second class in classical languages and ancient literatures. Thanks to his achievements, he is allowed to scientific work.
1855 - Dodgson was offered a professorship at his college, the traditional condition of which in those years was the adoption of a holy order and a vow of celibacy. Dodgson fears that his ordination will force him to give up his favorite pastimes, photography and theater.
The year 1856, among other things, was also the year Mr. Dodgson began taking photographs. During his passion for this art form (he stopped taking photographs in 1880 for unknown reasons), he created about 3,000 photographs, of which less than 1,000 survived.
1858 - The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically, 2nd ed. 1868.
1860 - "A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry" (A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry).
1861 - Dodgson is ordained a deacon, the first intermediate step towards becoming a priest. However, changes in university status relieve him of 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, 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 write down. He does this for the next few months. Then, on the advice of Henry Kingsley and J. McDonald, he rewrites the book for a wider readership, adding a few more stories previously told to the children of Liddell.
1865 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (first the English name Charles Lutwidge was romanized - it turned out to be Carolus Ludovicus, and then both names were reversed and were again anglicized).
1867 - scientific work "An Elementary Treatise on Determinants" (An Elementary Treatise on Determinants).
In the same year, Dodgson left England for the first and last time and made a very unusual trip to Russia for those times. On the way he visits Calais, Brussels, Potsdam, Danzig, Koenigsberg, 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, a fair in Nizhny Novgorod.
1871 - A sequel to Alice (also based on early stories and later stories told to the young Liddells at Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham, in April 1863) is published under the title Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Saw (Through the Looking- Glass and What Alice Found There, year 1872). Both books are illustrated by D. Tenniel (1820-1914), who followed the exact instructions of Dodgson.
1876 - verse epic in the genre of nonsense "The Hunting of the Snark".
1879 - scientific work "Euclid and his modern rivals" (Euclid and His Modern Rivals).
1883 - a collection of poems "Poems? Meaning?" (Rhyme? And Reason?).
1888 - scientific work "Mathematical Curiosities" (Curiosa Mathematica, 2nd ed. 1893).
1889 - the novel "Sylvia and Bruno" (Sylvie and Bruno).
1893 - the second volume of the novel "Sylvia and Bruno" - "Conclusion of Sylvie and Bruno" (Sylvie and Bruno Concluded). Both volumes are notable for their complexity of composition and mixture of elements of realistic narration and fairy tale.
1896 - scientific work "Symbolic Logic" (Symbolic Logic).
1898 - a collection of poems "Three Sunsets" (Three Sunsets).
January 14, 1898 - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died at his sister's home in Guildford of pneumonia, two weeks before the age of 66. Buried in Guildford Cemetery.
Mathematician Dodgson
Dodgson's mathematical work did not leave any noticeable trace in the history of mathematics. His mathematical education was limited to the knowledge of several books of the "Principles" of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, the basics of linear algebra, mathematical analysis and probability theory; this was clearly not enough to work at the “forefront” of the mathematical science of the 19th century, which was undergoing a period of rapid development (the theory of the French mathematician Galois, the non-Euclidean geometry of the Russian mathematician Niklai Ivanovich Lobachevsky and the Hungarian mathematician Janusz Bolyai, mathematical physics, the qualitative theory of differential equations, etc.) . The essentially complete isolation of Dodgson from the scientific world also had an effect: apart from short visits to London, Bath and the sisters, Dodgson spent all his time in Oxford, and only in 1867 his usual way of life was disturbed by a trip to distant Russia (impressions from this trip Dodgson stated in the famous "Russian Diary"). Recently, Dodgson's mathematical heritage has attracted more and more attention of researchers who discover his unexpected mathematical discoveries that have remained unclaimed.
Dodgson's achievements in mathematical logic were far ahead of their time. He developed a graphic 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. Dodgson achieved a special skill in solving the so-called "sorites". Sorit is a logical task, which is a chain of syllogisms, in which the withdrawn conclusion of one syllogism serves as a premise of another (besides, the remaining premises are mixed; “litter” 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 light 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 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, bringing logic to the point of absurdity.
