Works of L Carroll. Ten interesting facts about Lewis Carroll. Place of birth England
Lewis Carroll was born in the village of Daresbury in the English county of Cheshire on January 27, 1832. His father was the parish priest, and he was involved in the education of Lewis, as well as his other children. In total, four boys and seven girls were born into the Carroll family. Lewis showed himself to be a fairly smart and quick-witted student.
Carroll was left-handed, which was not as calmly accepted by religious people in the nineteenth century as it is now. The boy was forbidden to write with his left hand and was forced to use his right, which caused psychological trauma and led to a slight stutter. Some researchers claim that Lewis Carroll is autistic, but there is no exact information about this.
At the age of twelve, Lewis began studying privately. grammar school, located near Richmond. He liked the teachers and classmates, as well as the atmosphere in the small educational institution. However, in 1845 the boy was transferred to the fashionable public school Rugby, where great importance was given physical training boys and instilling Christian values in them.
Young Carroll liked this school much less, but he studied well there for four years and even demonstrated good abilities in theology and mathematics.
In 1850, the young man entered Christ Church College at Oxford University. In general, he was not a very good student, but he still showed outstanding mathematical abilities. A few years later, Lewis received his bachelor's degree, and then began giving his own lectures on mathematics at Christ Church. He did this for more than two and a half decades: work as a lecturer brought Carroll good earnings, although he found it quite boring.
Because the educational establishments in those days were closely interconnected with religious organizations Upon taking up the position of lecturer, Lewis was obliged to take holy orders. In order not to work in the parish, he agreed to accept the rank of deacon, renouncing his powers as a priest. While still in college, Carroll began writing short stories and poetry, and then he came up with this pseudonym for himself (in fact, the real name of the writer is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson).
The Creation of Alice
In 1856, Christ Church College changed its dean. The philologist and lexicographer Henry Liddell, along with his wife and five children, came to Oxford to work in this position. Lewis Carroll soon became friends with the Liddell family and became their faithful friend on long years. It was one of the couple’s daughters, Alice, who was four years old in 1856, who became the prototype for the well-known Alice from Carroll’s most famous works.
First edition of the book “Alice in Wonderland” The writer often told Henry Liddell's children funny tales, the characters and events of which he composed on the fly. One day in the summer of 1862, during a boat trip, little Alice Liddell asked Lewis to Once again composed interesting story for her and her sisters Lorina and Edith. Carroll got down to business with pleasure and told the girls an exciting tale about the adventures of a little girl who fell through the White Rabbit's hole into the Underground Country.
Alice Lidell - prototype of the famous fairy-tale character To make it more interesting for girls to listen to, he made the main character similar to Alice in character, and also added some minor characters character traits Edith and Lorina. Little Liddell was delighted with the story and demanded that the writer write it down on paper. Carroll did this only after several reminders and solemnly handed Alice a manuscript entitled "Alice's Adventures Underground." Somewhat later, he took this first story as the basis for his famous books.
Books
Lewis Carroll wrote his cult works “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass” in 1865 and 1871, respectively. His style of writing books was not similar to any of the writing styles that existed at that time. As a very creative, imaginative and inner world, and also how outstanding mathematician with an excellent understanding of logic he created special genre"paradoxical literature".
Illustration for the fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland” His characters and the situations in which they find themselves are not at all intended to amaze the reader with absurdity and absurdity. In fact, they all follow a certain logic, and this logic itself is taken to the point of absurdity. In an unusual, sometimes even anecdotal form, Lewis Carroll subtly and elegantly touches on many philosophical issues, talks about life, the world and our place in it. As a result, the books turned out to be not only entertaining reading for children, but also wise fairy tales for adults.
Carroll's unique style appears in his other works, although they were not as popular as the Alice stories: "The Hunting of the Snark", "Sylvie and Bruno", "The Knot Stories", "Midnight Problems", "Euclid and His modern rivals", "What the tortoise said to Achilles", "Allen Brown and Carr".
Writer Lewis Carroll Some argue that Lewis Carroll and his world would not have been so extraordinary if the writer had not consumed opium on a regular basis (he suffered from severe migraines and also still had a noticeable stutter). However, at that time, opium tincture was a popular medicine for many diseases; it was used even for mild headaches.
