Poetry Ms.

Kerman

Zara Hoffman 11/21/12 Dreaming of Wonderland If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. ~Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, is the author of the beloved Alices Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. He also penned many poems. The three poems Prologue (Alices Adventures in Wonderland), Epilogue (Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There), and Dreamland all emphasize the wonder of dreams as well as the harsh reality that everything eventually ends. When read in the aforementioned sequence, Carroll guides the reader through a dream from beginning to end. Over the course of the three poems, Lewis Carroll glorifies dreams, struggles when waking up, and finally concludes that even after the dream has ended, it always remains with you. The Prologue describes the origin of Alices Adventures in Wonderland: during a summer boat ride, at the request of Alice Pleasance Liddell and her two sisters, Lewis Carroll improvised a tale that became the literary classic. The poem summarizes the excursion; it begins with three children beseeching one poor voice (11) to entertain them, which leads to narration of an elaborate story about a girl named Alice. Lines 1-6 are dedicated to setting the scene of a very pleasant and peaceful journey. The first stanza determines the structure of seven sestets with the rhyme scheme ABCBDB, which restarts in each new stanza. Written in alternating lines of iambic trimeter and iambic tetrameter, the poem possesses an ethereal tone that lulls the reader into the dream of Wonderland. The second and third stanzas depict three children, presumably the Liddell daughters, and illustrate their three very distinct personalities. The alliteration and word choice in Imperious Prima her edict (13-14) give the first persona an air of superiority. The softer syllables of

gentler Secunda (15) create a relaxed, euphonious effect, indicating Secundas calm demeanor. In contrast, the alliteration in Tertia [who] interrupts / Not more than once a minute (17-18) creates the impression of the long list of rapid-fire questions Tertia is posing, similar to the erratic tapping of the White Rabbits foot. Eventually Lewis Carroll concedes to the childrens enthusiasm and, in the fourth stanza, begins to tell the tale of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. As Lewis Carroll begins the tale in the fourth sestet, he describes a dream-child moving through a land / Of wonders wild and new (21-22), perfectly summarizing the story and its sequel. It is not only the character Alice, but anyone who reads the story, who may be described as the dream-child (21). The fifth and sixth stanzas expand on Lewis Carrolls narration of the story. Although Lewis Carroll observes the boat rides conclusion: And home we steer, a merry crew, / Beneath the setting sun (35-36), the three girls have been so enthralled with Carroll's story that they seem to have lost all sense of time, still lost in a far-off land (42). The distortion of time is a theme that runs throughout Alices Adventures in Wonderland: the whole novel takes place over many days, but Alice wakes up from only a hour-long nap. The poem's euphonious sound, established in the first stanza, is soothing enough to put someone to sleep as would a bedtime story. A connection between the diction used in the poem and his invitation to the reader to enter into a world of fantasy is his repetition of the word dream: dreamy weather (8), dream-child (21), and Childhood's dreams (39). The end of the poem leaves the audience with an image of the children entering a land similar to Wonderland, where Childhood's dreams are twined / Pluck'd in a far-off land (39-42). The far-off land (42) is the sanctuary that the imagination creates, a concept revisited in Lewis Carroll's poem, Dreamland (1882). His vague description leaves the reader curious about what transpires in Dreamland, and more importantly, what happens when the dream ends. Despite the seven year gap between the two books, the Epilogue of Through the Looking

Glass strongly resembles the Prologue of Alices Adventures in Wonderland, in that both of the poems describe a boat ride and three children listening to a dream-like story. The Epilogue is written in seven tercets. The first two stanzas are a highly condensed version of the boat ride described in the Prologue. It is not until the third tercet that the Epilogue diverges from its predecessor and becomes more negative about the story coming to an end, expressing Carrolls despair about his loss of a perfect moment in time: Long has paled that sunny sky: / Echoes fade and memories die (7-8). Although the rhyme scheme is the same as in the first stanza, the mood is melancholic in contrast to the cheerful beginning of the Epilogue. His choice of the word slain in Autumn frosts have slain July (9) suggests that beyond his sadness exists strong resentment about his story ending. The fourth stanza further expands on his thoughts about losing Alice. The story of Alice is now exclusively a memory; she is no longer part of the present. Lewis Carroll describes Alices movement in both the Prologue and Epilogue: The dream-child moving through a land (21, Prologue) and Alice moving under skies (11); these two phrases further illustrate the resemblance between the two poems. The addition of Never seen by waking eyes, (12) indicates that Lewis Carroll continues to be haunted his character and her story; she is still prominently featured in his dreams. The second tercet is about the original three children, the Liddell daughters, but the fifth stanza describes future children who will eventually hear Lewis Carrolls story of Alice. The fifth stanza is the inverse of the second with the same rhyme scheme, BBB: in the fifth tercet, the last words of each line are hear, ear, and near, while in the second stanza it is the reverse. The assertion: Children yet, the tale to hear, / / Lovingly shall nestle near (13-15) illustrates Carrolls confidence that his story will be passed down through the generations, becoming a literary classic. The sixth stanza of the Epilogue elaborates on the idea of new audiences being