The most significant literary works of Carroll Lewis are considered to be two fairy tales about Alice - "Alice in Wonderland" (1865) and "Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice saw there" (1871), usually called "Through the Looking-Glass" for short. Bold experiments with language, a lot of subtle logical and philosophical issues raised in the tales about Alice, polysemy (“polysemanticity”) of the statements of characters and situations make Carroll’s “childish” works a favorite reading of “gray-haired wise men”.
Features of the unique Carroll style are clearly felt in other works of Carroll: "Sylvie and Bruno", "The Hunt for the Snark", "Midnight Tasks", "Knot Stories", "What the Tortoise 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. At the famous international exhibition of photography "The Human Race" (1956), English photographers of the 19th century were presented with a single photograph by Lewis Carroll.
In Russia, Carroll has been widely known since the end of the last century. Tales about Alice were repeatedly (and with varying degrees of success) translated and retold into Russian, in particular by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. But one of the best translations was made 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"
The magazine publisher and writer Edmund Yeats advised Dodgson to come up with a pseudonym, and an entry appears in Dodgson's Diaries dated February 11, 1865: "Wrote to Mr. Yeats, offering him a choice of pseudonyms:
1) Edgar Catwellis [the name Edgar Cuthwellis 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 - Ludwik - Louis, Carroll from Charles].
4) Lewis Carroll [on the same principle of "translating" the names of Charles Lutwidge into Latin and back "translating" 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 work 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 are The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically, 1858 and 1868, A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry, 1860, An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, 1867 ) and Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879), Curiosa Mathematica (1888 and 1893), and Symbolic Logic (1896).
Children interested Dodgson from a young age; As a boy, he made up games, composed stories and rhymes, and drew pictures for his younger siblings. Dodgson's unusually strong affection for children (and girls almost ousted boys from his circle of friends) puzzled even 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 made friends the earliest - the children of Liddell, the dean of his college: Harry, Laurina, Alice (Alice), Edith, Rhoda and Violet. The favorite was Alice, who soon became the heroine of 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 Laurina, Alice and Edith Liddell and Canon Duckworth on July 4, 1862, near Godstow, on the headwaters of the Thames. Alice begged 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. McDonald, he rewrote the book for a wider readership, adding a few more stories previously told to the children of Liddell, and in July 1865 published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). A continuation, also from early stories and later stories, told to the young Liddells at Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham, in April 1863, appeared on Christmas Day 1871 (1872 is indicated) under the title Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Saw (Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There). Both books were illustrated by D. Tenniel (1820-1914), who followed the exact instructions of Dodgson.
Both Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass tell about events that take place as if in a dream. Dividing 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 amusingly unfold situations of such games as croquet or cards. Through the Looking Glass compared to Wonderland is characterized by a greater unity of the plot. Here, Alice enters the 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 "invented" words in Jabberwocky with a comically professorial air.
Dodgson was good at humorous poetry, and he published some poems from books about Alice in the Comic Times (a supplement to the Times newspaper) in 1855 and in the 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 (first the English name Charles Lutwidge was romanized - it turned out to be Carolus Ludovicus, and then both names were reversed and were again anglicized). Both books about Alice and collections of poems Phantasmagoria (Phantasmagoria, 1869), Poems? Meaning? (Rhyme? And Reason?, 1883) and Three Sunsets (Three Sunsets, 1898). The verse epic in the genre of nonsense The Hunting of the Snark (1876) also gained fame. The novel Sylvie and Bruno (Sylvie and Bruno, 1889) and its second volume Conclusion of Sylvie and Bruno (Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, 1893) are distinguished by the complexity of the composition and the mixture of elements of realistic narrative and fairy tale
The wonderful world of Lewis Carroll has fascinated both adults and children for almost one hundred and fifty years. Books about Alice are read all over the world. And all the more surprising is their creator, a serious mathematician and pedant on the one hand, and a dreamer, the best friend of 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 fantasy of a person free from the hardships of "adult" life glides freely, which is why the characters encountered on the way and the adventures experienced by Alice are so close to children. Created in a momentary impulse, the universe of Alice shocked the whole world. Probably no work of fiction in the world has 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 fantasy would lead the little heroine, and even more so, he did not know how his fairy tale would resonate in the hearts of millions of people.
