The Narrative of John Tenniel's Illustrations to Alice Adventures in Wonderland

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(1)National Taiwan Normal University Graduate Institute of Art History Master’s Degree Thesis. The Narrative of John Tenniel’s Illustrations to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 張泰明 Tai-Ming Chang. Advisor: Professor Candida Syndikus. 二○一八年八月 August 2018.

(2) Table of Contents 1. Introduction. 1. 2. State of Research. 6. 3. John Tenniel and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures. 12. 3.1. Life and Career of John Tenniel. 12. 3.2. The First Illustrator of Alice’s Adventures. 15. 4. Alice’s Adventures and its Illustrations. 17. 4.1. The Transformation of the Story Text. 18. 4.2. The Organization and Distribution of the Illustrations. 19. 4.3. The Functions of Tenniel’s Illustrations in Alice’s Adventures. 23. 5. Page Layout and Narrative. 29. 5.1. From Illustration to Page Layout. 30. 5.2. The Idea of the Visual Unit. 37. 5.3. Interplay between Image and Word. 38. 6. Scene Constructing and Narrative. 44. 6.1. Selection of Episodes. 44. 6.2. Selection of the Moment. 47. 6.3. Composition of Visual Elements. 52. 7. Point of View and Narrative. 59. 7.1. Theory and Practice. 60. 7.2. Types of Focalization in Tenniel’s Illustrations. 64. 7.2.1. External Focalization. 65. 7.2.2. Fixed Internal Focalization. 66. 7.2.3. Multiple-Internal Focalization. 68. 7.3. Discrepancies between Text and Illustrations with Regard to Focalization. 68. 8. Conclusion. 72. 9. Bibliography. 75. Appendix: Illustrations. 78. i.

(3) 中文摘要. 如今，每當我們提起《艾莉絲夢遊仙境》，大部分的讀者可能立刻想到故事的作者路易斯．卡洛 (1832–98)，而不是它的插畫者約翰．坦尼爾 (1820–1914)。然而，在 1865 年這本書初次出版發行的時候，情況正好相反。那會兒，正是拜這位在當時已經相當知名的卡通畫家——約翰．坦尼爾所賜，才得以為這本書招來眾多書評家們幾近一致的好評，連帶地也提昇了作者名聲。在過去一百五十多年裡。為數眾多的插畫家為這本書所創作的各種不同版本的插畫，冒出來後又消失，只有約翰．坦尼爾的版本未曾從市場中絕跡。如果我們說《艾莉絲夢遊仙境》的故事本身是個經典，事實上它也早已經是了，那麼，約翰．坦尼爾為它所做的插畫便是個傳奇。為了揭露坦尼爾的插畫傳奇，我將著重關注它們的敘事層面。那是一個在約翰．坦尼爾的插畫研究方面，即便稱不上完全被人遺忘，也算是素來遭到冷落的面向。考慮到坦尼爾的插畫長期在該領域所擁有的知名度，這個研究面向的缺失不免讓人驚訝。我的分析將從三個相互關連且能反應書籍插畫敘事性的面向著手，包括：版面構成（版面設計）、場景建構、以及敘事視角。這篇論文的目標可以概括為下面幾點：首先，在於展示「敘事方法研究」在分析約翰．坦尼爾的插畫，以獲取一個更為精當與深入解讀方面，發揮其莫大的用處；其次，在於呈現約翰．坦尼爾如何地為故事正文建構圖像敘事，亦即，他對故事的個人闡釋，以及對圖文的精采整合；最後，揭示約翰．坦尼爾插畫對於全書故事敘說發揮了何種程度的貢獻。. 關鍵字：約翰．坦尼爾、路易斯．卡洛、艾莉絲夢遊仙境、敘事方法、書本插畫. ii.

