English writer Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll was out of his mind
English writer, mathematician, logician, philosopher and photographer. Real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The most famous works are “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass”, as well as the humorous poem “The Hunting of the Snark”.
Born on January 27, 1832 in the vicarage in the village of Daresbury, Cheshire. In total there were 7 girls and 4 boys in the family. He began to study at home, showing his intelligence and intelligence. At the age of twelve he entered a small private school near Richmond.
At the beginning of 1851 he moved to Oxford, where he entered Christ Church, one of the most aristocratic colleges at Oxford University. He was not a very good student, but thanks to his outstanding mathematical abilities, after receiving his bachelor's degree he won a competition to give mathematical lectures at Christ Church. He gave these lectures for the next 26 years, they gave him a good income, although they were boring to him.
He began his writing career while studying in college. He wrote poems and short stories, sending them to various magazines under pseudonym Lewis Carroll. Gradually he gained fame. Since 1854, his works began to appear in serious English publications: The Comic Times, The Train.
Magazine publisher and writer Edmund Yates advised Dodgson to come up with a pseudonym, and in Dodgson's Diaries an entry appears dated February 11, 1865: “Wrote to Mr. Yates, offering him a choice of pseudonyms:
1) Edgar Cutwellis (the name Edgar Cutwellis 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 - Ludwick - Louis, Carroll from Charles);
4) Lewis Carroll (by the same principle of “translation” of the names 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 works - pseudonym, stubbornly refusing to recognize the identity of Dodgson and Carroll.
By the way! It is interesting that in his fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland" he portrayed himself as a clumsy Dodo bird, because his real name is Dodgson. And although the fairy-tale Dodo is ugly and awkward, he is witty and resourceful!
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 activities were like fun 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 science, 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 views on his 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 of simpler solutions to 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 meets 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 his 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 of absurdity; the structure of the narrative and action had a 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, Humpty Dumpty and other fairy-tale characters, prototypes of chess.
Brief analysis of books about Alice
Lewis Carroll, whose books can be divided into mathematical and philosophical problems, tries to ask difficult questions in his works. 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 gives the phrase about cutting Alice's long hair to 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 the Queen of England to the Russian schoolboy, was a lonely and unsociable member of society. A talented man was engaged in photography and (with the permission of his mothers) photographed young beauties naked for his collection. In life and in college, Charles Dodgson was introverted, stuttered, and couldn't hear out of one ear. His ecclesiastical rank 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 freely communicate with a man, but a decent lady cannot.
On January 27, 1832, English mathematician, logician, photographer, and inventor Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born. We talk about a man who strove to make mathematics fun, a logician who loved to break logic, and a man who loved to write at night in today's issue of History of Science.
Charles Dodgson was at least the fourth Charles in the family - along with his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. His father, by the way, had good mathematical abilities: he studied at Oxford and could have built an academic career, but instead he married and became a parish priest.
The youngest of these Charles followed in his father's footsteps: he studied at Oxford, the same college as his father. He showed himself to be a capable student, his studies were easy for him, even despite his not the most responsible attitude towards it.
He especially distinguished himself in mathematics, finishing the course as the best in this subject. After his studies, he remained at the same college as a teacher. Our hero will be listed at Oxford in one position or another for the rest of his life.
In college, Charles began his writing career and there he came up with the pseudonym by which we all know him. Dodgson was helped with this by his publisher Edmund Yates. The idea was to find the Latin equivalents of the writer's names, Charles and Lutwidge, change them a little and take them as a pseudonym.
Our hero followed the advice: he changed the analogue of the name Charles - Charles - to Carroll, and Lutwidge, through Louis, turned into Lewis. Well, in addition, he swapped them.
There were several other variants of the pseudonym, for example Edgar Cutthwellis, which could be obtained by rearranging the letters in the same Charles and Lutwidge.
As one of his biographies puts it, “If Dodgson had not written Alice, he might be remembered as a 'pioneer' of photography, one of the first to perceive photography as an art rather than simply a means of recording images... If Dodgson had not written “Alice” would not have been a photographer; he would be remembered as a mathematician, a career he aspired to as a lecturer at Christ Church, the largest college in Oxford.”
It is this photographer, mathematician, logician and inventor that we will talk about today. We will not say a word more about the writer.
