Lewis Carroll and the Victorian Stage: Thearicals in a Quiet Life by Richard Foulkes

Abstract

MLR, I02.4, 2007 1147 Finale,' which also proves tobe Hassett's finaleand interpretative peak, a discussion centred on the poet's reading of Revelation, The Face of theDeep (I892), and also Verses (I893). Both texts are formalhybrids, biblical, exegetic, and lyrical,concerned 'not to arrange an argument but toorder the flowof emotions as these are felt in the timing of syllables and verses, the pacing of rhymes, and the overall momentum of stanzas' (p. 232). Allowing herself, and the reader, to experience but not be crushed by theviolence of feeling inherent in religious faith,Rossetti contains thenightmarish cruelty of Revelation within diligent close readings that recover but hold its inten sity.For Hassett, it isRossetti's sense that poetry grants such recovery thatmakes her such an enchanting and comfortingwriter. Hassett's readermight experience the same consolation by engaging with her vital and eloquent critical study. UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK EMMA MASON Lewis Carroll and theVictorian Stage: Theatricals in a Quiet Life. By RICHARD FOULKES. Aldershot: Ashgate. 2005. Xi+224 pp. 145. ISBN 978-o-7546 0466-2. In his new study of Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll, Richard Foulkes investigates every aspect of theatricality attached to the author of theAlice books, in the process uncovering many fascinating byways of theVictorian artistic and social scene. Dodg sonwas a highly contradictory character capable of espousing some liberal views while remaining a fundamentally strait-laced and censorious individual, and the story of his relationswith a variety of theatrical enterprises throughout his lifeoffersa sharply focused perspective on thisenigmatic man. In theperiod under consideration, during which Dodgson attended more than 400 productions, theBritish stage was under going a phase of expansion and diversification. We would look in vain, however, for any Carrollian response to Ibsen, Shaw, or Pinero, Dodgson's tastes remaining con servative throughout his life.Foulkes provides an insightful account ofDodgson's childhood theatrical activities, notably of his involvement inmarionette theatres.At Eton, Dodgson was plunged into a culture of play production, and this activity in tensified atOxford, where he came into contact with thenew Dean ofChrist Church, Dr Liddell, whose familywere devotees of amateur theatricals. Foulkes traces this milieu expertly, and analyses the subsequent activities of the 'Philothespians', whose production brought toOxford both Henry Irving and the young Ellen Terry. All these events, as Foulkes explains, were curiously entangled with the imbroglioover Dodgson's failure to take holy orders, and came to a head in his trip toMoscow in I867, where he saw a range of plays 'all inRussian' (p. 41). The enthusiasm for,and involvement in, theatrical devices of every kind would find expression in theAlice books, and Foulkes aptly uncovers the relation of transformation scenes, trial scenes, and other pantomimic techniques to those remarkable essays. It was inevitable that theAlice books would laterbe dramatized, and the impersonation of the heroine by theyoung Phoebe Carlo or Isa Bowman was capable ofprompting an ecstatic response from theauthor. Family entertainments featured largely in the middle-class homes to which Dodgson had access, and inhis relationship toGeorge MacDonald's domestic hearth Dodgson experienced a kind of surrogate paternity, engaging enthusiastically in their cult of amateur dramatics. But it isDodgson's long-running relationship with Ellen Terry that is of special significance here-this 'magically beautiful and vigorous child' (p. 9I) who was destined to become so controversial a figure in late Victorian culture. Dodgson's letters to Terry, Foulkes notes, illuminate his views on specific roles, her turbulent private life,and his habit of demanding favours for his young female protegees. This patronage led Dodgson to support the campaign I I48 Reviews against limitations on child employment on stage-one of the fewoccasions when he would enter thepublic arena. Itwas a practice which fell into two categories: first,his espousal of 'littleactress friends [. . .]of a rather lower status' (p. 123), and secondly his interest in young ladies of a higher class, towards whom Dodgson cultivated a 'snobbish protectiveness' (p. 123). This double-bind leads towards thevexed issue of Dodgson's photographic hobby. These aremurky waters, but Foulkes offers a clear headed and judicious account of the uses of photography in stage publicity and of Dodgson's development of a theatrically inflectedphotographic art. Foulkes devotes his...