(4) English Abstract. When mentioning the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland today, most readers might immediately have in mind the story’s author, Lewis Carroll (1832–98), but not the illustrator John Tenniel (1820–1914). Yet, the situation at the time, when the book was first published in 1865, was quite the opposite. It was John Tenniel, a well-known cartoonist then, who invited almost all the positive comments from the critics on the book, and hence brought also fame to its author. In the past 150 years, countless new illustrated versions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, to which various draftsmen contributed, have appeared and then disappeared. Tenniel’s version, however, has never been out of the print. If the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is itself a classic, which it has long since been accepted to be, the fame of Tenniel’s illustrations to the book has also assumed mythic proportions. In order to unravel Tenniel’s legendary feats, I shall focus on various aspects of the narrative, which the studies on Tenniel’s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland have, up to now, scarcely addressed, if not totally neglected. Considering the drawings’ popularity over the time, this comes as a surprise. As far as the book illustration is concerned with narrative, my analysis will be concentrated on three interrelated aspects that are unique to the visual narrative of book illustration: the page layout, the construction of the scenes, and the point of view. The goals of the present thesis can be summarized in the following way: first, the usefulness of the narrative theory for the analysis of Tenniel’s illustrations will be demonstrated; the objective is to get a more in-depth understanding of the pictures in their context; second, it will be shown how Tenniel related his visual narrative to the text with regard to his personal interpretation of Carroll’s verbal narrative as well as iii.

(5) his integration between text and image; and finally, it will be discussed how Tenniel’s illustrations contribute to the overall narrative of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.. Keywords: John Tenniel, Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, narrative, book illustration. iv.

(6) 1. Introduction. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll1 (fig. 1) is considered today ―a book of major and permanent importance in the tradition of English fiction.‖2 This evaluation by Donald Rackin can also be attested by the fact that there have been an extraordinarily high number of illustrators of different countries at different times, who contributed illustrations to the text since the first publication of Alice’s Adventures.3 No wonder that this extraordinary work has long since been cherished as a classic among literature not only for children, but also for adults. The manuscript version, then titled Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (fig. 2),4 was illustrated by Lewis Carroll himself, although he was only an amateur in the practice of book illustration.5 It was John Tenniel, a renowned cartoonist at that time, who was to be the illustrator for the first printed edition of Alice’s Adventures.6 After Carroll‘s death, more and more illustrated versions of the book by various illustrators appeared on the market.7 While the text of Alice’s Adventures remained unchanged, its illustrators as well as the book‘s formats were constantly changing. This 1. Lewis Carroll was the pseudonym of the author Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who lived from 1832 to 1898. See Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll, London: T. Fisher, 1898, p. 9. 2 Donald Rackin, ―Alice‘s Journey to the end of night,‖ in: PMLA 81, No. 5, 1966, p. 313. 3 For the sake of convenience and brevity, the original book title ―Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland‖ will be shortened in the following to ―Alice‘s Adventures.‖ 4 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, original manuscript, 1862–64, British Library, London, Add MS 46700. This manuscript was later published in facsimile in 1886. 5 Ruskin told Carroll that ―he had not enough talent to make it worth his while to devote much time to sketching, but every one who saw his photographs admired them.‖ See Collingwood (as note 1), p. 102; Rodney Engen rightly says of Carroll that ―Dodgson (Carroll) was not without some artistic talent although it was of a decidedly amateurish nature.‖ See Rodney Engen, Sir John Tenniel Alice’s White Knight, England: Scolar Press, 1991, p. 68. 6 See Morton N. Cohen and Edward Wakeling (eds.), Lewis Carroll and His Illustrators, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 2003, p. 3. See also Engen (as note 5), p. 69; and Frankie Morris, Artist of Wonderland: The Life, Political Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 2005, p. 142. 7 According to John Davis‘s introduction to Graham Ovenden‘s Illustrators of Alice in Wonderland in 1972, there had been ―well over a hundred artists‖ venturing to illustrate this book. See Graham Ovenden and John Davis, The Illustrators of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, New York: St Martin‘s Press, 1972, p. 5. The above mentioned fact is quoted from Will Brooker, Alice’s adventures: Lewis Carroll and Alice in popular culture, New York: Continuum, 2004, p. 104. 1.

