As he remarks in one of his
own poems:
Then, fourthly, there are epithets
That suit with any word--
As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce
With fish, or flesh, or bird.
Such epithets, like pepper,
Give zest to what you write;
And, if you strew them sparely,
They whet the appetite;
But if you lay them on too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!
Both Lear and Carroll suffered from the undiscerning critics who
persisted in seeing in their nonsense a hidden meaning, a cynical,
political, or other intent, veiled under the apparent foolery. Lear
takes occasion to deny this in the preface to one of his books, and
asserts not only that his rhymes and pictures have no symbolical
meaning, but that he "took more care than might be supposed to make
the subjects incapable of such misinterpretation."
Likewise, "Jabberwocky" was declared by one critic to be a
translation from the German, and by others its originality was
doubted. The truth is, that it was written by Lewis Carroll at an
evening party; it was quite impromptu, and no ulterior meaning was
intended. "The Hunting of the Snark" was also regarded by some as an
allegory, or, perhaps, a burlesque on a celebrated case, in which
the _Snark_ was used as a personification of popularity, but Lewis
Carroll protested that the poem had no meaning at all.
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