ABSTRACT

Lewis Carroll, mathematician and logician, himself loved to add mottos, usually impertinent ones, to his works, even those written for professional purposes. As Jones and William Gladstone note, Carroll's academic satires were entirely in keeping with the modes of public discourse in his day: 'Visual and verbal satire of this kind had, by 1860, become an ubiquitous weapon of attack nationally in the Liberal-tending Punch in Oxford'. Carroll's satires came in many different forms: among others, a sham University announcement; a squib of alphabetic verse; dream visions; and a judgment scene set in Hades. It was natural enough that Carroll took to elaborate and riddling satire as his peculiar province and as his most effective means of expressing his opinions on public affairs. Carroll's strong opinions and basic ideological commitments were bound to shape the elements that expressed his satires with such apposite genius; his jokes were bound to be set in a register that was consonant with his values.