The poet and the child: the literary-visual expression and the creative impulse of Lewis Carroll

Abstract

This article proposes an exploration of the context of the emergence of Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There (1871), presenting curious facts about the author and his creative process. Raising some manifestations that reflect the poetics of this multifaceted artist – producer of poetry, prose, drawings, games and photographs –, the article punctuate relationships established between word and image – especially from an interdisciplinary approach, reverberating voices of authors such as Rui de Oliveira (2008), Benjamin (1984), Didi-Huberman (2017), Jacques Lacan (1971), among others. Throughout the study, cross-readings are articulated, departing from the three Carroll’s poems that are attached to Alice’s editions, since they enable the reader to permeate the interlacings between the textual and the visual, the past and the contemporary, the life and the art work, the poet and the child – his inspiring muse.