Contemporaries said that the writer was “a man with quirks.” He was quite active social life, but at the same time suffered from the need to meet certain social expectations and desperately longed to return to childhood, where everything was simpler and you could remain yourself in any situation. For some time he even suffered from insomnia, but all free time spent on numerous studies. He truly believed in going beyond the reality we know and tried to comprehend something more than the science of his time could offer.
Mathematics
Charles Dodgson was indeed a gifted mathematician: perhaps this is partly why the riddles of his texts are so complex and varied. When the author was not writing his masterpiece books, he was often engaged in mathematical work. Of course, he did not rank with Evariste Galois, Nikolai Lobachevsky or Janusz Bolyai, however, as modern researchers note, he made discoveries in the field of mathematical logic that were ahead of his time.
Mathematician Lewis Carroll Lewis Carroll developed his own graphical technique for finding solutions to logical problems, which was much more convenient than the diagrams used at that time. In addition, the storyteller masterfully solved “sorites” - special logic problems, consisting of a sequence of syllogisms, the removal of the conclusions of one of which becomes a prerequisite for the other, while all the remaining premises in such a problem were mixed.
Photo
Another serious hobby of the writer, from which only his own fairy tales and heroes could distract him, was photography. The style of his photography is attributed to the style of pictorialism, characterized by a staged style of filming and editing of negatives.
Lewis Carroll loved photographing children most of all. He was well acquainted with another popular photographer of those times, Oscar Reilander. It was Oscar who made one of the best photographic portraits of the writer, which later became a classic of photography in the mid-1860s.
Personal life
The writer led a very active social life, including often being seen in the company of various representatives of the fair sex. Since at the same time he held the title of professor and deacon, the family tried in every possible way to reason with Lewis, who did not want to settle down, or at least hide the stories of his stormy adventures. Therefore, after Carroll’s death, his life story was carefully retouched: contemporaries sought to create the image of a good-natured storyteller who loved children very much. Subsequently, this desire of theirs played a cruel joke on Lewis’s biography.
Carroll really loved children, including little girls, the daughters of friends and colleagues, from time to time in his social circle. Unfortunately, Carroll never found a woman on whom he could try on the status of “wife” and who would bear him his own children. Therefore, in the 20th century, when turning biographies upside down famous people and it became very fashionable to look for Freudian motives in their behavior, the storyteller began to be accused of such a crime as pedophilia. Some particularly ardent supporters of this idea even tried to prove that Lewis Carroll and Jack the Ripper are one and the same person.
No evidence for such theories was found. Moreover: all the letters and stories of contemporaries, in which the writer was presented as a lover of little girls, were subsequently exposed. Thus, Ruth Gamlen stated that the writer invited a “shy child of about 12” Isa Bowman to visit, while in reality the girl at that time was at least 18 years old. The same way This is also the case with Carroll’s other supposedly underage girlfriends, who were in fact fully adults.
Death
The writer died on January 14, 1898, the cause of death was pneumonia. His grave is located in Guildford, in Ascension Cemetery.
Charles Lutwidge (Lutwidge) Dodgson(Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) - English children's writer, mathematician, logician and photographer. Known under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.
Born on January 27, 1832 in Dairesbury near Warrington, Cheshire, in the family of a priest. In the Dodgson family, men were, as a rule, either army officers or clergymen (one of his great-grandfathers, Charles, rose to the rank of bishop, his grandfather, again Charles, was an army captain, and his eldest son, also Charles, was the father of the writer ). Charles Lutwidge was the third child and eldest son in a family of four boys and seven girls.
Young Dodgson was educated until the age of twelve by his father, a brilliant mathematician who was predicted to have a remarkable academic career, but chose to become a rural pastor. Charles’s “reading lists,” compiled together with his father, have survived, telling us about the boy’s solid intellect. After the family moved in 1843 to the village of Croft-on-Tees, in the north of Yorkshire, the boy was assigned to Richmond Grammar School. From childhood, he entertained his family with magic tricks, puppet shows, and poems he wrote for homemade home newspapers (“Useful and Edifying Poetry,” 1845). A year and a half later, Charles entered Rugby School, where he studied for four years (from 1846 to 1850), showing outstanding abilities in mathematics and theology.
