The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in 8 Fits) is a poem written by English writer Lewis Carroll is typically categorised as a nonsense poem written from 1874 to 1876. But that is to overlook the very sense driven play with language he employs, including the use of deliberate category errors, and deliberate discrepancies that forms a surreality (before the word) out of logic and reality.
Widely varying interpretations of The Hunting of the Snark have been suggested, including the idea that:
it is a satire of the controversies between religion and science.According to Cohen, the poem represents a "voyage of life", with the Baker's disappearance caused by his violation of the laws of nature by hoping to unravel its mysteries. Lennon sees The Hunting of the Snark as "a tragedy of frustration and bafflement," comparable to British actor Charlie Chaplin's early comedies.
In the book Carroll, Lewis (2006) [1876]. The Annotated Hunting of the Snark. Edited with notes by Martin Gardner, there is an illustration by Henry Holiday of a strange and remarkable map.
In this annotated version of the Snark, following the stanza at the top of page 56 that reads:
'Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank'
(So the crew would protest) 'that he's bought us the best -
A perfect and absolute blank!'
There is a reference to footnote 21, that we can find at the bottom of Page 57, where Martin Gardner draws our attention to another equally intriguing map present in another work by the writer and mathematician Charles Dodgson publishing as Lewis Carroll.
In contrast, a map in Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, Chapter 11, has everything on it. The German Professor explains how his country's cartographers experimented with larger and larger maps until they finally made one with a scale of a mile to the mile. 'It has never been spread out, yet,' he says. 'The farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So now we use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.'Sources
Carroll, Lewis (2006) [1876]. The Annotated Hunting of the Snark. Edited with notes by Martin Gardner, illustrations by Henry Holiday and others, introduction by Adam Gopnik ("Definitive Edition" ed.). W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-06242-2.
Carroll, Lewis (1898). The Hunting of the Snark, an Agony in Eight Fits. Illustrations by Henry Holiday. The Macmillan Company. Retrieved 17 January 2008.
Clark, Anne (1979). Lewis Carroll: A Life. New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 978-0-8052-3722-1. OCLC 4907762.
Cohen, Morton N. (1995). Lewis Carroll: A Biography. Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-62926-4.
Kelly, Richard (1990). "Poetry: Approaching the Void". Lewis Carroll. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co. ISBN 978-0-8057-6988-3.
Lennon, Florence Becker (1962). The Life of Lewis Carroll: Victoria Through the Looking-Glass. New York: Collier Books. ISBN 0-486-22838-X. OCLC 656464.
Martin Gardner sees the poem as dealing with existential angst. Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010, was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer, with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literature—especially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton. He is recognized as a leading authority on Lewis Carroll. The Annotated Alice, which incorporated the text of Carroll's two Alice books, was his most successful work and sold over a million copies. He had a lifelong interest in magic and illusion and was regarded as one of the most important magicians of the twentieth century. He was considered the doyen of American puzzlers. He was a prolific and versatile author, publishing more than 100 books.
Gardner was considered a leading authority on Lewis Carroll. His annotated version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, explaining the many mathematical riddles, wordplay, and literary references found in the Alice books, was first published as The Annotated Alice (Clarkson Potter, 1960). Sequels were published with new annotations as More Annotated Alice (Random House, 1990), and finally as The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (Norton, 1999), combining notes from the earlier editions and new material. The original book arose when Gardner found the Alice books "sort of frightening" when he was young, but found them fascinating as an adult. He felt that someone ought to annotate them, and suggested to a publisher that Bertrand Russell be asked; when the publisher was unable to get past Russell's secretary, Gardner was asked to take on the project himself.
In addition to the "Alice" books, Gardner produced annotated editions of G. K. Chesterton's The Innocence Of Father Brown and The Man Who Was Thursday, as well as of celebrated poems including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Casey at the Bat, The Night Before Christmas, and The Hunting of the Snark; the last was also written by Lewis Carroll.
Gardner was best known for creating and sustaining interest in recreational mathematics—and by extension, mathematics in general—throughout the latter half of the 20th century, principally through his "Mathematical Games" columns. The column lasted for 25 years and was read avidly by the generation of mathematicians and physicists who grew up in the years 1956 to 1981. It was the original inspiration for many of them to become mathematicians or scientists themselves.