Dodgson acquired the camera in 1856; it was a desirable (and expensive at the time) purchase. Charles was immediately captivated by photography. For many years he photographed his friends and acquaintances, adults and children.
His fame as a writer and his skills as a photographer allowed him to obtain famous people of the time as models: the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the painter John Millais, the writer and artist John Ruskin, the Darwinist Thomas Huxley and the physicist Michael Faraday. And he also willingly attracted himself as a model.
The passion for photography in the mid-19th century required a lot of patience and dexterity. This is how Dodgson described in one of his stories a photograph with a shutter speed of one minute and forty seconds: “Trembling with impatience, I hid my head under the cover and began to develop the photograph.
The trees are pretty fuzzy... okay! The wind was shaking the branches, but it wouldn't be very noticeable. And the farmer? Hmmm... he walked a few yards, and it's sad to see how many arms and legs he got. God bless him! Let's call it a spider, a centipede, whatever... what about a cow? With great reluctance I was forced to admit that a cow has three heads, and although such an animal has a curious appearance, it cannot be called picturesque.”
Dodgson, a mathematician and logician, was engaged in both “serious” science and the composition of mathematical games and puzzles. He proposed a graphical method for logical problems and a method for calculating determinants of matrices, called Dodgson condensation. He wrote a rather unusual form (in the form of dialogues) of a work on Euclid, whose teachings had already begun to be questioned by Charles’s contemporaries.
In addition, Charles compiled many logical and mathematical problems for children, geometric puzzles, and sequence problems. Among his books was the “almost serious” textbook “Symbolic Logic”. Also widely known is his “Midnight Problems” - a collection of 72 problems designed to be solved mentally.
A significant part of them relates to geometry and probability theory. Here is one of them: “The urn contains one ball, which is known to be either white or black. A white ball is placed in the urn, after which its contents are mixed and one ball is drawn at random, which turns out to be white. What is the probability of drawing a white ball after this?”
Dodgson proposed many small improvements, of varying degrees of usefulness: a way to test the divisibility of numbers by 17 and 19, two ciphers, a scale for determining the amount of liquor poured, mnemonic rules for remembering numbers, conditions for exclusion from tennis tournaments, and chess for travelers.
Also known is his invention, which allows you to record something in the dark - a nyctograph (or typhlograph). The device is simple - a piece of thick cardboard with 16 square cutouts. Attached to it was a code that entered each letter into a nyctograph square. Using this system, Dodgson could write down thoughts that came to him during insomnia (or the same “Midnight Tasks”), without bothering himself with looking for a candle.
Another of his inventions is a game of words, or doublets. Its essence is to build a chain of words between two data, under the condition that each subsequent one differs from the previous one by only one replaced letter.
Of course, all words will be nouns, and the number and order of letters cannot be changed. An example of such doublets (first/last word pairs) are “wolf and hole”, “sea and land” or “four and five”.
LEWIS CARROLL
Lewis Carroll inspired more musicians to create psychedelic rock than any other writer in the history of literature. Think, for example, of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," or the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus," or Donovan's entire album, "Hurdy Gurdy Man." (And no one is saying that it was all good psychedelic rock!) And all this thanks to a man who, most likely, has never tried drugs in his life, has never had a serious relationship with a woman, and spent most of his life lecturing in college mathematics Christ Church University of Oxford.
Oh, yes, and, of course, he also created one of the world's most beloved children's book heroines.
Long before Alice, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Carroll's real name) was a shy, stuttering son of a vicar from the village of Daresbury, Cheshire. The third of eleven children in the family, he took his first steps in literature very early. Even after graduating from Christ Church College, Oxford, with a master's degree in mathematics, Charles continued to write humorous poems and sometimes published them in the Comic Times. Deciding not to mix his mathematical career with his literary one, Charles Lutwidge came up with the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll”, reversing his names and translating them into Latin and then back into English. This intricate and witty play on words soon became a signature feature of his writing style.