In May 1850, Charles Dodgson was enrolled at Christ Church College, Oxford University, and moved to Oxford in January of the following year. However, in Oxford, after only two days, he received unfavorable news from home - his mother had died of inflammation of the brain (possibly meningitis or stroke).
Charles studied well. Having won the Boulter Scholarship competition in 1851 and received first-class honors in mathematics and second-class honors in classical languages and ancient literature in 1852, the young man was admitted to scientific work and also received the right to lecture at christian church, which he subsequently used for 26 years. In 1854, he graduated with a bachelor's degree from Oxford, where subsequently, after receiving his master's degree (1857), he worked, including the position of professor of mathematics (1855-1881).
Dr. Dodgson lived in a small house with turrets and was one of the landmarks of Oxford. His appearance and manner of speech were remarkable: slight asymmetry of the face, poor hearing (he was deaf in one ear), and a strong stutter. He delivered lectures in an abrupt, even, lifeless tone. He avoided making acquaintances and spent hours wandering around the neighborhood. He had several favorite activities to which he devoted all his free time. Dodgson worked very hard - he got up at dawn and sat down at his desk. In order not to interrupt his work, he ate almost nothing during the day. A glass of sherry, a few cookies - and back to the desk.
Even at a young age, Dodgson drew a lot, tried himself in poetry, wrote stories, sending his works to various magazines. Between 1854 and 1856 his works, mostly humorous and satirical, appeared in national publications(“Comic Times”, “The Train”, “Whitby Gazette” and “Oxford Critic”). In 1856, a short romantic poem, “Loneliness,” appeared in The Train under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.
He invented his pseudonym in the following way: he “translated” the name Charles Lutwidge into Latin (it turned out Carolus Ludovicus), and then returned the “truly English” appearance to the Latin version. Carroll signed all his literary (“frivolous”) experiments with a pseudonym, and put his real name only in the titles of mathematical works (“Notes on plane algebraic geometry,” 1860, “Information from the theory of determinants,” 1866). Among a number of Dodgson's mathematical works, the work “Euclid and His Modern Rivals” (the last author's edition - 1879) stands out.
In 1861, Carroll took holy orders and became a deacon of the Church of England; This event, as well as the statute of Oxford Christ Church College, according to which professors had no right to marry, forced Carroll to abandon his vague matrimonial plans. At Oxford he met Henry Liddell, dean of Christ Church College, and eventually became a friend of the Liddell family. It was easiest for him to find mutual language with the dean’s daughters - Alisa, Lorina and Edith; In general, Carroll got along with children much faster and easier than with adults - this was the case with the children of George MacDonald and the offspring of Alfred Tennyson.
Young Charles Dodgson was approximately six feet tall, slender and handsome, with curly brown hair and blue eyes, but it is believed that due to his stuttering, he had difficulty communicating with adults, but with children he relaxed, became free and fast in his speech.
It was the acquaintance and friendship with the Liddell sisters that led to the birth of the fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland” (1865), which instantly made Carroll famous. The first edition of Alice was illustrated by the artist John Tenniel, whose illustrations are considered classics today.
The incredible commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life. Since Lewis Carroll became quite famous throughout the world, his mailbox was flooded with letters from admirers, and he began to earn very significant sums of money. However, Dodgson never abandoned his modest life and church positions.
In 1867 Charles first and last time left England and made a very unusual trip to Russia for those times. Along the way I visited Calais, Brussels, Potsdam, Danzig, Koenigsberg, spent a month in Russia, returned to England via Vilna, Warsaw, Ems, Paris. In Russia, Dodgson visited St. Petersburg and its environs, Moscow, Sergiev Posad, and a fair in Nizhny Novgorod.
The first fairy tale was followed by a second book, “Alice Through the Looking Glass” (1871), whose gloomy content reflected the death of Carroll’s father (1868) and the many years of depression that followed.
What is remarkable about Alice's adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, which have become the most famous children's books? On the one hand, this is a fascinating story for children with descriptions of travel to fantasy worlds with whimsical heroes who have forever become idols of children - who doesn’t know the March Hare or the Red Queen, the Quasi Turtle or the Cheshire Cat, Humpty Dumpty? The combination of imagination and absurdity makes the author’s style inimitable, the author’s ingenious imagination and play on words brings us finds that play on common sayings and proverbs, surreal situations break the usual stereotypes. At the same time, famous physicists and mathematicians (including M. Gardner) were surprised to discover a lot of scientific paradoxes in children's books, and episodes of Alice's adventures were often discussed in scientific articles.
