The Hunting of the Snark,
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โ๐ ๐
๐ฏ๐ผ ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ฎ๐ ๐๐จ๐บ๐๐ญโ๐ ๐
๐ฏ๐ผ ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ฎ๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ฝโ |
โI said it in HebrewโI said it in Dutchโ |
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The Hunting of the Snark was first published in 1876, eleven years after Aliceโs Adventures in Wonderland and four years after Through the Looking-Glass. It is a masterยญpiece of nonsense and is connected to Through the Looking-Glass by its use of vocabulary from the poem โJabberwockyโ. The Hunting of the Snark is a strangely dark poem, and some critics believe that its themesโinsanity and deathโare rather too adult in nature for childrenโs literature. We know, nonetheless, that Lewis Carroll intended the poem to be enjoyed by children: he dedicated the book in acrostic verse to his young friend Gertrude Chataway, and signed some 80 presentation copies to other young readers. Many of those inscriptions were in the form of an acrostic based upon the name of the child to whom the book was presented. Part of the pleasure of reading this book is in the inevitable musing about what it means. Its author, often asked to explain his work, invariably replies that he does not know. In his splendid book The Annotated Hunting of the Snark, Martin Gardner cites several such replies by Carroll:
Wellโฆ the author has told us more than thrice. So it must be true. It is therefore open to readers of the poem to decide the question for themselvesโฆ The Deseret alphabet was developed in the mid-19th century by the board of regents of the University of Deseret (later the University of Utah) under the direction of Brigham Young, second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was intended to help make learning to write English easier. This wasnโt very successful, though the alphabet does have interesting phonemic features, as well as being a fascinating part of Mormon history. This edition of Aliceโs Adventures in Wonderland is written entirely in that same alphabet, with fonts specially designed by John H. Jenkins and and myself. I would like to thank John Jenkins for his transcription of the text into the Deseret alphabet. Michael Everson |
HTML Michael Everson, Evertype, 73 Woodgrove, Portlaoise, R32 ENP6, Ireland, 2016-02-29
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