"Haddocks' Eyes" is a song sung by The White Knight from

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

's 1871 novel ''

Through the Looking-Glass ''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'' (also known as ''Alice Through the Looking-Glass'' or simply ''Through the Looking-Glass'') is a novel published on 27 December 1871 (though indicated as 1872) by Lewis Carroll and the ...

'', chapter VIII. "Haddocks' Eyes" is an example used to elaborate on the symbolic status of the concept of " name": a name as identification marker may be assigned to anything, including another name, thus introducing different levels of symbolization. It has been discussed in several works on logic and philosophy.

Naming

The White Knight explains to Alice a confusing nomenclature for the song. To summarize: *The song's name is called ''Haddocks' Eyes'' *The song's name is ''The Aged Aged Man'' *The song is called ''Ways and Means'' *The song is ''A-sitting on a Gate'' The complicated terminology distinguishing between 'the song, what the song is called, the name of the song, and what the name of the song is called' both uses and mentions the

use–mention distinction The use–mention distinction is a foundational concept of analytic philosophy, according to which it is necessary to make a distinction between a word (or phrase) and it.Devitt and Sterelny (1999) pp. 40–1W.V. Quine (1940) p. 24 Many philos ...

The song

The White Knight sings the song to a tune he claims as his own invention, but which Alice recognises as " I give thee all, I can no more". By the time Alice heard it, she was already tired of poetry. The song parodies the plot, but not the style or metre, of "

Resolution and Independence "Resolution and Independence" is a lyric poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, composed in 1802 and published in 1807 in ''Poems in Two Volumes''. The poem contains twenty stanzas written in modified rhyme royal, and describes Word ...

" by

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication '' Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

Upon the Lonely Moor

Like "

Jabberwocky "Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865). The ...

," another poem published in ''Through the Looking Glass,'' "Haddocks’ Eyes" appears to have been revised over the course of many years. In 1856, Carroll published the following poem anonymously under the name ''Upon the Lonely Moor''. It bears an obvious resemblance to "Haddocks' Eyes."

References

{{Alice, state=expanded British poems 1871 poems Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Nonsense poetry Parodies of literature

Naming

The song

Upon the Lonely Moor

See also

References