Alice's journey to Wonderland and the mysterious Looking Glass takes place as if in a dream. Travel itself can hardly be called a logically complete narrative. It is rather a series of bright, sometimes absurd, sometimes funny and touching events and memorable encounters with characters. A new literary technique - splitting the narrative into episodes - made it possible to reflect the flavor of British life, take a fresh look at traditional English hobbies like croquet and card games, beat popular sayings and proverbs. In both books there are many nursery rhymes, the characters of which subsequently gained great popularity.
According to critics, humorous poems were especially good for Lewis Carroll. He published his poetry separately, in popular periodicals such as The Times, The Train, Rhymes College. The 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 Latuidzh Dodgson turned into Lewis Carroll. This pseudonym was on both books about the adventures of Alice, on numerous collections of poems. Lewis Carroll is also the author of the absurdity poem The Hunting of the Snark 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 fantasy world, so close to our dreams and the realities of our everyday life.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is a British writer, logician and mathematician, philosopher and photographer. He is known to his readers under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The most popular work is the story "Alice in Wonderland" and its sequel.
It is noteworthy that the man was left-handed, but for a long time he was forbidden to write with his left hand. Perhaps this was one of the reasons for his stuttering in adulthood. Charles was born on January 27, 1832 in the village of Daresbury, located in Cheshire. He spent almost his entire life in Oxford, nothing is known about the writer's personal relationships today.
The young years of the writer
The father of the future prose writer was a parish priest in the Anglican Church. His great-grandfather had the rank of Bishop Elfin, and his grandfather fought in Ireland at the beginning of the 19th century and even served as a captain. In total, the family had 11 children, except for the boy. Charles had 7 sisters and 3 brothers. He was the eldest of the sons. As a child, Dodgson suffered from stuttering, it was not possible to completely get rid of it even in adulthood. Because of this problem, the young man was homeschooled.
At the age of 11, the boy moved to North Yorkshire with his family. A year after that, he was sent to a Richmond school. In 1846, Charles became a pupil at the prestigious Rugby Private School. He liked to do mathematics, but all other subjects caused the young man only boredom and irritation. Subsequently, it became known that the writer inherited the gift for mathematical calculations from his father.
Mathematical Talent
In 1850 Dodgson became a student at Oxford. The guy did not study very diligently, but already in 1854, thanks to his talent, he received a bachelor's degree with honors in mathematics. A year later, he received an offer to lecture in mathematics. Charles stayed at his native university for 26 years, already as a teacher. He did not feel much pleasure from teaching, but he had a good income from this.
After graduating from Christ Church, students usually took the rank of deacon. To be able to live and teach at Oxford, the writer had to do the same. Despite this, he did not become a priest, unlike most of his colleagues. During his time at the university, the young man published about 12 scientific papers. Particularly distinguished among them are such books as The Logic Game and Symbolic Logic. Thanks to the work of Dodgson, at the end of the 20th century, the alternative matrix theorem was derived.
Many scientists believe that Carroll did nothing special for mathematics, but over time, his work is increasingly studied by contemporaries. This is due to the fact that some of Charles's logical conclusions were ahead of their time. It was thanks to him that the graphic technique of tasks was developed.
Author's works
While still in college, Charles began writing short stories and poems. Since 1854, one could see his work on the pages of magazines such as The Train and The Comic Times. Two years later, the writer met the daughter of the new dean, Henry Liddell, whose name was Alice. In all likelihood, it was she who inspired the young man to write the famous fairy tale, because already in 1864 the work “Alice in Wonderland” was published.
At the same time, his pseudonym appeared, and his friend, publisher Edmund Yates, helped the writer solve this issue. On February 11, 1865, the young man offered a choice of three versions of the name: Edgar Catvellis, Edgard W.C. Westhill and Lewis Carroll. It is noteworthy that the first two versions were built by rearranging the letters in the author's real name. The latest version, which the publisher liked the most, came about by translating the words "Charles" and "Lutwidge" into Latin, then back into English.