David Auerbach wrote:
A case can be made, in purely practical terms, for Martin Gardner as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. His popularizations of science and mathematical games in Scientific American, over the 25 years he wrote for them, might have helped create more young mathematicians and computer scientists than any other single factor prior to the advent of the personal computer.Auerbach, David (2013). A Delville of a Tolkar: Martin Gardner’s “Undiluted Hocus-Pocus” Los Angeles Review of Books, November 4, 2013
Gardner was one of the foremost anti-pseudoscience polemicists of the 20th century. His 1957 book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science became a classic and seminal work of the skeptical movement. In 1976 he joined with fellow skeptics to found CSICOP, an organization promoting scientific inquiry and the use of reason in examining extraordinary claims.
Gardner was an uncompromising critic of fringe science. His book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1952, revised 1957) debunked dubious movements and theories[77] including Fletcherism, Lamarckism, food faddism, Dowsing Rods, Charles Fort, Rudolf Steiner, Dianetics, the Bates method for improving eyesight, Einstein deniers, the Flat Earth theory, the lost continents of Atlantis and Lemuria, Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision, the reincarnation of Bridey Murphy, Wilhelm Reich's orgone theory, the spontaneous generation of life, extra-sensory perception and psychokinesis, homeopathy, phrenology, palmistry, graphology, and numerology. This book and his subsequent efforts (Science: Good, Bad and Bogus, 1981; Order and Surprise, 1983, Gardner's Whys & Wherefores, 1989, etc.) earned him a wealth of antagonists[Like whom?] in fringe science and New Age philosophy; he kept up running dialogues (both public and private) with many of them for decades.
In a review of Science: Good, Bad and Bogus, Stephen Jay Gould called Gardner "The Quack Detector", a writer who "expunge[d] nonsense" and in so doing had "become a priceless national resource."
In 1976 Gardner joined with fellow skeptics philosopher Paul Kurtz, psychologist Ray Hyman, sociologist Marcello Truzzi, and stage magician James Randi to found the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (now called the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). Luminaries such as astronomer Carl Sagan, author and biochemist Isaac Asimov, psychologist B. F. Skinner, and journalist Philip J. Klass became fellows of the program. From 1983 to 2002 he wrote a monthly column called "Notes of a Fringe Watcher" (originally "Notes of a Psi-Watcher") for Skeptical Inquirer, that organization's monthly magazine. These columns have been collected in five books starting with The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher in 1988.
Gardner was a relentless critic of self-proclaimed Israeli psychic Uri Geller and wrote two satirical booklets about him in the 1970s using the pen name "Uriah Fuller" in which he explained how such purported psychics do their seemingly impossible feats such as mentally bending spoons and reading minds.
Martin Gardner continued to criticize pseudoscience throughout his life. His targets included astrology, UFO sightings, chiropractic, vegetarianism, Madame Blavatsky, creationism, Scientology, the Laffer curve, Christian Science, and the Hutchins-Adler Great Books Movement. The last thing he wrote in the spring of 2010 (a month before his death) was an article excoriating the "dubious medical opinions and bogus science" of Oprah Winfrey—particularly her support for the thoroughly discredited theory that vaccinations cause autism; it went on to bemoan the "needless deaths of children" that such notions are likely to cause.
Skeptical Inquirer named him one of the Ten Outstanding Skeptics of the Twentieth Century. In 2010 he was posthumously honored with an award for his contributions in the skeptical field from the Independent Investigations Group. In 1982 the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry awarded Gardner its In Praise of Reason Award for his "heroic efforts in defense of reason and the dignity of the skeptical attitude", and in 2011 it added Gardner to its Pantheon of Skeptics.
Noam Chomsky once wrote:
"Martin Gardner's contribution to contemporary intellectual culture is unique—in its range, its insight, and understanding of hard questions that matter."Brown, Emma (2010). Martin Gardner, prolific math and science writer, dies at 95 The Washington Post, May 24, 2010
