42 Seconds Under Ground: The Photography of Lewis Carroll
Published May 27, 2004
Victorian notions of childhood and the fact that they had a difficult time defining its parameters and the age of consent are important considerations that must be remembered if we are to have a true understanding of any art, including Dodgson's, created during the era. To impose a contemporary understanding of childhood on these pictures would be a mistake. Childhood then was far more fleeting then than it is today, and it was not at all uncommon for children, especially of the lower classes, to begin work at age twelve, or even younger.
In the more comfortable classes, Victorian girls spent their days learning how to be "ladylike and proper," how to sew and do other handicrafts, from the family nurse or nanny (in the Liddells' case, the nanny was a certain Miss Pritchett, whom many believe is represented by the strict Red Queen in the Alice books). They were expected to be "properly" dressed in layers of confining, itchy petticoats and white summer frocks, clearly not intended for frolicking in the grass. Never mind that in "polite" society, children did not remove their stockings and shoes. Had these children ever had the pleasure of feeling the morning dew on the grass underfoot? Consider how revolutionary it must have been, how controversial, that so many of Dodgson's children appear barefoot in photographs, something that was simply not done in their milieu. One of the most valuable contributions made by both of these new books is that they tell how the rumors about Dodgson began. They unravel the mystery, present the pictures in their completeness, allowing us to view them from a fresh perspective, free (or at least aware) of the particular interpretation that has weighed so heavily on them.
It is widely known that the Victorians were preoccupied with mythologizng children, rendering them as innocent water nymphs, frolicking jollily along the shoreline, floating in the air as cherubs, or even as full-breasted women strangely lacking in pubic hair. In this Cult of the Child, children (and women, for that matter) were sexless, yet suggestive. Their sexuality was decorated with the props of innocence, flowers and wings, halos and purifying baths, promoting, as Bram Dijkstra put it, "a genre of child pornography that disguised itself as a tribute to the ideal of innocence." (195, Idols of Perversity) Children were presented provocatively, but in a form that was acceptable. Still, if you strip away the props and the pretense cfrom these airbrushed and dilute images, a more perverse, more fetishistic rendering is revealed.
It is interesting to compare Dodgson's photographs with the nude children taken by contemporaries like Julia Margaret Cameron and Oscar Gustave Rejlander, who, while they did not fully escape judgement, somehow managed to avoid the label of "pervert" that has landed squarely on Dodgson's soldiers. Or, for that matter, with the paintings of William Stephen Coleman (whose children, Roger Taylor notes, were "happy to be naked in the perpetual sunlight of his imagination"), Paul Chabas, Paul Peele, Leon Frederic, and others. It was not the nudity or the age that offended: naked children were, in fact, "a favorite subject matter" (104, Princeton) in popular art at the time. Moreover, Dodgson photographed relatively few nude studies: "eight sessions spread over thirteen years involving the children of six families." (107, Princeton)
- 42 Seconds Under Ground: The Photography of Lewis Carroll
- Published: May 27, 2004
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- Section: Books
- Writer: Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti
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agreed. it is sad. I don't judge him that way myself, and i hope that is clear in the piece. It would indeed be sad if he were judged so. I'd like to think that as biographers, we really do our research before condemning anyone to something as serious as that... Let's hope so.
Be well
s.r.p.
exceptional and infomative - I love your theory on stopping time
I also have found Lewis Carroll's writings exceptional.
I wasn't aware of his suffering from epilepsy and stuttered. I think this goes a long way to explaining his love of photography and his preference for the company of children.
I also prefer not to think of him as a creepy pedophile although there are some more modern "art photographers" that I would consider coming under that category.
Thanks for the book reviews.
This is a fascinating essay, especially the part about the epilepsy (which I'd never heard of).
It's interesting to contemplate how our view of photographs differ from other generations. The generational difference is seen today by how nonchalantly teenagers take photos of themselves and friends without inhibition (and how in contrast, a middle aged man or woman grumpily declines).
The novelty of the device in Dodgson's time probably ensured that neither parents nor children thought too hard about issues of exploitation. It also ensured that poses were more spontaneous (contrast this with Americans who see glamour shots of all kinds of models everyday and everywhere).
Aside from the pseudo-prurience of these photos, it would be interesting to view these photos as indicating what people of that time period considered as tableux. In that time, the cliches were cherubs; in the time of playboy pinups, the cliches were water hoses and horses and automobiles. Future historians will find the setups more fascinating that the models themselves.
a pity there is no posting of his pictures
i can organize some pics online for you to look at. give me a few days and i'll post the link and you can go to it. be sure to check back. i'll try and get it done before the end of the day on monday and will post the link back here.
be well,
sadi
here is the link on my site to Dodgson's photographs. i've uploaded quite a good sample, but no doubt, this will increase over time....
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/display/ShowGallery?moduleId=68673&galleryId=8877
cut and paste that into your browser, OR,
go to
www.tantmieux.squarespace.com and go to IMAGES and then select the gallery marked Lewis Carroll nee Charles Dodgson.
Hope this helps and good luck...
Cheers,
Sadi
Excellent work, enjoyed exploring the essay.
Interestingly, Dodgson's epilepsy is, of course, a matter of some dispute. The fact that he tended towards neologisms, clang assosications and listmaking, indicates bipolar disorder rather than/in addition to temporal absence epilepsy.
While looking up Dodgson's epilepsy, I happened across this interesting medical diagnosis, termed Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.
yes, i've heard of alice in wonderland syndrome. i believe it's called that becaus eof the macropsia and micropsia, that are common to many temporal lobe seizures. the sense of time, things growing and shrinking, even the headaches, as you noted, the listmaking, the compulsive hypergraphia, etc etc. are all signs.
Dodgson WAS officially diagnosed in his life several times as someone with temporal lobe epilepsy and had several grand mal seizures that are well-documented, themost famous of them being the one at the chapel at Christ Church where he was teaching. He was on several medications for seizures though none of them agreeable. He also had the classic migraine symptoms that often accompany TLE and took Dilaudid and other opiates for this.
His friend Tennyson was also diagnosed with epilepsy and took treatment for it, though he was very private about it.
this is understandable; at the time, epileptics were considered 'insane' or 'mad' and were often confined to asylums. sad, when i know that in other cultures, epileptics are often revered as shamans and medicine men (inuit and native american cultures often do this).
What would be best would be for those with epilepsy to be treated just like everyone else, or for society to recognize the many good qualities that often accompany TLE and the many great men and women who have been the best leaders, artists, writers, etc. who all had well-documented cases - a few, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Van Gogh, Napoleon, Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Alfred Nobel, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagorus, Lewis Carroll (of course), Tennyson, as noted, and on and on... i'm compiling a master list of document cases only that i hope to soon have on my site.
Be well, and thanks for reading...
Sadi
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Charles Dodgeson is a phenomenal genius. I regard the Alice books as my favorite ever written, and I have a literature degree to back that up. It's unfortunate that history will probably judge him as a creepy pedophile. He was a mathmatic genius, and several of the passages in the second book (through the looking glass) are actually working puzzles.
The first piece of music I wrote I put to Charles Dodgeson words (I think it was Shadowland).
take care,
lono