transported to Wonderland: In Wonderland they lie, / Dreaming as the days go by (16-17), as were the Liddell daughters at the end of the Prologue: where Childhood's dreams are twined / / Pluck'd in a far-off land (39-42, Prologue). The last line of the sixth tercet briefly reverts to the third stanzas solemn tone regarding the passage of time: Dreaming as the summers die (18). However, Carroll quickly regains his optimistic view that despite the conclusion of the Alice tale, future generations will continue reading the story. He concludes the Epilogue with an allusion to the song, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, ending with the last line: Life what is it but a dream? (21). Lewis Carrolls poem, Dreamland, is much darker and more fatalistic than the Prologue and Epilogue to Alices story, focusing more on the ruins of a memory than the creation of a story. It more concretely contrasts the inevitability of death and the sanctity of dreams in the imagination. The rhyme scheme is regular: AAB-C, with the first three lines changing in each quatrain. Written in quatrains of iambic trimeter, except for each third line in iambic tetrameter to accommodate the internal rhymes, the tone sounds very much like a march of the dead. The first stanza begins with haunting images of ghosts and mists, whose connotations remind one of a graveyard, corresponding with the poems meter. In the second quatrain, the speaker further expands on the graveyard image as he greets the dead, but quickly changes his tone and diminishes their importance by dismissing them as fleeting apparitions. It is unclear exactly why Carroll uses apostrophe to invite praised figures such as warriors, saints, and sages (5) to him, only to turn them away, stating the inevitability of them leaving. Perhaps Lewis Carroll is describing the human counterparts of his characters in Alices Adventures in Wonderland: the White Knight, The White Queen, and The Caterpillar, mourning that they have disappeared into his past. This is reminiscent of the fourth stanza in the Epilogue, where he described Alice: Still she haunts me (10). He elaborates on this idea of beautiful things dying in the third stanza of Dreamland.

The third stanza is rather cynical, describing a beautiful morning sun and twilight before declaring that they May charm the eye: yet they shall die / Shall die and pass away (11). By describing the suns path throughout the sky during a day, a natural occurrence that is strongly controlled by time, Lewis Carroll focuses on the aging effects of time; a concept practically ignored in the Alice novels. Lines 9-12 are the only examples of assonance within the poem: the y in May charm the eye: yet they shall die / Shall die and pass away, draws more attention to the concept of time. The assonance directly precedes and highlights the brighter shift in tone beginning in the fourth stanza, which is also indicated by the But in line 13: But here, in Dreamland's centre, No spoiler's hand may enter, These visions fair, this radiance rare, Shall never pass away. (13-16) Throughout the fourth quatrain, the repeated r sound creates alliteration, and highlights the contrasting elements of dark and light found in the third and fourth stanzas. Both the third and fourth quatrains have a rhyme scheme beginning with FF, further linking the two stanzas. In line 15, fair and rare create an internal rhyme, something that occurs once in every quatrain. The placement of the internal rhyme emphasizes that the radiance (15) emanating from Dreamlands centre (13) is the only beautiful light that will never die. The final stanza returns to the somber tone of the first three tercets and echoes the first stanza in the last two lines: Around me tread the mighty dead / And slowly pass away (19-20); this couplet frames the poem in lines 3-4 and at the end in lines 19-20. The repetition of this melancholy couplet immediately after the glowing description of Dreamlands purity suggests that Lewis Carroll is reminding himself of reality, remembering that now Dreamland is only a memory. The phrase pass away is repeated as a mantra throughout the whole poem, but again, the only time it is negated is in the stanza describing the wonders of Dreamland. Even though Dreamland was written ten years after the Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found

There, perhaps Lewis Carroll was still being haunted by Alice. Is Dreamland really the sacred memory of Wonderland? Dreams are temporary distractions from reality; their fleeting nature can evoke a wide range of responses and often disorient the dreamer upon awakening. In his three poems, Lewis Carroll addresses the stages of a dream: the beginning (Prologue), the end (Epilogue), and the aftermath (Dreamland). Over a course of seventeen years, it seems that the memory of Wonderland was omnipresent in Lewis Carrolls imagination. Carrolls personal experience validates his theory that even after an ending, the memories will always stay with you.

Published Works of Lewis Carroll

Carroll, Lewis. Prologue from Alices Adventures in Wonderland, in Alices Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories. 1865. Reprint, New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc, 2010. 1112. Carroll, Lewis. Epilogue from Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, in Alices Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories. 1872. Reprint, New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc, 2010. 250. Carroll, Lewis. Dreamland, in Alices Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories. 1882. Reprint, New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc, 2010. 841.