Tall, thin and rather handsome, Carroll lived as an ascetic scientist, alien to all worldly goods. Apart from science, his only hobbies were writing and photography. In 1861, Dodgson took the junior diaconate (a prerequisite for becoming a Fellow of the College), which meant he would become an Anglican priest, but something kept Charles Lutwidge from throwing himself entirely into the service of God. In his diaries, he wrote about the feeling of his own sinfulness and guilt that haunted him, but it is not clear whether this feeling prevented him from finally becoming a priest or something else. Despite all this, he remained a respectable son of the church. It is known that, having visited the Cologne Cathedral, Charles could not hold back his tears. Another remarkable fact from Carroll’s biography: he more than once left the theater during a performance if something on stage offended his religious feelings.
In 1862, Carroll went on a boat trip with friends. There was also Alice Liddell, a ten-year-old girl with whom the writer developed an unusually close friendship. For most of the trip, Carroll amused himself by telling a fairy tale in which Alice was the main character and which the girl demanded to be written down. The tale was originally called "Alice's Adventures Underground", but then Carroll renamed it "Alice in Wonderland". The book was published in 1865 and was a huge, downright stunning success, and in 1871 a sequel followed - “Alice through the Looking Glass”. Filled with crazy characters like the Hatter and nonsensical but hilarious poems like "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter," Alice's story immediately won a massive following among readers of all ages. The shy bookworm Charles Dodgson instantly became the world-famous children's writer Lewis Carroll (although he still found time to write mathematical treatises, which were all boring and dry, with the exception of the entertaining scientific pamphlet "Dynamics of the Particle", published in 1865 ).
In the last two decades of his life, Carroll continued to write, photograph, invent, and think about mathematical topics. The photographic portraits he took, according to modern estimates, were clearly ahead of their time, but his models (mainly little girls) pose a number of still unresolved questions for biographers. Carroll, without a doubt, was a great original. His lifestyle cannot be called standard.
Carroll never married and, according to the reviews of his contemporaries, did not start a long-term relationship with any adult woman. The writer died in 1898 from bronchitis, leaving behind a series of colorful characters, amazing stories and puzzling word games that continue to inspire writers, musicians and children around the globe.
MASTER OF ALL THINGS
Carroll was not only the author of one of the most popular works of children's literature, he was also a fan of technological progress, obsessed with invention. His inventions included the electric pen, a new form for money orders, a tricycle, a new method for right-justifying the typewriter, an early double-sided exhibition stand, and a mnemonic system for remembering names and dates.
Carroll was the first to come up with the idea of printing the title of a book on the spine to make the desired edition easier to find on the shelf. The words Carroll coined by combining two other words are still widely used in the English language. Carroll, a big fan of riddles and puzzles, invented many card and logic games, improved the rules of backgammon and created a prototype of the game Scrabble.
MEDICAL MIRACLE
Rumors that Carroll took psychoactive drugs are greatly exaggerated, but even if this were true, who, knowing the writer's medical history, would blame him? You would also want to get rid of pain if you suffered from swamp fever, cystitis, lumbago, furunculosis, eczema, synovitis, arthritis, pleurisy, laryngitis, bronchitis, erythema, catarrh of the bladder, rheumatism, neuralgia, insomnia and toothaches - all these ailments were found in Carroll's possession at different times. In addition, he was tormented by severe chronic migraines, accompanied by hallucinations - he saw, for example, moving fortresses. Let's add to this stuttering, possibly hyperactivity and partial deafness. Isn't it a miracle that Carroll wasn't an avid opium smoker? Although who knows, maybe there was.
OH, MY POOR HEAD!
It is possible that Alice's Adventures was a side effect of severe headaches. This conclusion was reached by scientists who published an article in 1999 in the British medical journal Lancet, where hallucinations during migraine attacks described in Carroll's diaries were analyzed. Recurring images appear in his writings several years before the first edition of Alice in Wonderland, and this supports the assumption that "at least some of Alice's adventures were based on Carroll's visions during migraines."
EXCUSE ME, AM I ANNOYING YOU?
In addition to all his other health problems, Carroll apparently suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He was terribly petty and meticulous. Before setting out on any journey, even a short one, he studied the route on a map and calculated how long each stage of the journey would take, leaving nothing to chance. He then calculated how much money he would need and put the required amount into different pockets: to pay for the passage, tip the porters, and buy food and drinks. When brewing tea, Carroll demanded that the tea leaves steep for exactly ten minutes, not a second more and not a second less.