(7) phenomenon is shared by most of the classical works, partly due to the pursuit of business profits and partly due to an attempt to meet the change of artistic taste in different eras. Now, after over 150 years have passed, countless illustrated versions of Alice’s Adventures have been published and most of them have soon been forgotten. Yet, the version illustrated by John Tenniel survived until today. As Otto F. Ege put it: ―How fortunate we should be if the publishers would realize that there is such a thing as a final illustration to a great text. Sir John Tenniel‘s Alice in Wonderland is a classic example of final illustration, yet this story reappears every year with a new series of unsympathetic pictures.‖8 Compared to all the other illustrators of Alice’s Adventures, Tenniel obviously had an invaluable advantage in his close proximity to everything related to the book in question. He could converse with the author in person; he lived in the same space and time as the real Alice; he breathed the same air with the characters of Alice‘s Wonderland; and he sympathized with them. Of course, for a long time Tenniel‘s version is no longer the most popular among children readers. Today, the features of children‘s books have changed quite much in comparison to Tenniel‘s version. This applies above all to the richness in typefaces, a larger book size, the double-spread layout, and the modernized figural modeling, let alone the full color printing. All these factors affect the readers‘ preferences in choosing a certain book edition, even though the text remains the same.9 Fortunately, the value of Tenniel‘s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures would not be solely determined by the number of its readers at a certain period, but rather by the degree of its originality and impact in the context of the history of book illustration. 8. Otto F. Ege, ―Illustration as a Fine Art,‖ in: College Art Journal 9, No. 1, 1949, p. 8. According to the study on children‘s preferences in illustrations conducted by Richard H. Bloomer, one of the major findings suggests that ―Color pictures were preferred by more children than were line or shaded drawings.‖ See Richard H. Bloomer, ―Children‘s preferences and Responses as Related to Styles and Themes of Illustration‖, in: The Elementary School Journal 60, No. 6, 1960, p. 339. 2 9.

(8) To be more precise, any interpretation or valuation of book illustrations should be based on the fundamental role the book illustrations play in an illustrated book, that is, on their function as an agent in narrative. Unfortunately, among studies on Tenniel‘s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures, the narrative dimension is the very part that has been scarcely addressed, if not totally neglected. Even when certain aspects of the narrative performance of Tenniel‘s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures have been touched, most of them have been done in a piecemeal fashion. Evidently, narrative aspects have not been in the focus of these studies. The focus of an analysis determines what and how one would see or read in a given context. To consider John Tenniel‘s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures from the point of view of their narrative structure is the only possible way to perceive and to understand them properly. The practice of the narrative has a long history. While narratology as a scientific field was born in the early 20th century, the narrative was born at the very beginning of storytelling.10 In the storytelling of Alice’s Adventures, Carroll‘s verbal narrative together with Tenniel‘s visual narrative demonstrate to us how many possible ways of narrating are there, and how well it can be, when these two types of narrative work together. For instance, Carroll put a seemingly casual but actually intentional message in the Mock Turtle episode, in which the bracketed sentence ―If you don‘t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture‖ clearly indicates the role the illustration plays in the narrative context rather than just being a decorative attachment;11 with this trick, a lengthy and redundant description of the visual impact of ―what a Gryphon is like‖ that would have bored children readers, was avoided. The book Alice’s Adventures is a pictured book containing both text and 10. Whenever there is a story to tell, there would be some kind of narrative. Before the inventions of writing systems, the narrative took the oral form. 11 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, London, 1866, p. 138. 3.

(9) illustrations, with two parallel types of narratives: verbal and visual, which are closely related in telling the story of Alice’s adventures in wonderland. It is therefore impossible to read Tenniel‘s illustrations without reference to Carroll‘s verbal narrative. The above-mentioned example of the Gryphon episode clearly demonstrates, how strongly intertwined the two spheres are. The process of illustrating a book involves certain choices, concerning, for instance, the page-layout with regard to size, shape and placement of an image. Moreover, the characters, setting, action and timing of a scene have to be chosen. Finally, the point of view, which integrates everything in an illustration, has to be selected as well.12 In order to explore the visual narrative of Tenniel‘s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures in a systematic way, my approach is to describe and interpret them from the three interrelated aspects unique to the narrative of book illustration, the page-layout, the scene constructing, and the point of view; and to discuss the various visual cases in groups. Considering that the book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872),13 Carroll‘s second work in Alice series and also illustrated by Tenniel, has been always treated as a twin book to Alice’s Adventures, it might have seemed reasonable to include it in the present survey. It is, though, for several reasons that I decided not to proceed in that way. First, from the point of view of book illustration, almost all the visual elements of the stories between the two works are totally different, except for the heroine Alice. Therefore, it can be said that Alice’s Adventures is a self-contained entity;14 it is, hence, not necessary to connect this book with its 12. This statement is based on my personal experiences in cooperating with numerous illustrators to make illustrations for children‘s magazines for over 15 years. 13 Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, London: Macmillan, 1872. 14 In 1966, Donald Rackin emphasized that most of the critical studies ―fail to view Alice as a complete and organic work of art. Hardly a single important critique has been written of Alice as a self-contained fiction, distinct from Through the Looking-Glass and all other imaginative pieces by Carroll.‖ Donald Rackin, ―Alice‘s Journey to the end of Night,‖ in: PMLA 81, No. 5, 1966, p. 313. 4.