Five years later, The Hunting of the Snark (1876), a fantasy poem describing the adventures of a bizarre team of variously inappropriate creatures and one beaver, was published; it was the last widely famous work Carroll. Interestingly, the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti was convinced that the poem was written about him.
Carroll's interests are multifaceted. The late 70s and 1880s are characterized by the fact that Carroll publishes collections of riddles and games (“Doublets”, 1879; “ Logic game", 1886; “Mathematical curiosities”, 1888-1893), writes poetry (collection “Poems? Meaning?”, 1883). Carroll went down in literary history as the writer of “nonsense,” including rhymes for children in which their name was “baked” and acrostics.
In addition to mathematics and literature, Carroll devoted a lot of time to photography. Although he was an amateur photographer, a number of his photographs were included, so to speak, in the annals of world photographic chronicles: these are photographs of Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, actress Ellen Terry and many others. Carroll was especially good at taking pictures of children. However, in the early 80s, he abandoned photography, declaring that he was “tired” of this hobby. Carroll is considered one of the most famous photographers second half of the 19th century century.
Carroll continued to write - on December 12, 1889, the first part of the novel “Sylvie and Bruno” was published, and at the end of 1893 the second, but literary critics reacted lukewarmly to the work.
Lewis Carroll died in Guildford, Surry County, on January 14, 1898, at the home of his seven sisters, from pneumonia that broke out after influenza. He was less than sixty-six years old. In January 1898 most Carroll's handwritten legacy was burned by his brothers Wilfred and Skeffington, who did not know what to do with the piles of papers that their “learned brother” left behind in the rooms at Christ Church College. In that fire, not only manuscripts disappeared, but also some of the negatives, drawings, manuscripts, pages of a multi-volume diary, bags of letters written to the strange Doctor Dodgson by friends, acquaintances, ordinary people, children. The turn came to the library of three thousand books (literally fantastic literature) - the books were sold at auction and distributed to private libraries, but the catalog of that library was preserved.
Carroll's Alice in Wonderland was included in the list of twelve "most English" objects and phenomena compiled by the UK Ministry of Culture, Sport and Media. Films and cartoons are made based on this cult work, games and musical performances are held. The book has been translated into dozens of languages (more than 130) and has had big influence on many authors.
Based on materials from Wikipedia, site jabberwocky.ru
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 mature age. 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 writer's early years
The father of the future prose writer was a parish priest in the Anglican Church. His great-grandfather was Bishop of Elphin, and his grandfather fought in Ireland in early XIX centuries and even held the post of captain. In total, there were 11 children in the family, except for the boy. Charles had 7 sisters and three brothers. He was the eldest of the sons. As a child, Dodgson suffered from a stutter; he could not completely get rid of it even in adulthood. Because of this problem, the young man was home-schooled.
At the age of 11, the boy moved to North Yorkshire with his family. A year after this, he was sent to a Richmond school. In 1846, Charles became a student at the prestigious private school of Rugby. He liked to study 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.
Math 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 remained at his native university for 26 years, already as a teacher. He did not particularly enjoy teaching, but he made a good income from it.
After graduating from Christ Church, students tended to be ordained deacons. 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 graduated about 12 scientific works. Particularly distinguished among them were books such as “Logic Game” and “Symbolic Logic”. Thanks to the work of Dodgson, the alternative matrix theorem was derived at the end of the 20th century.
Many scientists believe that Carroll did not do anything special for mathematics, but over time his research is increasingly being studied by his 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 graphical technique of problems was developed.
Author's works
While still in college, Charles began writing short stories and poems. Since 1854, his work could be seen 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; his friend, publisher Edmund Yates, helped the writer with this issue. On February 11, 1865, the young man offered a choice of three versions of the name: Edgar Cutwellis, Edgard W.C. Westhill and Lewis Carroll. It is noteworthy that the first two options were constructed by rearranging the letters in the author’s real name. The last version, which the publisher liked most, appeared thanks to the translation of the words “Charles” and “Lutwidge” into Latin, then back into English.