His hypertrophied love for inventing and observing all kinds of rules extended to those around him. When hosting a holiday dinner, Carroll would draw a seating chart for the guests and then write down in his diary what each person ate, “so people wouldn’t have to eat the same thing too often.” Once, while visiting the library, he left a note in the suggestion box in which he outlined a more advanced system for arranging books. One day he reproached his own niece for leaving an open book on a chair. He even corrected other writers if he found minor mathematical errors in their works. Yet, like so many other originals, Carroll somehow managed to make his flaws seem like endearing quirks. And his constant nagging didn’t seem to irritate anyone.
LEWIS CARROLL'S FAVORITE VEHICLE WAS A TRICOLE. THE WRITER CONSTRUCTED ONE OF THE MODELS HIMSELF.
ASK ALICE
How many years have passed since the writer’s death, and he is still suspected of pedophilia. Was he really a pedophile? There is fierce debate on this matter. It is obvious that Carroll had a special affection for girls. He took hundreds of photographs of young ladies, sometimes in the nude (we are talking about the appearance of the young ladies, not Carroll himself). There is not a single photograph that would capture any explicitly sexual scene, however, there is a known case when the mother of one girl was seriously frightened when she learned that the shooting of a minor would take place without the participation of a companion, and refused Carroll a photographic session. Carroll had a particularly close relationship with Alice Liddell, the prototype of the main character of Alice in Wonderland. However, in 1863 their friendship ended abruptly. No one can say with certainty why. Pages from Carroll's diary from this period were later torn out and destroyed by the writer's family, perhaps to protect his reputation. Carroll’s interest in photography also dried up suddenly, in 1880, add to this the entries in his diary, where the writer talks about the consciousness of his own sinfulness and guilt that tormented him all his life. He does not specify what the fault is. Did anything happen during filming besides photography? Some of Carroll's biographers have recently argued that the writer was just a real-life embodiment of Willy Wonka - an innocent man-child who was fascinated by children, but did not harm them and was not sexually attracted to them. In fact, there remains no evidence that Carroll even touched any of his models with lewd intentions. Only the White Rabbit knows the truth...
CHARLES DODGSON? DODJACK THE RIPPER?
Or maybe the eccentric author of Alice was actually a misogynist and serial killer? In his book “Jack the Ripper, the Careless Friend,” published in 1996, a certain Richard Wallace suggests that the famous London maniac who killed prostitutes was none other than Lewis Carroll. As evidence, Wallace cites excerpts from Carroll's works, in which, in his opinion, detailed descriptions of the Ripper's crimes are hidden in the form of anagrams. For example, the beginning of the poem “Jabberwocky”:
It was boiling.
Squishy shoryky
They poked around,
And the zepyuks grunted,
Like mumziki in mov.
If you rearrange the letters (meaning, of course, the English original, and not the translation), you can read the following:
I swear I'll spank my balls
Until I destroy the evil floor with my sword hand.
Slippery business; lend me some gloves
It's a little unclear what pig jerking has to do with Jack the Ripper. Moreover, Wallace avoids the fact that Carroll was not in London at all at the time of the murders. And, as you know, anagrams were invented for this purpose, so that almost anything could be constructed from any written phrase. To support this, one writer, the author of a biography of Carroll, rearranged the letters in a phrase from Winnie the Pooh and “proved” that Christopher Robin was the true Bloody Jack. Otherwise, Wallace's theory is flawless.
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Lewis Carroll (Great Britain, 27.1.1832 - 14.1.1898) - English children's writer, mathematician, logician.
Real name: 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 a 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 brothers and sisters.
Dodgson's education until the age of twelve is handled by his father.
1844-1846 – studies at Richmond Grammar School.
1846-1850 - studies at Rugby School, a privileged closed educational institution that causes hostility in Dodgson. However, here he shows outstanding abilities in mathematics and classical languages.
1850 – enrolled at Christ Church College, Oxford University and moves to Oxford.
1851 – wins the Boulter Scholarship competition.
1852 – awarded first class honors in mathematics and second class in classical languages and ancient literatures. Thanks to his achievements, he is allowed to do scientific work.
1855 - Dodgson was offered a professorship at his college, the traditional condition of which in those years was taking holy orders and a vow of celibacy. Dodgson fears that due to his ordination he will have to give up his favorite activities - photography and going to the theater.