(10) sequel in order to conduct a meaningful study. Second, in the case of Alice’s Adventures, Lewis Carroll provided Tenniel with his own exemplary drawings for reference, whereas there is no evidence that Carroll had ever made drawings for Through the Looking-Glass. This means that in both cases the working conditions for Tenniel were very different. The different points of departure must have profoundly influenced the creative process. Moreover, the two stories represent different challenges for the illustrator, in terms of their characters, settings, and plots. Third, to deal with the two books together would be a unique choice; only that it is a very different approach from that of the present thesis. The goals of this thesis are, first, to demonstrate the usefulness of the narrative inquiry to Tenniel‘s illustrations with the objective to get a more precise and in-depth understanding of them; second, to show how Tenniel constructed his visual narrative with regard to the text, to his personal interpretation of Carroll‘s verbal narrative as well as to his integration between text and image. 5.

(11) 2. State of Research. In their recent monograph Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures and Through the Looking-Glass: A Publishing History (2016), American specialists of children‘s literature Zoe Jaques and Eugene Giddens offer a detailed and comprehensive documentation on the publishing history of Alice‘s books. The two authors pointed out correctly that the largest lacuna in the studies on Alice ―is the surprising neglect of the visual and illustration history surrounding these texts.‖15 The main reason for this ―surprising neglect‖ might be the fact that the studies on ―the visual and illustration‖ aspects of Carroll‘s books have long since been relatively lacking. Hence, there have been really little to say about ―the visual and illustration history surrounding these texts.‖ The basic monograph on the books‘ visual aspects, The Illustrators of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass of 1972 by Graham Ovenden and John Davis, is a publication with the great ambition to gather and analyze 138 illustrations in total by about forty illustrators.16 The authors did not seize the opportunity to conduct a profound comparative analysis in order to underline the differences between the illustrators‘ approaches, but merely juxtaposed a huge number of illustrations. John Davis‘s 16-pages-introduction, thus, left most of the interpretation to the readers themselves. In a comparable way, author Stephanie Lovett Stoffel chose the illustrations for Carroll‘s book by 20 illustrators for The Art of Alice in Wonderland, thus neglecting an in-depth discussion about the images and their illustrators. Even John Tenniel is mentioned only by the way.17. 15. Zoe Jaques and Eugene Giddens, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures and Through the Looking-Glass: A Publishing History, New York: Routledge, 2016, p. 3. 16 Graham Ovenden and John Davis, The Illustrators of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, New York: St Martin‘s Press, 1972. 17 Stephanie Lovett Stoffel, The Art of Alice in Wonderland, New York: Smithmark, 1998. 6.