Since 1865, Charles has been demarcating all his works. Serious mathematical and logical works are signed with a real name, but for literature a pseudonym is used. That is why there is a significant difference between the writing style of different works. Dodgson was somewhat prim, pedantic and modest, while Carroll embodied all the wildest fantasies of the prose writer. The first book published under a pseudonym was the poem “Solitude.”
In 1876, a fantastic poem by the writer was published, called “The Hunt for the Snark.” It was a success among readers and is still popular today. The genre of the author’s works can be described as “paradoxical literature.” The point is that his characters follow logic in everything without breaking it. At the same time, any action and logical chain are brought to the point of absurdity. In addition, the writer actively uses polysemy, 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 a boat trip between Lewis and Henry Liddell and his daughters. On July 4, 1862, the youngest of them, four-year-old Alice, asked the writer to tell her a new an interesting fairy tale. He began making up the story as he went along, and then wrote it down at the request of the girl and his friend Robinson Duckworth. In 1863, the manuscript was sent to the publishing house, and shortly after that it was published. The book had stunning success not only in children, but also in adults. It was republished annually.
After Alice's story was published, Carroll traveled to Russia for the first and last time in his life. By invitation Orthodox Church the man arrived in St. Petersburg, he also visited Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod. In 1867, he wrote “Russian Diary”, in which he shared his impressions of this trip. In 1871, the second one, no less, saw the light success story, entitled "Alice Through the Looking Glass". Eight years after this, the initial version of the translation of the first part into Russian was published.
In addition to mathematics and writing, Lewis was also interested in photography. He is with youth He adored children and constantly communicated with them. It is not surprising that in Carroll’s photographs the babies looked especially natural and poetic. He became one of the first photographic artists in England; his works were even presented at an international exhibition. Some of the photographs are currently stored in the National Portrait Gallery.
Lewis not only made art himself, but also appreciated the work of others 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 several funny charades on his own.
In 1881, Carroll resigned 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. Self-portrait
Biography
Also published a lot scientific works in mathematics under own name. One of his hobbies was photography.
Friendship with girls
Lewis Carroll was a bachelor. In the past, it was believed that he was not friends with members of the opposite sex, making an exception for actress Ellen Terry.
Carroll's greatest joy came from his friendships with little girls. “I love children (not boys),” he once wrote.
...Girls (unlike boys) seemed amazingly beautiful to him without clothes. Sometimes he drew or photographed them naked - of course, with the permission of their mothers.
Carroll himself considered his friendships with girls completely innocent; there is no reason to doubt that this was the case. Moreover, in the numerous memories that his little girlfriends later left about him, there is not a hint of any violation of decency.
"Carroll's Myth"
The information, as well as the quotes posted below, are taken from the article by A. Borisenko and N. Demurova “Lewis Carroll: Myths and Metamorphoses,” which, in turn, is based on the works of Guy Lebeily and Caroline Leach ( Hugues Lebaily And Caroline Leach).
In recent decades, it turned out that most of his “little” girlfriends were over 14, many 16-18 years old and older. Carroll's girlfriends often underestimated their ages in their memoirs. For example, actress Isa Bowman writes in her memoirs
As a child, I often amused myself by drawing caricatures, and one day, when he was writing letters, I began to sketch him on the back of an envelope. Now I don’t remember what the drawing looked like - it was probably a nasty cartoon - but suddenly he turned around and saw what I was doing. He jumped up and blushed terribly, which scared me very much. Then he grabbed my unfortunate sketch and, tearing it to shreds, silently threw it into the fire. (...) I was then no more than ten or eleven years old, but even now this episode stands before my eyes, as if it all happened yesterday...
In reality, she was at least 13 years old.
Another “young girlfriend” of Carroll, Ruth Gamlen, in her memoirs, reports how in 1892, Carroll’s parents invited Carroll to dinner with Isa, who was visiting him at that time. There Isa is described as a "shy child of about twelve", in fact in 1892 she was 18 years old.