1856, among other things, was also the year Mr. Dodgson began his studies in photography. During his passion for this art form (he stopped filming in 1880 for unknown reasons), he created about 3,000 photographs, of which less than 1,000 have survived.
1858 – “The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically,” 2nd ed. 1868.
1860 – “Notes on algebraic planimetry” (A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry).
1861 – Dodgson is ordained deacon, the first intermediate step towards becoming a priest. However, changes in university status eliminate 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, the 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 be written down. He does this over the next few months. Then, on the advice of Henry Kingsley and J. MacDonald, he rewrote the book for a wider range of readers, adding several more stories previously told to the Liddell children.
1865 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (first the English name Charles Lutwidge was Latinized into Carolus Ludovicus, and then both names were swapped and were again anglicized).
1867 – scientific work “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. Visits Calais, Brussels, Potsdam, Danzig, Koenigsberg along the way, 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, and a fair in Nizhny Novgorod.
1871 - A sequel to Alice (also based on earlier stories and later stories told to the young Liddells at Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham, in April 1863) is published, entitled Through the Looking-Glass. Glass and What Alice Found There, year given 1872). Both books are illustrated by D. Tenniel (1820-1914), who followed Dodgson's exact instructions.
1876 – poetic epic in the genre of nonsense “The Hunting of the Snark”.
1879 – scientific work “Euclid and His Modern Rivals”.
1883 – collection of poems “Poems? Meaning?" (Rhyme? And Reason?).
1888 – scientific work “Mathematical Curiosities” (Curiosa Mathematica, 2nd ed. 1893).
1889 – novel “Sylvie and Bruno”.
1893 - the second volume of the novel “Sylvia and Bruno” - “The Conclusion of Sylvie and Bruno” (Sylvie and Bruno Concluded). Both volumes are distinguished by the complexity of their composition and the mixture of elements of realistic storytelling and fairy tales.
1896 – scientific work “Symbolic Logic”.
1898 – collection of poems “Three Sunsets”.
January 14, 1898 - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died at his sister's house in Guildford of pneumonia, two weeks shy of 66 years of age. Buried in Guilford Cemetery.
Mathematician Dodgson
Dodgson's mathematical works did not leave any noticeable mark on the history of mathematics. His mathematical education was limited to knowledge of several books of the “Elements” of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, the foundations of linear algebra, mathematical analysis and probability theory; this was clearly not enough to work at the “cutting edge” of mathematical science of the 19th century, which was experiencing a period of rapid development (the theory of the French mathematician Galois, non-Euclidean geometry of the Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky and the Hungarian mathematician Janusz Bolyai, mathematical physics, qualitative theory of differential equations, etc.) . Dodgson’s essentially complete isolation from the scientific world also had an effect: apart from short visits to London, Bath and to his sisters, Dodgson spent all his time in Oxford, and only in 1867 his usual way of life was disrupted by a trip to distant Russia (impressions from this trip Dodgson outlined it in the famous “Russian Diary”). Recently, Dodgson's mathematical legacy has attracted increasing attention from researchers who have discovered his unexpected mathematical discoveries that have remained unclaimed.
Dodgson's achievements in the field of mathematical logic were far ahead of their time. He developed a graphical 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 particular skill in solving the so-called “sorites”. Sorites is a logical problem, which is a chain of syllogisms in which the removed conclusion of one syllogism serves as the premise of another (in addition, the remaining premises are mixed; “sorites” 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 galleys in the archive of Dodgson’s scientific opponent) and, in a simplified 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 the 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, taking logic to the point of absurdity.
Carroll Lewis's most significant literary works are rightfully 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 "Alice Through the Looking Glass" for brevity. Bold experiments with language, the many subtle logical and philosophical questions raised in the tales of Alice, the polysemy (“polysemanticism”) of the statements of characters and situations make Carroll’s “children’s” works a favorite reading of the “gray-haired sages.”
Features of Carroll's unique style are clearly noticeable in other works of Carroll: “Sylvie and Bruno”, “The Hunting of the Snark”, “Midnight Problems”, “The Knot Story”, “What the Turtle 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 photography exhibition “The Human Race” (1956), English photographers of the 19th century were represented by a single photograph by Lewis Carroll.