(12) In his monograph The Tenniel Illustrations to the “Alice” Books, Michael Hancher presents an outstanding scholarly visual analysis of Tenniel‘s images.18 This book covers both Alice’s Adventures and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There. The author focuses on a great variety of topics, such as on the myth about the model for the protagonist Alice, the visual source of the Ugly Duchess, the borrowing and adaptation of the images for Alice‘s books from those drawn for Punch by Tenniel himself, a comparison between Tenniel‘s and Carroll‘s illustrations and those of other contemporaries, as well as the collaboration between Tenniel and Carroll in the making of the Alice‘s Books. The author also discusses extensively the narrative aspects of selected illustrations, though the analysis often remains on the surface. When concerning the aspect of time, for example, the author limits himself to the identification of the timing depicted in the given scene rather than advancing further to an analysis of the reasons why that timing is selected.19 The issue of the visual narrative is not the focus of Hancher‘s book. ―Narrative is the most vital element in literature for children, […]. Yet critical theory dealing with the narrative function of illustrations, as distinct from narrative elements in the text, is sadly lacking,‖ Stephen Roxburgh said in the mid-1980s.20 This observation rightly points out to the fact that specialists of illustrated books obviously put a clear focus on the text and neglected the illustrations. And, sadly enough, the situation hardly ever changed since then till today.21 This might explain why the narrative aspects of Tenniel‘s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures were often. 18. Michael Hancher, The Tenniel Illustrations to the Alice Books, Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1985. 19 See, for example, Hancher‘s discussion of the scene showing Alice and the Mouse in the pool of tears; Hancher (as note 18), p. 31. 20 Steven Roxburgh, ―A Picture Equals How Many Words: Narrative Theory and Picture Books for Children,‖ in: Lion and the Unicorn 7–8, 1983–84, pp. 20–33, here p. 20; see also Perry Nodelman, Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books, Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1988, p. ix. 21 See Jaques (as note 15), p. 3. 7.

(13) touched, but have never been systematically explored. And, sometimes, a misjudgment of Tenniel‘s illustrations happened when neglecting the narrative context. For instance, Michael Hancher noted that Carroll‘s illustration of the scene Alice Stucked in the White Rabbit’s House ―has been praised, as compared to Tenniel‘s version […] for more powerfully evoking fetal claustrophobia.‖ (figs. 3–4).22 Hancher uncritically adopted this observation from William Empson and Donald Rackin.23 This supposition could be accepted, if only the illustration of Alice Stuck in the White Rabbit’s House were an independent drawing, isolated from the story‘s narrative context. According to the development of the plot, Alice ―went on growing, and as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself, ‗Now I can do no more, whatever happens.‘‖24 Checking with Carroll‘s illustration, in which there is no way for Alice to make any further move, for she ―has completely exhausted the available space.‖25 Then, how could this kind of representation correspond to the text about the immediate actions that Alice is going to perform, such as, to ―put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney?‖ As I have already said that a book illustration, as in this case, has primarily a narrative function. The scene depicted not only has to represent a selected moment as vividly as possible, but the illustrator must also consider what would happen next in the consecutive scenes, so that the actions in one scene could shift smoothly into another. This is exactly the point neglected in Carroll‘s edition. For this reason, Tenniel chose an approach different from Carroll‘s to represent the scene, or more precisely speaking, to choose a different moment. Hancher seems to have been aware of the advantage of Tenniel‘s rendering from the narrative view point 22. Hancher (as note 18), p. 31. Ibid. William Empson, Some Versions of Pastoral, London: Chatto & Windus, 1935, p. 271; Donald Rackin, ―Laughing and Grief: What‘s so Funny About Alice in Wonderland?,‖ in: Edward Guiliano (ed.), Lewis Carroll Observed, New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1976, p. 12. 24 Carroll (as note 11), p. 45. 25 Ibid. 8 23.

(14) and accordingly pointed out that ―by showing the actual room, Tenniel has occasion to show the window through which Alice thrusts her arm, in a first effort to escape her confinement.‖26 However, the author did not use this fact to doubt or correct his former evaluation. The most possible explanation might again be that the analysis of the illustration‘s narrative was not Hancher‘s primary interest. What he is concerned with, in this case, is how much and in what way Carroll‘s drawings for Alice’s Adventures under Ground influenced Tenniel‘s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.27 Wallace Martin said: ―By changing the definition of what is being studied, we change what we see; and when different definitions are used to chart the same territory, the result will differ…, each revealing one aspect of reality by virtue of disregarding all others.‖28 The point of Martin‘s statement to which we should pay attention is the critical connection between the definition and its result. A false definition would more likely than not create a distorted vision of the subject studied and, hence, lead to a false understanding of it. The above-mentioned example of the comparison between Carroll‘s and Tenniel‘s representations of the Alice Stuck in the White Rabbit’s House scene should be considered in this way. Two seminal works on narratology are Narrative Discourse (French original title: Discours du récit) by the French literary theorist Gérard Genette, first published in 1972, and Story and Discourse by the American film and literary critic Seymour Chatman, which appeared in the same year.29 Both of them are based on the. 26. Hancher (as note 18), p. 31. In this case, Hancher concludes that ―Tenniel altered Carroll‘s drawing considerably, but he did not ignore it; ibid. In this case, Hancher concludes that ―Tenniel altered Carroll‘s drawing considerably, but he did not ignore it; ibid. 28 Wallace Martin, Recent Theories of Narrative, Peking: Peking University Press, 2006, p. 15. 29 Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse, New York: Cornell University Press, 1980 (The original is ―Discours du récit,‖ a portion of Figures III, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1972); Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse, New York: Cornell University Press, 1972. 9 27.