Carroll himself also called the word “child” not only little girls, but also women 20-30 years old. Thus, in 1894 he wrote:
One of the main joys of my - surprisingly happy - life stems from the affection of my little friends. Twenty or thirty years ago I would have said that ten was the ideal age; now the age of twenty to twenty-five seems preferable to me. Some of my dear girls are thirty or more: I think that old man sixty-two years old has the right to still consider them children.
Research has shown that more than half of the “girls” with whom he corresponded were over 14 years old; of the 870 comments he made about acting, 720 refer to adult actors and only 150 to children.
IN Victorian England At the end of the 19th century, girls under 14 were considered asexual. Carroll's friendship with them was, from the point of view of the morality of that time, a completely innocent quirk. On the other hand, too close communication with a young woman (especially alone) was strictly condemned. This could have caused Carroll to declare his acquaintances the women and girls “little girls”, and to underestimate their age.
Bibliography
- "Useful and edifying poetry" ()
- "Algebraic analysis of the Fifth Book of Euclid" ()
- "Information from the theory of determinants" (
Which to this day leaves many piquant questions and reveals a multifaceted and talented person. He is both a capable mathematician and a talented writer. More than 100 films in different genres have been made based on the author’s works.
Place of birth England
The 19th century is famous for many geniuses, everyone knows one of them - Lewis Carroll. His biography begins in the picturesque village of Daresbury, which was part of Cheshire. There were a total of 11 children in the vicarage of Charles Dodgson. The future writer was named after his father; he was born on January 27, 1832 and was educated at home until he was 12 years old. Then he was sent to a private school, where he studied until 1845 inclusive. He spent the next 4 years in Rugby. In this institution he was less happy, but showed brilliant success in the disciplines of mathematics and the word of God. In 1950 he entered Christ Church, and in 1851 he transferred to Oxford.
At home, the head of the family himself taught all the children, and the classes were similar to funny Games. To better explain the basics of counting and writing to young children, the father used objects such as chess and an abacus. Lessons on the rules of behavior were like cheerful feasts, where, through “tea drinking in reverse,” knowledge was crammed into children’s heads. When young Charles studied at grammar school, science was easy, he was praised, and learning was a pleasure. But in the subsequent study of sciences, the pleasure disappeared, and there was less success. By Oxford he was considered an average student with good but unused ability.
New name
He began writing his first stories and poems in college under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The biography of the birth of a new name is simple. His friend and publisher Yates advised him to simply change the first letters for a better sound. There were several proposals, but Charles settled on this short version, and most importantly, convenient for children to pronounce. He published his works on mathematics under his real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
Mathematician and logician
Studying in college was boring for the writer. But he received his bachelor's degree easily, and in a competition for lecturing in mathematics, he won the opportunity to teach a course at Christ Church. Charles Dodgson devoted 26 years to Euclidean geometry, algebra and mathematics. analysis, became seriously interested in probability theory and mathematical puzzles. Almost by accident he developed a method for calculating determinants (Dodgson condensation).
There are two ways to look at it scientific activity. Some believe that he did not make an impressive contribution, but teaching brought a constant income and the opportunity to do what he loved. But there is an opinion that the achievements of C. L. Dodgson in the field of logic were simply ahead of the mathematical science of that time. Developments over simple solutions Sorites are set out in “Symbolic Logic”, and the second volume has already been adapted for children’s perception and was called “Logic Game”.
Spiritual ordination and travel to Russia
In college, Charles Dodgson was ordained as a deacon. Thanks to this, he could preach sermons, but not work in the parish. At this time, contacts between the English Church and Russian Orthodoxy were developing. For the holiday dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Metropolitan Philaret’s tenure in the Moscow see, the writer and deacon Charles and the theologian Henry Liddon were invited to Russia. Dodgson truly enjoyed the trip. Having fulfilled his duties at official meetings and events, he visited museums and recorded impressions of cities and people. Some phrases in Russian were included by him in his “Travel Diary”. This was a book not for publication, but for personal use, which was published only after the death of the author.
Meetings between Russians and Englishmen, conversations through interpreters and informal walks around the city left a vivid impression on the young deacon. Before (and after) he never went anywhere else, except for occasional visits to London and Bath.
