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| Aurora and Tithonus, by Giovanni da S. Giovanni, Galleria degli Uffizi |
I contest that the reference is not (or at least not just) the Three Fates, but their sisters the Hours.
In Lewis Carroll's time, readers would have been familiar with the Hours through Lord Tennyson's re-telling of the tragic tale of 'Tithonus:' A mortal, Tithonus falls in love with Eos (or Aurora, the goddess of Dawn). He asks Zeus for the gift of immortality, so he can enjoy never-ending days by his lover's side.
The Hours grow angry at this breach of mortal limitations and strike Tithonus with the cruel hand of time. He must spend eternity as an old withered man while Eos, who has since moved on, grows young again with each break of dawn. Tennyson's poem takes the form of a monologue whereby Tithonus laments eternity as an old man.
I've highlighted below the ways I believe the Alice verse alludes to Tennyson's poem. I'd love to know anyone else's thoughts on this.
"Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only yesterday – the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight – the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her – the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet – and the black shadows of the forest behind – all this she took in like a picture, as with one hand shading her eyes, she leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half-dream, to the melancholy music of the song."
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| Eos, by Evelyn de Morgan, 1985 |
It is a convincing argument to me. I did sort of wonder about the knight, that makes sense to me.
ReplyDeleteThanks Fence! Glad to hear feedback.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Eve! That was enlightening. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is an extraordinarily beautiful interpretation backed by the kind of close reading I adore. I can't remember where it is, or I would post it. But the poet Anne Sexton once published a close reading she did of another poet, maybe her beloved, fellow poet Maxine Kumin. I don't remember. But in its scrutiny of the language, it reminds me of her. This is so preferable to me to flatfooted symbol hunting and then forcing the text to fit the symbolic reading. You make the text open up to reveal its secrets. Love it.
ReplyDeleteTo me the reading is utterly convincing. I wish I could say I read Alice closely enough to expand upon it based on other sections of the book, but I didn't. I was thrilled by the end just to be able to like reading it and didn't give it the attention I ended up giving say Frankenstein. However, had I read this post first, you can bet I would have, from the get go, given it the attention it deserved.
I look forward to your posts on Hawthorne and Poe. I'm already an admirer of Hawthorne, but maybe you can, without one of your insightful readings, get me to think more of Poe.
Well done. Gives me a lot to think about. I never really connected to two. I think this is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteThat was stunning, Cleuci!
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