Since 1865, Charles has demarcated all of his work. Serious mathematical and logical works are signed by the real name, while for literature a pseudonym is used. That is why there is a significant difference between the style of writing different works. Dodgson was somewhat prim, pedantic and modest, while Carroll embodied all the most daring fantasies of the prose writer. The first book published under a pseudonym was the poem "Solitude".
In 1876, the writer's fantastic poem was born, which was called "The Hunt for the Snark." She was a success among readers and is still at the hearing. The genre of the author's works can be described as "paradoxical literature". The bottom line is that his characters follow the logic in everything, without violating it. At the same time, any action and logical chain are brought to the point of absurdity. In addition, the writer actively uses ambiguity, raises philosophical questions and "plays" with words in every possible way. Perhaps this is what makes his works so beloved among adults and children.
"Alice in Wonderland"
The story of the most popular fairy tale began quite by accident during Lewis's boat trip with Henry Liddell and his daughters. On July 4, 1862, the youngest of them, four-year-old Alice, asked the writer to tell her an interesting new tale. He began making up the story as he went, and then wrote it down at the request of the girl and his friend Robinson Duckworth. In 1863, the manuscript got to the publishing house, shortly after that it was printed. The book was a resounding success not only among children but also among adults. It was republished annually.
After the release of Alice's story, Carroll traveled to Russia for the first and last time in his life. At the invitation of the Orthodox Church, the man arrived in St. Petersburg, he also visited Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod. In 1867, he wrote the Russian Diary, in which he shared his impressions of this trip. In 1871, a second, no less successful story, called Alice Through the Looking-Glass, saw the light of day. Eight years later, the initial translation of the first part into Russian was published.
In addition to mathematics and writing, Lewis was also fond of photography. From a young age, he adored children, constantly communicated with them. It is not surprising that in the pictures of Carroll, the babies looked especially natural and poetic. He became one of the first photographers in England, the photographer's work was even presented at an international exhibition. Some of the photographs are stored today in the National Portrait Gallery.
Lewis not only made art himself, but also appreciated the work of other creative people. Among his friends are John Ruskin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. The writer also knew how to sing, loved to tell various stories and even came up with some funny charades on his own.
In 1881, Carroll left his post as a teacher, but continued to live in Oxford. Shortly before his death, he published the novel "Sylvie and Bruno" in two parts. They were not popular with the public. At the age of 65, the man fell ill with pneumonia, which later became the cause of his death. The famous prose writer died on January 14, 1898 in Surrey. He was buried there, in Guildford, next to his brother and sister.
Lewis Carroll, real name - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Dodson). Date of birth: January 27, 1832. Birthplace: Quiet village of Dersbury, Cheshire, UK. Nationality: British to the core. Distinguishing features: asymmetrical eyes, turned up corners of the lips, deaf in the right ear; stutters. Occupation: professor of mathematics at Oxford, deacon. Hobbies: amateur photographer, amateur artist, amateur writer. The last one to underline.
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 consider.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832 - 1898), graduated with honors in mathematics and Latin, in later years a professor at Oxford University, as well as curator of the teaching club (with the quirks inherent in status and institution!), A prosperous and exceptionally respectable citizen of Victorian society, who sent more than a hundred thousand letters in his life, written in a clear, compact handwriting, a pious deacon of the Anglican Church, the most talented British photographer of his time, a gifted mathematician and innovative logician, many years ahead of his time - this is one.
Lewis Carroll, beloved by all children of the classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Saw (1871) and The Hunt for the Snark (1876), was a man who spent three-quarters of his free time with children, able to tirelessly tell stories to children 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 - these are two.
Perhaps (only possible, but not necessarily!), There was also a third one - let's call it "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 the failure of the international level, the failure of a sensation. 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 allude to all sorts of quirks of the third (about which almost nothing is known, and what is known is impossible to prove!). But in fact, Carroll - like a liquid terminator - was all his hypostases at once - although each of them refuted the others with his whole being ... Is it any wonder that he had his own oddities?
Irony of Fate, or 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 wide-eyed beauty, the rector's daughter, who, thanks to Carroll, turned into Alice fabulous.