(15) structuralist tradition.30 In the works cited here, the authors deal primarily with issues of form rather than content.31 The most valuable achievement of Genette‘s work is that he not only clarified the confusion embedded in some of the concepts previously proposed by other narratologists, but that he also arranged the various related concepts in a systematic way.32 For instance, he removed the ambiguity of the term ―narrative‖ by making a distinction between the three levels of meaning contained in it, which could have referred to discourse (the narrative statement, the oral or written discourse) and story (the succession of events, real or fictitious, that are the subjects of this discourse; narrating (the narrative act of the narrator).33 The first and third levels of narrative establish the part of narrative discourse. Another major example concerns the concept of ―point of view.‖ According to Genette, ―most of the theoretical works on this subject (which are mainly classifications) suffer from a regrettable confusion between what I call here mood and voice,‖34 that is, between ―the question who sees? and the question who speaks?‖35 To clarify the terminology poses a considerable challenge to a specialist due to the fact that one cannot properly describe anything without the aid of a vocabulary with precise definition. Most of the definitions to the concepts of narrative theory proposed by Genette have been recognized by most experts.36 Just as. 30. Genette and Chatman are thought of as the most influential exponents of structural analysis. See Wallace Martin, (as note 28), p. 11. 31 Jonathan Culler rightly points out that ―the structuralist study of literature, associated with the names of Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, Genette, and others, sought not to interpret literature but to investigate its structure and devices.‖ Jonathan Culler, Foreword to Gérard Genette‘s Narrative Discourse; Genette (as note 29), p. 8; Chatman states very clearly that he is ―concerned with form, rather than content, or with content when it is expressible as a form.‖ Chatman (as note 29), p. 10. 32 According to Culler, ―there has been no comprehensive survey‖ on the basic concepts of narrative theory until Genette, whose invaluable book Narrative Discours ―fills this need for a systematic theory of narrative.‖ Culler, in: Genette (as note 29), p. 7. 33 Genette (as note 29), pp. 25–27. 34 Genette (as note 29), p. 186. 35 Ibid. 36 Such as the term focalization has been used by Mieke Bal and James Phelan, just naming a few. Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Toronto: University of Toronto, 1988; James Phelan, ―Why Narrators Can Be Focalizers,‖ in: Willie van Peer and Seymour Chatman (eds.), 10.

(16) importantly, the various key concepts pertaining to narratology such as story time, narrative time, ellipses, prolepses, scene, summary, distance, and focalizations are integrated into a comprehensive and coherent framework, under the categories of order, duration, frequency, mood, and voice. While the subject of Genette‘s work is limited to the purely verbal narrative,37 Chatman‘s study Story and Discourse includes also visual narrative by investigating paintings, comics, and cinematic examples.38 From the book title, we already sense the connection between his study and that of Genette. Chatman reveals this stating: ―Following such French structuralists as Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, and Gerard Genette, I posit a what and a way. The what of narrative I call its ‗story‘; the way I call its ‗discourse.‘‖39 It can be summarized that the resourceful results of structuralist studies on narrative theory have been further developed into a new level by Chatman‘s Story and Discourse.40 My study on the narrative of Tenniel‘s illustrations to Alice’s Adventures benefits very much from the results of structuralist studies on narrative theory, and in particular of Genette‘s and Chatman‘s works.. New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective, New York: State University, 2001, pp. 51–64. 37 To be more precisely, the book is at the same time a study on the narrative of Marcel Proust‘s A la recherché du temps perdu, which has been translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past as early as in 1934, published by Random House in New York. 38 Chatman is among those theorists ―who think that narrative and drama/movies are fundamentally similar, differing only in their methods of representation.‖ See Wallace Martin, (as note 28), p. 110. 39 Chatman (as note 29), p. 9. 40 Wallace Martin suggests that Chatman‘s Story and Discourse draws together ―the results of structuralist studies during the fifteen years preceding its publication in 1978.‖ See Wallace Martin, Recent Theories of Narrative, Peking: Peking University Press, 2006, p.10; Chatman writes in the book that his purpose ―is not to polemicize, but to synthesize the most powerful insights—Anglo-American, Russian, and French‖. Chatman (as note 29), p. 11. 11.

