The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in Eight Fits ) (English Hunting of the Snark - an agony in eight fits ) is a nonsense ballad of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ( 1832-1898 ), better known as Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland.
The ballad was written in verse, first published in 1876 with numerous illustrations by Henry Holiday.
Content
The poem is a ballad about a strange hunting expedition that sets out with care, hope and a completely blank map ocean to catch a mysterious creature called the Snark.
The Snark unites in itself unusual properties. So he is practically on lighting of lights, has the habit of getting up in the afternoon, can not take a joke and loves bathing machines. And when the baker thought at the end of the ballad to have finally found him, he was gone, because the Snark was a Boojum.
The crew is headed by Bellman ( Bellman ) with its bell. It consists of eight representatives of different professions: a butcher, a bootblack, a hood maker, a lawyer, a Billardmarkeur ( score counter at pool ), a banker, a stockbroker and a baker. All of these have in common that their job titles begin with the letter B in English. This also applies to the beaver, which is as the tenth figure the only animal in the hunt. One of the characters ( the baker ), had received on the day when the ship of the hunting party set sail warning that some Snarks are Boojums, and who has the bad luck to meet a Boojum, which is immediately " softly and suddenly" disappear.
Later in the text, the hunting adventure of individual members of the expedition are described, wherein the Snark turns up in all sorts of roles and situations, while frightening, destructive or autocratic occurs.
Structure
The text is divided into an introduction and eight chapters, which are called in German transmission as cramps.
The English subtitle on Agony in Eight Fits is ambiguous. Fit means in English both " fit, feel good ," and " crampy or paralyzing attack " as well as in ancient parlance, the " portion of a poem ." The individual chapters are labeled Fit the First to Fit the Eighth.
- In the preface the author solicits understanding of the obvious absurdity of the whole poem, whose " moral purpose ", " arithmetic principles " and " honorable teachings in Natural History" he did not want to point separately.
- The first spasm describes the landing of the expedition in a strange, unnamed beach.
- In the second spasm of the Bellman gives a speech with a rather cryptic description of the Snark.
- The third seizure is about the appalling history of the baker.
- In the fourth cramp the actual hunt begins.
- The fifth spasm describes how the beaver and the butcher closer to each other.
- In the sixth spasm of the attorney met the Snark in a dream.
- The seventh spasm is the misfortune of the bankers.
- In the eighth cramp it comes to the final confrontation with the Snark.
The Hunting Party
With the exception of boots, all figures are shown in the illustrations by Henry Holiday:
Interpretation
Since 1962 there is an issue with preface and notes by Martin Gardner extensive, which has worked already Carroll equal to more famous stories Alice in Wonderland. Gardner points out in his comments on the ballad that Carroll himself had said that the Snark was a portmanteau word, in the Snail ( Snail ) and Shark ( Shark) will summarized. Furthermore, Gardner cites a reference that also Snake (Snake) could be included in the word. To understand the "difficult words" in the text Carroll advises himself in the preface of the ballad, to comply with Humpty Dumpty's "theory" of such words: two meanings are packed into a word. Carroll wrote to the various attempts at interpretation of the Snark in 1897, a year before his death, ( loosely translated ) in a letter that the importance Boojum Snark only have:
In his studies of the literary nonsense Klaus Reichert doubted the sincerity of such statements Carroll. Reichert suggested that Carroll himself "is stupid" with such " tricks " against attempts at explanation only. Oliver Sturm interpreted Carroll's remark that the last line of the ballad had suddenly occurred to him during a beautiful summer day on a walk, as a " flypaper for critics ".
Henry Holiday shows a masked Snark in his illustration to Fit the Sixth. There the Snark the lawyer appears in the dream. A publication of the picture of a Snarks in front view, the proposed Holiday for the last chapter of The Vanishing, refused Carroll.
The ballad in German-speaking
In English-speaking legendary, the poem in German-speaking countries is hardly known. However, there are several German translations of the " agony in eight convulsions ", including The Hunt for the Snark by Klaus Reichert ( Island Library 934, the Reclam edition, The hunt for the Snitch by Oliver Sturm und The Hunting of the Snark by Michael Ende. At the same Singspiel by Wilfried Hiller wrote the libretto Michael Ende.
Influence of the ballad
The term is used among other things in graph theory and physics as a term and also appeared in the novel version of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to denote their discoveries as snarks and Boojums in the two scientists. In English-speaking is occasionally referred to the ballad. So part of the Bellman 's Speech is cited in which the leader of the hunting party defined that was true, what he said three times. In its decision of 20 June 2008 on a military tribunal process at Guantanamo writes a U.S. federal court: " We are not Persuaded. Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the factthat the government Has ' said it thrice ' does not make an allegation true " and thus refers to the First Fit.
In music, the Snark was adapted in several variants for the stage and in musicals or concept album, for example, by Mike Batt. A construction for Snark itself is Arne Nordheim's Return of the Snark (1987 ) for trombone and tape. On Nordheim's composition built " The Hunting of the Snark " of the jazz collective NYNDK (2009) on. As a jazz - singing, there are also all eight chapters of the Snark on a CD of jazz / soul singer Bajka Pluwatsch (2010).
In the broadcast version of his novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams chose a numbering of the " Fits", as it is also found in Carroll's ballad. In the novel by Douglas the number 42 also plays an important role. Martin Gardner points out that this number for Carroll's " some kind of special significance " have: Carroll used the number 42 as chosen randomly appearing in Alice in Phantasmagoria and the Snark, there in two different contexts.
In the computer game Half -Life comes before a roughly fist-sized, reminiscent of a rhinoceros beetle creature called Snark.