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 familiar girls. But "owls are not what they seem." As the queen of Russian Carroll studies N.M. Demurova, the well-known version of Carroll's "pedophilism" is, to put it mildly, a strong exaggeration. The fact is that relatives and friends deliberately fabricated many testimonies about Carroll's supposedly great love for children (and for girls, in particular) in order to hide his overly active social life, which included many acquaintances with "girls" of quite a mature age - behavior, at that time absolutely inexcusable for either the deacon or the professor.
Selectively destroying much of Carroll's archive immediately after Carroll's death and creating a heavily "powdered" biography, the writer's relatives and friends deliberately mummified the memory of him as a sort of "grandfather Lenin" who loved children very, well, very much. Needless to say, how ambiguous such an image has become in the twentieth century! (According to one of the "Freudian" versions, in the image of Alice, Carroll brought out his own reproductive organ!) The writer's reputation, ironically, fell victim to a word of mouth conspiracy created in order to protect his good name and present it in a favorable light before posterity ...
Yes, already during his lifetime, Carroll had to “fit in” and hide his versatile, active and somewhere even stormy life under the impenetrable mask of Victorian respectability. Needless to say, an unpleasant occupation; for someone as principled as Carroll, this was no doubt a heavy burden. And yet, I think, 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 kitsch feature-length film will finally be shot 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 Visions of Lewis Carroll, and who would you think is directing it? - none other than ... Marilyn Manson! (I wrote more about this.)
However, even if Carroll really was tormented by insomnia at night, he also could not find peace during the day: he constantly had to occupy himself with something. In fact, Carroll invented and wrote so much in his life that one simply marvels (again, one involuntarily recalls grandfather Lenin, who was also distinguished by literary fertility!). But at the center of this stormy creativity was conflict. Something weighed on Carroll: something prevented him, for example, from marrying and having children, whom he loved so much. Something turned him away from the path of the priest, which he had set foot 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 a whole world revealed to our eyes, and incomprehensible, like an invisible world! What it was, we can now only guess, but there is no doubt about the existence of this deepest "chasm".
Thus, 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 in the final editing, contains a bitter complaint about the double - not to say "two-faced" life, which he had to lead under the pressure of society. I will quote the poem in full (translated by O.I. Sedakova):
When I was gullible and young,
I grew curls, and shore, and loved.
But everyone said: "Oh, shave them off, shave them off,
And get the yellow wig on quick!”
And I listened to them and did this:
And he shaved his curls, and put on a wig -
But they all cried out as they looked at him:
“To be honest, we didn’t expect that at all!”
“Yes,” everyone said, “he doesn’t sit well.
He doesn’t suit you so much, he will forgive you so!”
But, my friend, how was it for me to save the matter? -
My curls couldn't grow back...
And now, when I am not young and gray,
And there are no old hairs on my temples.
They shouted to me: “Enough, crazy old man!”
And pulled off my ill-fated wig.
And yet, no matter where I look.
Shouting: "Rough! Dupe! Pig!"
Oh my friend! What insults I'm used to
How I paid for the yellow wig!
Here it is, “the laughter visible to the world and the tears invisible to the world” of Carroll the Invisible! Further clarification follows:
“I sympathize with you very much,” said Alice heartily. “I don't think if your wig fit better you wouldn't be teased like that.
“Your wig fits perfectly,” Bumblebee muttered, looking at Alice with admiration. “It’s because you have the right head shape.
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 traditions, is played on the stage of the whole world. Carroll - if, of course, we take it on faith that in the image of the Bumblebee, Carroll depicted 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 be visible!), - and so, Carroll is tormented by 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 does not 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 Wonderland! After all, little girls don't even have to jump down the rabbit hole to leave the world of adults somewhere far away. And the world of adults, with all its conventions - is it worth spending your life on it? And in general, what is this whole world, social life, etc. really worth, Carroll asks himself. After all, people are generally strange creatures that walk all the time with their heads up and spend half their lives lying under the covers! "Life, what is it but a dream?" ("Life, it's just a dream") - this is how the first fairy tale about Alice ends.
Head of Professor Dodgson
TRINITY:
You came here because you want
find out the answer to the hacker's main question.
NEO:
The Matrix… What is the Matrix?
(talking in a nightclub)
To the teeth grinding, 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 the very ill-fated “for eternity a hostage to time in captivity”, and he was extremely acutely aware of this.
