Sonnets for the cradle

July 4, 1862 must have been quite a sunny day in the environs of Oxford on the Thames River in England. They hardly ever remembered that across the ocean it was Independence Day in the midst of the Civil War. A 30-year-old mathematics don from Oxford University, together with a fellow teacher, took three little Liddell girls on a picnic. One of the three, 8 years old, deliberately pretending she was bored, asked for a tale – immediately. Her name was Alice Liddell.

Anon, to sudden silence won,

In fancy they pursue

The dream-child moving through a land

Of wonders wild and new,

In friendly chat with bird or beast –

And half believe it true.

The story later became Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a classical book for young readers. Together with its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, the book is a letter to the world of childhood written by a witty and caring adult. As such, it belongs in the great company of Andersen's fairy-tales, Aesop's and La Fontaine's fables, and Edward Lear's nonsense rhymes. The rules for writing that kind of letter are severe. They include no 'writing down' to children; economical simplicity of style; no compromise with the temptation to be whimsical or cute. Such letters cannot be faked, written to order, nor manufactured. Charles L. Dodgson's story satisfied that on all counts.

As Horace Gregory writes in the preface to Carroll's edition, "The Muse that visited Dodgson, alias Carroll, was as strict as one that visits a gifted poet; the making of money and the rewards of fame are not among her intentions. Dodgson's peculiar Muse who guided him had the appearance of being a Divine Amateur, for by profession Dodgson was an exemplary Oxford Don, a mathematician and sub-librarian at Christ Church College".

Thus, July 4 becomes a historical date twice: it's the birthday of a new nation and the day when a peculiar kind of children's literature was born. The advent of this poetry was a literary revolution no less great in scope than the American or the French one in politics. As always, this revolution did not come like a bolt from the blue. It is the result of a long literary tradition.