(17) 3. John Tenniel and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Before illustrating his Alice books, John Tenniel was not only a well-established cartoonist already, but also an experienced illustrator,41 who had contributed five illustrations to Charles Dickens‘s The Haunted Man (1848);42 provided the Reverend Thomas James‘s version of Aesop’s Fables (1848) with one hundred and eight illustrations;43 and executed sixty-nine pictures for Thomas Moore‘s Lalla Rookh (1861),44 just to name a few. Yet, as Alice’s Adventures was Carroll‘s first work for young readers, the book was also Tenniel‘s first contribution to children‘s literature. According to Joyce Irene Whalley, this was ―perhaps for the first time an artist and a writer working together to produce a definitive form of an illustrated story.‖45 Regarding their time commitment and the output, Tenniel was first a political cartoonist, then a book illustrator, and last a children‘s book illustrator. However, it was his outstanding contribution to the two Alice books—the only two children‘s books Tenniel had ever illustrated—that made his works widely known and memorable for more than 150 years.46 3.1. Life and Career of John Tenniel John Tenniel Junior was born on 28 February 1820 in London. His father, John Baptist Tenniel was an instructor in arms, swordsmanship, fencing, boxing, rowing and ballroom dancing. Naturally, John Tenniel was given from his father those formative lessons for cultivating a gentleman. But, compared with fencing and riding, John Tenniel was more fascinated with drawing. According to the renowned biblical painter John Martin‘s recollection, when Tenniel was ―little more than a child,‖ he had joined the Martin children in their art studies at the British Museum ―receiving all the 41. ―By the time of his first meeting with Lewis Carroll, Tenniel was an illustrator of some twenty years‘ standing,‖ said Frankie Morris. See Morris (as note 6), p. 119. 42 Charles Dickens, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time, London: Bradbury & Evans, 1848. 43 Thomas James, Aesop’s Fables, a new version, chiefly from original sources, New York: Collins, 1848. 44 Thomas Moore, Lalla Rook: An Oriental Romance, London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1861; the book was first published in 1817. 45 Joyce Irene Whalley, ―The Development of Illustrated Texts and Picture Books,‖ in: International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, edited by Peter Hunt, London and New York: Routledge, 1996, P. 226. 46 As a cartoonist, ―Tenniel produced in excess of 2,000 full-page political cuts in his half-century on Punch.‖ See Roger Simpson, Sir John Tenniel: Aspects of His Work, London: Associated University Presses, 1994, p. 10; as a book illustrator, Tenniel had illustrated over thirty books. See Engen (as note 5), p. 164; as a children‘s book illustrator, Tenniel contributed only to the two Alice books. 12.