Carroll's character was distinguished by an inflexible intention to realize his dream. He worked all day long, not even looking up for 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 just to bring his mind to perfection. He painfully realized that he was locked in a cage of his own mind, but he tried to destroy this cage, not seeing a better method, by the same means - the mind.
Possessing a brilliant intellect, a professional mathematician and capable linguist, Carroll tried with the help of these tools to find a way out, that same forbidden door to a wonderful garden that would lead him to freedom. Mathematics and linguistics - these are the two areas in which Carroll set up 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 strove 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 peace eternal, endless, imperishable.
According to contemporaries, Deacon Carroll did not believe in eternal hellish torment. 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 reincarnation into another reality - a reality that he conditionally called Wonderland. He admitted it - and passionately desired such a liberation ... Of course, this is just a guess. Within the framework of the Christian tradition, to which Deacon Dodgson undoubtedly belonged, this is unthinkable, however, for example, for a Hindu, Buddhist or Sufi, such a "Cheshire" disappearance is quite natural (as the disappearance in parts or in whole - for the Cheshire cat himself!) .
The fact is that Carroll tirelessly carried out 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” (or rather, the usual combinations of words that people describe this world, out loud and to themselves, in the course of 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 it never achieved its main goal.
The brilliant, perfect mind of Dodjohn, a mathematician and logician, suffered, unable to overcome the abyss separating him from something fundamentally incomprehensible to the mind. That existential abyss, which is bottomless: you can “fly, fly” into it. And the aging Dodgson flew and flew, becoming more and more lonely and misunderstood. This abyss has no name. Perhaps this is what Sartre called "nausea." But since the human mind tends to stick labels to everything, let's call it an abyss. Snark Boojum. This is the gap between the human consciousness, striving for freedom, and the inhumanity of its environment.
Surrounding (part of the environment) considered Dodzhon-Carroll a man with quirks, a little out of his mind. And he knew how crazy and bizarre everyone else is - people who "think" with words while they play "royal croquet" in their own head. “Everyone is out of their mind here, you and I,” says the Cheshire Cat to Alice. Reality, when you apply reason to it, becomes even crazier. She becomes, disassembled, the world of Alice in Wonderland.
The story of Dodgson-Carroll's life is a story of search and disappointment, struggle and defeat, and that particular disappointment-defeat that comes only after winning at the end of a long, life-long search. Carroll, after a long struggle, won his place under the sun, and the sun went out. "For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see" - with such a sentence (offering your head, or (de) surrender) ends Carroll's last famous work - the nonsense poem "The Hunt for the Snark". Carroll got the Snark, and that Snark was Boojum. In general, Carroll's biography is the story of the Snark, who *was* Boojum. Carroll-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 the liquid terminator, which no one loved and did not understand properly, and which disappeared into oblivion. A story that leaves no one indifferent.
Carroll got involved in a struggle in which a reasonable person cannot win. It is only when (and if! And that's a big If!) thoughts are transcended that states known as intuition emerge outside of 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 the hair. Intuition is higher than any and any intellect: the mind and intellect operate with the help of words, logic and mind (in which Carroll reached significant heights) and are therefore limited. Only the state of super-logic, intuition surpasses rational logic. While Carroll used his mind, he was a good mathematician, an innovative logician, a talented writer. But when the “golden city” arose in front of him - the Land of Wonders, the Radiant Himalayas of the Spirit - he wrote under the inspiration of something superhuman, and these glimpses of the Higher can be seen even through the translation: Carroll, like a dervish, is spinning in his mystical dance, and before our words, numbers, chess pieces, poems flicker with a mental (and sometimes thoughtless!) gaze; finally, gradually, the very texture of the world, the lines of the Matrix, begin to emerge... Is it possible to demand more from a writer? This is his gift to us—something he could only let happen—our dear Uncle Carroll, visionary mathematician, theater deacon, playful prophet in a clumsy yellow wig.
This is an amazing story of an English writer and scientist. At the same time, the whole world knows him as a storyteller who wrote one of the most famous stories about the adventures of the girl Alice. His career was not limited to writing: Carroll was engaged in photography, mathematics, logic, and taught. He holds the title of professor at Oxford University.