In Russia, Carroll has been widely known since the end of the last century. Fairy tales about Alice have been 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 carried out 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"
Magazine publisher and writer Edmund Yates advised Dodgson to come up with a pseudonym, and in Dodgson's Diaries an entry appears dated February 11, 1865: “Wrote to Mr. Yates, offering him a choice of pseudonyms:
1) Edgar Cutwellis [the name Edgar Cutwellis 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 - Ludwick - Louis, Carroll from Charles].
4) Lewis Carroll [by the same principle of “translation” of the names 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 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 works 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 Algebraic Analysis of the Fifth Book of Euclid (The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically, 1858 and 1868), Notes on Algebraic Planimetry (A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry, 1860), An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, 1867 ) and Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879), Mathematical Curiosities (Curiosa Mathematica, 1888 and 1893), Symbolic Logic (1896).
Children interested Dodgson from a young age; As a boy, he invented games, composed stories and poems, and drew pictures for his younger brothers and sisters. Dodgson’s unusually strong attachment to children (and girls almost ousted boys from his circle of friends) puzzled 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 became friends earlier than anyone else - the children of Liddell, the dean of his college: Harry, Lorina, Alice (Alice), Edith, Rhoda and Violet. Alice was a favorite, and soon became the heroine of the 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 Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell and Canon Duckworth on July 4, 1862 near Godstow, on the upper Thames. Alice asked 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. MacDonald, he rewrote the book for a wider range of readers, adding several more stories previously told to the Liddell children, and in July 1865 he published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A sequel, also from earlier stories and later stories told to the young Liddells at Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham, in April 1863, appeared at Christmas 1871 (1872) under the title Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Seen There. What Alice Found There). Both books were illustrated by D. Tenniel (1820–1914), who followed Dodgson's exact instructions.
Both Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass talk about events that happen as if in a dream. Breaking down 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 play on situations in games such as croquet or cards. Through the Looking Glass has a greater unity of plot compared to Wonderland. Here Alice finds herself in a 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. This book also features popular nursery rhyme characters, notably Humpty Dumpty, who interprets “made-up” words in “Jabberwocky” with a comically professorial air.
Dodgson was good at humorous poetry, and he published some of the poems from the Alice books in the Comic Times (a supplement to the Times newspaper) in 1855 and in 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 (the English name Charles Lutwidge was first Latinized to become Carolus Ludovicus, and then the two names were reversed and were again anglicized). This pseudonym was used to sign both books about Alice and the collections of poems Phantasmagoria (Phantasmagoria, 1869), Poems? Meaning? (Rhyme? And Reason?, 1883) and Three Sunsets (1898). The poetic epic in the genre of nonsense, The Hunting of the Snark (1876), also became famous. The novel Sylvie and Bruno (Sylvie and Bruno, 1889) and its second volume, The Conclusion of Sylvie and Bruno (Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, 1893) are distinguished by the complexity of their composition and the mixing of elements of a realistic narrative and a fairy tale.
The wonderful world of Lewis Carroll has captivated both adults and children for almost one hundred and fifty years. Books about Alice are read all over the world. And even 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 imagination of a person freely glides, free from the burdens of “adult” life, which is why the characters encountered along the way and the adventures experienced by Alice are so close to children. Alice's universe, created in a momentary impulse, shocked the whole world. Probably no work of art 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 imagination would lead the little heroine, and certainly did not know how his fairy tale would resonate in the hearts of millions of people.
Alice's journey to Wonderland and the mysterious Through the Looking Glass takes place as if in a dream. The travels themselves can hardly be called a logically complete narrative. It is rather a series of bright, sometimes absurd, sometimes funny and touching events and memorable meetings with characters. A new literary technique - breaking up the narrative into episodes - made it possible to reflect the flavor of British life, take a fresh look at traditional English hobbies such as croquet and card games, and play on popular sayings and proverbs. Both books contain many nursery rhymes, the characters of which later became very popular.
According to critics, Lewis Carroll was especially good at humorous poems. He published his poetry separately in popular periodicals such as The Times, Train, and College Rhimes. A 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 Latwidge Dodgson turned into Lewis Carroll. This pseudonym appeared on both books about Alice’s adventures and on numerous collections of poems. Lewis Carroll is also the author of The Hunting of the Snark, a poem in the heat of the absurd, 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 world of fantasy, so close to both our dreams and the realities of our everyday life.