Taking Three as the subject to reason about - A convenient number to state - we add Seven, and Ten, and multiply out buy One Thousand diminished by Eight. The result we proceed to divide, as you see, by Nine Hundred and Ninety Two: then subtract Seventeen, and the answer be Exactly and perfectly True - The Hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carol denied knowing the meaning of his poem about the hunting of a mythical creature. The poem belongs to a family of narratives called romance quest, where a band of comrades sets out on a journey into a perilous domain on a quest for something of value. Often the exact nature of the object of the quest is a mystery. In the perilous domain, the comrades encounter obstacles that test their heroic virtue.
In medieval literature the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table engaged in a quest for the Holy Grail. Best represented in modern times by Month Python's version.
The world of the Snark is surreal and absurd. The poem’s central concern is being and nothingness. French surrealist Louis Aragon translated Carroll’s poem into French and believed that such nonsense writings were a subversive political protest against the rigid social and economic structures of Victorian England.
The Plot of the Poem goes like this:
After crossing the sea guided by the Bellman's map of the Ocean—a blank sheet of paper—the hunting party arrives in a strange land. The Baker recalls that his uncle once warned him that, though catching Snarks is all well and good, you must be careful; for, if your Snark is a Boojum, then you will softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again.
With this in mind, the hunting party splits up to hunt. Along the way, the Butcher and Beaver -previously mutually wary for the Butcher's specialty in preparing beavers- become fast friends, the Barrister falls asleep and dreams of a court trial defended by the Snark, and the Banker loses his sanity after being attacked by a frumious Bandersnatch. At the end, the Baker calls out that he has found a Snark; but when the others arrive he has mysteriously disappeared, 'For the Snark was a Boojum, you see'.
The poem is a class of surreal and absurd literature popular in the 19th century, along with art and music. When translated into French by Louis Aragon, It was believed that such nonsense writings were a subversive political protest against the rigid social and economic structures of Victorian England.
The poem reminds me of the quest to remove the need to estimate the outcomes of our decisions in the presence of uncertainty. Along with the Snipe, the Snark is a mythical creature searched for by a band of comrades bent on a quest to over throw the establishment - as Carol suggest in Victorian England - and establish a new order in the absence of external authorities, governance (government for Carol), with the freedom to roam the world free of existential angst of looking after other peoples money.
Thanks to our daughter for suggested readings, who was a Classics Major. She is actually educated, while the rest of the family is just trained.
[1] http://www.literature.org/authors/carroll-lewis/the-hunting-of-the-snark/ Poem as presented by Literature.org
[2] Sidney Williams and Falconer Madan: Handbook of the Literature of the Rev. C.L. Dodgson, as quoted in Martin Gardner: The Annotated Snark, Penguin Books, 1974 1981 Edition published by William Kaufmann, ISBN 0-913232-36-X
[3] "The Consumption of the Snark and the Decline of Nonsense: A Medico-Linguistic Reading of Carroll’s ‘Fitful Agony’". Fernando Soto (Autumn 2001). The Carrollian (8): 9–50. ISSN 1462-6519