Writer's childhood
The biography of Lewis Carroll originates in Cheshire. It was here that he was born in 1832. His father was a parish priest in the small village of Daresbury. The family was big. Lewis's parents raised 7 more girls and 3 boys.
Carroll received his early education at home. Already there he showed himself to be a quick-witted and intelligent student. His first teacher was his father. Like many creative and talented people, Carroll was left-handed. According to some biographers, as a child, Carroll was forbidden to write with his left hand. Because of this, his childish psyche was disturbed.
Education
Lewis Carroll receives his initial education at a private school near Richmond. In it, he found a language with teachers and students, but in 1845 he was forced to transfer to Rugby School, where conditions were worse. During the period of study, he demonstrated excellent results in theology and mathematics. Since 1850, the biography of Lewis Carroll has been closely associated with the aristocratic college in Christ Church. This is one of the most prestigious educational institutions at the University of Oxford. Over time, he is transferred to study at Oxford.
In his studies, Carroll was not particularly successful, he stood out only in mathematics. For example, he became the winner of the competition for reading mathematical lectures in Christ Church. He has been doing this work for 26 years. Although she was boring for a professor of mathematics, she brought a decent income.
According to the college charter, another amazing event is taking place. Writer Lewis Carroll, whose biography is associated with the exact sciences, takes ordained. These were the requirements of the college where he studied. He is awarded the rank of deacon, which allows him to read sermons without working in the parish.
Lewis Carroll begins writing short stories in college. The biography of a brief English mathematician proves that talented people have abilities in both the exact sciences and the humanities. He sent them to magazines under a pseudonym, which later became world famous. His real name is Charles Dodgson. The fact is that at that time in England, writing was not considered a very prestigious occupation, so scientists and professors tried to hide their hobbies in prose or poetry.
First success
Biography of Lewis Carroll is a success story. Glory came to him in 1854, his works began to publish authoritative literary magazines. These were the stories "Train" and "Space Times".
Around the same years, Carroll met Alice, who later became the prototype of the heroines of his most famous works. The college has a new dean, Henry Liddell. His wife and five children came with him. One of them was 4-year-old Alice.
"Alice in Wonderland"
The most famous work of the author, the novel "Alice in Wonderland", appears in 1864. Biography of Lewis Carroll in English details the history of the creation of this work. This is an amazing story about a girl Alice, who falls through the rabbit hole into an imaginary world. It is inhabited by various anthropomorphic creatures. The fairy tale is extremely popular among both children and adults. This is one of the best works in the world written in the absurdist genre. It contains a lot of philosophical jokes, mathematical and linguistic allusions. This work had a huge impact on the formation of a whole genre - fantasy. A few years later, Carroll wrote a continuation of this story - "Alice Through the Looking-Glass".
In the 20th century, many brilliant adaptations of this work appeared. One of the most famous was shot by Tim Burton in 2010. Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway. According to the plot of this picture, Alice is already 19 years old. She returns to Wonderland, in which she was in her early childhood, when she was only 6. Alice has to save Jabberwock. She is assured that she is the only one who can do it. Meanwhile, the dragon Jabberwock is at the mercy of the Red Queen. The film seamlessly combines live action with beautiful animation. That is why the picture became one of the highest grossing films in the world in the history of cinema.
Travel to Russia
The writer was mostly a homebody, only once got out of the country. Lewis Carroll arrived in Russia in 1867. A biography in English of Mathematics details this trip. Carroll went to Russia with Reverend Henry Liddon. Both were representatives of theology. At that time, the Orthodox and Anglican churches were in active contact with each other. Together with his friend, Carroll visited Moscow, Sergiev Posad, many other holy places, as well as the largest cities in the country - Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg.
The diary that Lewis Carroll kept in Russia has come down to us. A short biography for children describes this journey in detail. Although it was not originally intended for publication, it was published posthumously. This includes impressions of the cities visited, observations from meetings with Russians and notes of individual phrases. On the way to Russia and on the way back, Carroll and his friend visited many European countries and cities. Their path lay through France, Germany and Poland.
