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Monday, October 29, 2001
Was Lewis Carroll's interest in Alice sinister?
It is true that the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, otherwise known as Lewis Carroll, author of the inimitable classics Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, liked little girls. Or, as he once wrote: "I am fond of children (except boys)." He took exquisite, melancholy photographs of little girls. He befriended little girls on trains, and beaches, and in the houses of friends. And one particular little girl, Alice Liddell, came to be his muse and great passion.
Guardian Unlimited Books
posted by Marco Graziosi Monday, October 29, 2001
Saturday, October 27, 2001
Classic Review - Just So Stories
I t was only a century ago, as everybody remembers, that literary sucklings were nurtured on the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, and Fox's Book of Martyrs. This was not in all respects an admirable diet for readers of any age, but it had its good points. There is a chance that an imaginative child may be helped toward a taste for good literature by having to amuse himself with that or nothing; he may delight in the rhythm of great poetry or the stately march of great prose before he can get an inkling as to what it is all about. But the situation is hardly imaginable nowadays, since children have plenty of reading to amuse themselves with besides the best. They are no longer required to be seen and not heard, or to put up with the scraps of literature which may fall from the wholesome (that is, tiresome) table of their elders. A much pleasanter bill of fare is being provided for them, and it is confidently expected that the early courses of sugarwater and lollipop will gently and kindergartenly induce an appetite for the ensuing roast. The fact is, our guilt has come home to us. We have not been treating the child properly for the past ten thousand years or so, and we are in a creditable hurry to make it up to him, at the expense of our own rights if necessary; and we do books, among other things, in his honor, by way of propitiating him.
[This review of Kipling's Just So stories from the Atlantic Monthly of May 1903, while not mentioning Lear, emphasises the change that occured in the perception of children's literature during the XIX c.]
posted by Marco Graziosi Saturday, October 27, 2001
Ship of fools. All aboard! by Vivien Noakes
EDWARD LEAR would have been delighted, though not, I think, entirely surprised that The Owl and The Pussycat was recently voted the nation’s favourite children’s poem. “Nonsense is the breath of my nostrils,” he once wrote, and his joy in absurdity reflected his whole approach to “this ludicrously whirligig life which one suffers first & laughs at afterwards”.
The Times
posted by Marco Graziosi Saturday, October 27, 2001
Friday, October 26, 2001
John Gould's Birds of Australia
A page from the Treasures of the Library section of the National Library of Australia.
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 26, 2001
Saturday, October 13, 2001
'Ascending Peculiarity': How Gorey Became Gorey
How Gorey became Gorey is the heart of the 21 interviews with assorted writers and critics, dated from 1973 to 1999, the year before his death, collected in ''Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey,'' edited by Karen Wilkin, an art critic who also contributes a useful introduction.
The New York Times Book Review
posted by Marco Graziosi Saturday, October 13, 2001
Thursday, October 04, 2001
'Owl and the Pussy-Cat' voted favourite children's poem
Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" has been voted Britain's favourite children's poem in the first public poll of its kind, carried out by the BBC.
Independent
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, October 04, 2001
Top poetry is complete nonsense
In a 1998 poll The Owl and the Pussy-cat ranked only 8th, but this was for "comic poems".
BBC News | Entertainment (October 10, 1998)
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, October 04, 2001
What's your favourite children's poem?
Here you can read most of the top ten poems.
BBC - Arts - Poetry
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, October 04, 2001
Poet extols verse's 'healing' quality
Some 1,000 balloons bearing the words of The Owl and the Pussy-Cat - voted the country's best-loved children's poem - were released into the London skies.
BBC News | ARTS
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, October 04, 2001
The top ten votes
1 The Owl and the Pussy-Cat Edward Lear
2 Matilda Hilaire Belloc
3 Don’t Michael Rosen
4 Jabberwocky Lewis Carroll
The Times
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, October 04, 2001
Owl and the Pussy-Cat sail to the top
POETRY lovers, young and old, have voted Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussy-Cat their favourite children’s poem in a nationwide poll.
The BBC poll, which was launched to celebrate National Poetry Day today, invited poetry lovers to vote for their favourite children’s verse.
The Times
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, October 04, 2001
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