Lear and Carroll
HE only thing that jarred on me in the first programme of 2YA’s Book of Verse series was that, in the course of his opening remarks on the nature of nonsense, the speaker stated that though the Germans could perhaps produce a treatise on the Philosophic Concept of Nonsénse they were incapable of produding any themselves. This idea was treated with more finesse in Pimpernel Smith, and is somewhat irrelevant to the discussion on hand. However, in other respects the programme left little to be desired, and devotees of Lear and/or Carroll did not feel the necessity of shouting "Off with his head!"
Daniel George and his assistants did not commit what Montaigne considers the primary etror of taking nonsense too seriously, but they took time off from enjoying themselves in declaiming ‘"Beware the Jabberwock, my son,’ of smacking their lips over "a serene and sickly suavity only known to the truly virtuous" to throw out a few illuminating comments, to trace the mathematical logic, "the wild gleams of reason" behind Carroll’s nonsense verse, and to draw attention to Lear’s perfect rhythm and unfailing instinct for the right word.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 368, 12 July 1946, Page 14
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192Lear and Carroll New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 368, 12 July 1946, Page 14
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