Scientific publications
Under his own name, Dodgson (Carroll) published many works in mathematics. He specialized in Euclidean geometry, matrix algebra, studied mathematical analysis. Carroll was also very fond of entertaining mathematics, constantly developing games and puzzles. For example, he owns a method for calculating determinants, which bears his name - the Dodgson condensation. True, on the whole, his mathematical achievements did not leave any noticeable trace. But the work on mathematical logic was far ahead of the time in which Lewis Carroll lived. A biography in English details these successes. Carroll died in 1898 in Guildford. He was 65 years old.
Carroll photographer
There is another area in which Lewis Carroll was successful. A biography for children details his passion for photography. He is considered one of the founders of pictorialism. This trend in the art of photography is characterized by the staged nature of filming and editing of negatives.
Carroll talked a lot with the famous 19th-century photographer Reilander and took lessons from him. At home, the writer kept his collection of staged photographs. Carroll himself took a picture of Reilander, which is considered a classic of the mid-19th century photographic portrait.
Personal life
Despite being popular with children, Carroll never married and had no children of his own. His contemporaries note that the main joy in life was his friendship with little girls. He often painted them, even naked and half-naked, of course, with the permission of their mothers. An interesting fact that needs to be noted: at that time in England, girls under 14 were considered asexual, so this hobby of Carroll did not seem suspicious to anyone. Then it was considered innocent fun. Carroll himself wrote about the innocent nature of friendship with girls. No one doubted this, that in the numerous recollections of children about friendship with the writer there is not a single hint of a violation of the norms of decency.
Suspicions of pedophilia
Despite this, already in our time there were serious suspicions that Carroll was a pedophile. They are mainly associated with free interpretations of his biography. For example, the film "Happy Child" is dedicated to this.
True, modern researchers of his biography come to the conclusion that most of the girls with whom Carroll spoke were over 14 years old. Most of them were 16-18 years old. Firstly, the writer's girlfriends often underestimated their age in their memories. For example, Ruth Hamlen writes in her memoirs that she dined with Carroll when she was a shy child of twelve. However, the researchers managed to establish that at that time she was already 18 years old. Secondly, Carroll himself used to call the word "child" young girls up to 30 years old.
So today it is worth recognizing with a high degree of certainty that all suspicions of the unhealthy attraction of the writer and mathematician to children are not based on facts. Lewis Carroll's friendship with his dean's daughter, from which the amazing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was born, is absolutely innocent.
English writer, mathematician, logician, philosopher and photographer. His real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The most famous works are "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking-Glass", as well as the humorous poem "Hunting the Snark".
Born January 27, 1832 in the rectory in the village of Daresbury (English), Cheshire. There were 7 girls and 4 boys in the family. He began to study at home, showing his mind and ingenuity. At the age of twelve he entered a small private school near Richmond.
In early 1851 he moved to Oxford, where he entered Christ Church, one of the most aristocratic colleges at Oxford University. He did not study very well, but due to his outstanding mathematical abilities, after receiving his bachelor's degree, he won the competition for lecturing mathematical lectures at Christ Church. He gave these lectures for the next 26 years, they gave a good income, although they were boring to him.
He began his writing career while in college. He wrote poems and short stories, sending them to various magazines under pseudonym Lewis Carroll. Gradually gained fame. Since 1854, his work began to appear in serious English publications: The Comic Times (Eng. The Comic Times), The Train (Eng. The Train).
The magazine publisher and writer Edmund Yeats advised Dodgson to come up with a pseudonym, and an entry appears in Dodgson's Diaries dated February 11, 1865: "Wrote to Mr. Yeats, offering him a choice of pseudonyms:
1) Edgar Catwellis (the name Edgar Cuthwellis 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 - Ludwik - Louis, Carroll from Charles);
4) Lewis Carroll (on the same principle of "translating" the names of 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 ones - pseudonym, stubbornly refusing to recognize the identity of Dodgson and Carroll.
By the way! Interestingly, in his fairy tale Alice in Wonderland, he portrayed himself as a clumsy Dodo bird, because his real name is Dodgson. And let the fabulous Dodo be ugly and awkward, but witty and resourceful!
Loading...
