"Wonderland as a poetic world"

Résumé du document

Published in 1865, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland offers us a story characterized by humour, fantasy and nonsense. Originally entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground, it tells how the young Alice dreams she follows a White Rabbit down to a rabbit hole, and how she strolls in a fantastic world, Wonderland, inhabited by whimsical creatures. This world, which has been first created by Carroll to divert children, is often considered as a poetic one. But is Wonderland indeed a poetic world? The adjective "poetic" implies many notions: poetic language, creation, beauty, emotion. To what extent could we consider that both Lewis Carroll and Alice have created a poetic world? Are there limits to the poetic vision that the reader can have of Wonderland? In order to answer these questions, we will first study the poetic language of Wonderland; then we will explain how imagination and nonsense, which characterize the world, creates poetry. Finally, we will endeavour to stress the limits that can be found to the poetic vision of Wonderland. What characterize first Wonderland are its inhabitants; and those inhabitants reveal much of their personality through their conversations. Carroll manages to create both a poetic and innovative language.

Extraits

[...] From the “Caucus race” (Chapter to the “mockturtle” in Chapter 9 Mockturtle Story”, both Alice and Carroll manage to create new species, new habits that constitute this world, which corresponds to their sensibility. c. The poetical world of the reader But Wonderland is not only the world of Carroll and Alice: it also becomes the world of the reader. Indeed, Wonderland is an access to the inner reality of Carroll and Alice. Wonderland is also a poetical world because we can enter it, and it can become our world. We could quote Samuel T. [...]

[...] The process of creation of Wonderland is also comparable with the creation of poetry. A poetical world is a world which exists in the present moment-the moment during which the poet had imagined it-and in the long term-the poem as a written work which can be read by future generations. Wonderland partakes of this duality: it is both a fleeting world-because it exists only during the dream of Alice-and an eternal one-through the book written by Carroll. b. Carroll invents a new world through nonsense: Wonderland as a poetical work But what is the most poetical aspect of Wonderland is the fact it is a complete imaginary world. [...]

[...] Pilmico KELLY, Richard, Lewis Carroll, Ed. Twaine LEAR, Edward, The Complete Nonsense and Other Verse, Ed. Penguin MARRET, Sophie, GASQUET, Lawrence, RENAUD-GROSBRAS, Pascale, et al., Lewis Carroll et les mythologies de l'enfance, Ed. Presses Universitaires de Rennes PARISOT, Henri, Lewis Carroll, Ed. Seghers SIMPSON, John Andrew, WEINER, Edmund S.C., The Oxford English Dictionary (volume Ed. Clarendon Press STOFFEL, Stephanie Lovett, Lewis Carroll and Alice, Ed. Thames and Hudson WORDSWORTH, William, COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor, Lyrical Ballads, Ed. Oxford University Press, 1959. [...]

[...] But is Wonderland indeed a poetic world? The adjective implies many notions: poetic language, creation, beauty, emotion. To what extent could we consider that both Lewis Carroll and Alice have created a poetic world? Are there limits to the poetic vision that the reader can have of Wonderland? In order to answer these questions, we will first study the poetic language of Wonderland; then we will explain how imagination and nonsense, which characterize the world, creates poetry. Finally, we will endeavour to stress the limits that can be found to the poetic vision of Wonderland. [...]

[...] The particular speech of Wonderland is thus poetical, insofar as it is an innovative one. Carroll is able to play with the words, and creates his own phraseology: and isn't it the very purpose of a poet? He works on language, giving it a particular rhythm, playing on sounds and meanings, making this language fit to his imagination. As Alice, who “quite forgot how to speak good English” , Carroll dares to play with the grammatical rules of English, when he makes Alice says “Curiouser and curiouser!” (Chapter Pool of Tears”). [...]