The thing is, I was familiar with food, so I knew what bread and butter were. And I knew what a rocking horse was. But a snapdragon? Those were flowers, weren't they? What did that have to do with this thing with a raisin head?
There is, of course, a story behind that. The game of snapdragon had a long and august history even in Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's time, and was still in vogue. Again, it would be years―nay, decades―before I learned of any of this. But the other thing is, my lack of knowledge about the game didn't stop me from liking the reference to it in the book. It was something just a little different from the everyday, otherworldly and yet of the world.
2 comments:
Tenniel's illustrations have always been my favorites of the 'Alice' books. There have been other good ones - Arthur Rackham high among them and Mervyn Peake, not so well known anymore but a highly skilled artist. But Tenniel set the tone for all of them.
https://eyemagazine.com/blog/post/peakes-wonderland
I liked reading the description in these links about just how dedicated Lewis Carroll was to all children. I'd never have guessed the comparison meant by the differences between 'the bread and butterfly' and 'the snap-dragonfly' were about the essential differences between rich and poor children.
The snap-dragon-fly is the affluent partner, made of plum-pudding and holly leaves, with a head made of a raisin burning in brandy. It lives on frumenty and mince-pie. The bread-and-butter-fly is the frugal partner, with wings of thin slices of bread-and-butter, a body made of a crust and a head of a lump of sugar. It lives on weak tea with cream in it — and if it is unable to get any, it cannot survive. With this stratagem, Lewis Carroll thus aims his children’s works at all classes of people.
And I'd never even heard about the game of snapdragon. Isn't it amazing how happy people were to have their children actively enjoying such dangerous entertainments - well, everybody played them but nobody appeared to keep their kids apart from the fun of plucking out the raisins and nuts. I'd sure think twice.
John Tenniel was the best illustrator that the Alice books could have gotten, as far as someone to introduce the story, setting, and characters to the world. Lewis Carroll had started out by illustrating the books himself, but wasn't satisfied with his own artistic talent. He knew Tenniel's work from Punch. The rest is history.
Peake was well-suited to the stories as well. He understood Carroll even if he came from a later time. I also like the Alice illustrations by American artist Milo Winter.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was an ordained deacon in the Anglican Church. Following this vocation, it seems he liked to put bits of moral instruction in his books. It never completely takes over, though.
The game of snapdragon appears very dangerous to us, but then it's fallen by the wayside long ago. To people who were familiar with it, it may not have struck them like that. So picking out the dragons was an acceptable risk/learning experience, by their lights.
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