Lewis Carroll. Biography of the writer
In 1856, Charles met the family of the new dean of the college, Henry Liddell (not to be confused with different people). A strong friendly relationship develops between them. Frequent visits bring Dodgson closer to all family members, but especially to youngest daughter Alice, who was only 4 years old. The girl's spontaneity, charm and cheerful disposition fascinate the author. Lewis Carroll, whose works are already published in such serious magazines as Comic Times and The Train, finds a new Muse.
In 1864, the first work about the fairy-tale Alice was published. After a trip to Russia, Carroll creates a second story of the main character's adventures, published in 1871. The writer's style went down in history as “a peculiar Carrell style.” The fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland” was written for children, but enjoys lasting success among all fans of the fantasy genre. The author used philosophical and mathematical jokes in the plot. The work has become a classic and the best example absurdity, the structure of the narrative and the action had an impact strong influence on the development of art of that time. Lewis Carroll created a new direction in literature.
Two books
The fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland" is the first part of the adventure. The plot tells about a girl who is trying to catch up with a funny Rabbit in a hat and with a pocket watch. Through the hole she enters a hall where there are many small doors. To enter the flower garden, Alice uses a fan to reduce her height. In the magical world, she meets the leisurely Caterpillar, the funny wise man and the mischievous Duchess, who loves to chop off heads. Alice attends a mad tea party with the March Hare and the Hatter. In the garden, the Heroine meets card guards who repaint white roses red. After playing croquet with the Queen, Alice ends up in court, where she acts as a witness. But suddenly the girl begins to grow, all the characters turn into cards and the dream ends.
A few years later, the author publishes the second part under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. "Alice Through the Looking Glass" is a journey through a mirror into another world, which is a chessboard. Here the heroine meets the White King, talking flowers, The Black Queen, with Humpty Dumpty and others fairy-tale characters, prototypes of chess.
Brief analysis of books about Alice
Lewis Carroll, whose books can be divided into mathematical and philosophical problems, in his works tries to ask difficult questions. Flight through in its slowness resembles the theory with decreasing acceleration towards the center of the Earth. When Alice remembers the multiplication table, which is used in which 4X5 really equals 12. And in the girl’s decreases and increases and in her fear (of not disappearing completely) you can recognize E. Whittaker’s research on changes in the Universe.
The smell of pepper in the Duchess's house is a sign of the severity and harshness of the hostess's character. And also a reminder of the habit of the poor to pepper their food to hide the taste of cheap meat. The conflict between science and ethics is clearly visible in the Cheshire Cat's remark: “If you walk for a long time, you will definitely come somewhere.” During the tea party, Carroll says that he needs a haircut. long hair Alice, the character Hatter. A contemporary of the writer claims that this is a personal shout-out to all those who were dissatisfied with Charles’s hairstyle in life, since he wore his hair longer than the fashion of that time allowed.
And these are just well-known examples. In fact, any situation in Alice's adventures can be decomposed into a logical riddle or a philosophical problem of the concept of the world.
Carroll Quotes
Lewis Carroll, whose quotes are used today as often as Shakespeare's, was a hidden rebel of his time. “Hidden” means he expressed his disagreement with the rules of behavior in society with veiled barbs. For example, hair that is too long.
- If only I could meet a reasonable person for a change!
- Life is serious, of course, but not very...
- Time can't be wasted!
- The right way to explain something to someone else is to do it yourself.
- Morality is everywhere - you need to look for it!
- Everything is so different, that’s normal.
- If you rush, you will miss the miracle.
- Why does anyone need morality so much?!
- Entertainment of the intellect is necessary for the health of the spirit.
Juicy gossip of the 19th century
Lewis Carroll, whose books do not lose popularity from Queen of England Before he was a Russian schoolboy, he was a lonely and unsociable member of society. Talented man took up photography and (with the mothers' permission) took pictures young beauties naked for my collection. In life and in college, Charles Dodgson was introverted, stuttered, and couldn't hear out of one ear. Holy Orders did not allow him to marry.
There are several refutations of rumors born during the writer’s lifetime. Yes, he felt inferior and that is why he avoided women his age. All the girls he interacted with were over 14 years old. For that time, these were already young ladies looking for a groom. There is no hint of sexual harassment in the girls' memories. And many of them deliberately reduced their age so as not to be compromised. A child can communicate freely with a man, but a decent lady cannot.