(18) advantages of joint instruction and suggestions.‖47 The drawing brought him passion and joy, whereas the fencing cost Tenniel one eye. This terrible injury happened one day in 1840 when Tenniel joined his father for their fencing match, and according to Spielmann, ―his father‘s protective button fell off the tip of his foil, and the sharp blade flicked across his son‘s right eye, blinding it.‖48 Tenniel was largely self-taught, and he used to underline this fact. ―I never learned drawing, except in so far as attending a school and being allowed to teach myself. I attended the Royal Academy Schools after becoming a probationer, soon left in utter disgust of there being no teaching. I had a great idea of High Art!‖49 While it is a well-known fact that Tenniel devoted most of his time to making political cartoons and book illustrations from 1850 onwards, high art had, nevertheless, been his lifelong pursuit.50 Tenniel began showing his work in the Society of British Artists in 1835; and only two years later in 1837, when he was sixteen, Tenniel‘s work surprisingly found a buyer, the popular Irish stage actor Tyrone Power (1795–1841).51 In the same year, he made his debut at the Royal Academy‘s summer exhibition and became a regular exhibitor for the next seven years, from 1837 to 1843.52 For the most memorable feat, Tenniel would recall that ―in fact, in 1845, I sent in a sixteen-foot-high cartoon for Westminster Palace.‖53 Even after joining Punch and being heavily occupied by a full-time position and the additional commission of book illustrations, Tenniel still did watercolor occasionally.54 His earlier ambition in High Art never relinquished. Little needs to be said here about Tenniel‘s joining Punch, for it has already been fully reiterated.55 To accept the Punch offer marks a turning point in Tenniel‘s life and career. Just as Roger Simpson observed, ―Tenniel‘s career progressed slowly 47. Leopold Charles Martin, ―Reminiscences of John Martin,‖ part 6, in: The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, 9 February 1889; quoted from Frankie Morris, (as note 6), p. 22. 48 Engen (as note 5), p. 11; see also Marion Harry Spielmann, The History of Punch, New York: The Cassell Publishing Co., 1895, p. 472. 49 Spielmann (as note 48), p. 461. 50 Tenniel‘s occupational entries shown in successive censuses, such as ―Historical painter,‖ ―artist painter,‖ and the like, seemed to attest his lingering ambition in High Art. See Morris (as note 6), p. 77. 51 Morris (as note 6), p. 25. 52 Engen (as note 5), p. 9. 53 The title of Tenniel‘s design is ―Allegory of Justice.‖ Consequently, Tenniel became one of the five who were chosen to make a fresco, though a different design, in the Upper Waiting Hall, or ‗Hall of Poets,‘ of the House of Lords. Spielmann (as note 48), p. 461; see also Morris (as note 6), p. 39. 54 Morris (as note 6), p. 78. 55 For this respect, readers can refer to Tenniel‘s biographies, for example, ―Artist of Wonderland: The Life, Political Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel‖ by Frankie Morris; or ―Sir John Tenniel: Alice’s White Knight‖ by Rodney Engen. 13.

(19) through what is certainly its most critical decade, the 1840s, until he started drawing for Punch in December 1850.‖56 Frankie Morris further claimed: ―Without Punch Tenniel might never have attained such prominence.‖57 Joining Punch was opening new possibilities for Tenniel‘s life. There is no doubt that Tenniel‘s becoming the illustrator of Carroll‘s Alice books has to do with his Punch career.58 Frankie Morris noticed that ―Carroll had been a Punch reader since his teens.‖59 The same author, furthermore, recalled Carroll‘s ―small collection of cuttings,‖60 taken from 1856 to 1862 from Punch, which ―shows a preponderance of drawings by Tenniel.‖61 No wonder that when Carroll had to choose the illustrator for his Alice story, he would say: ―I want some figure-pictures done in pure outline, or nearly so, and of all artists on wood, I should prefer Mr. Tenniel‖62 On 25 January 1864, when Carroll went to London to meet Tenniel, the former ―was a little-known Oxford tutor with some small publication experience,‖63 while the latter ―was an illustrator of some twenty years‘ standing‖64 and the chief cartoonist of Punch. Considering Tenniel‘s previous commissions which were either for well-known works such as Aesop’s Fables and Lalla Rookah; or for a well-known writer such as Charles Dickens, his consent to illustrate Carroll‘s story was especially noteworthy. Although the collaboration between these two men was ―a trouble one,‖65 the result has proved to be beyond any expectations. Tenniel was knighted in 1893, thereafter being known as Sir John Tenniel. In 1901, at the age of eighty, Tenniel retired from Punch. Unlike most artists who became famous after death, Tenniel had received considerable public reputation throughout his life. Susan Meyer noticed in this regard: ―Punch cartoons and Alice books earned him a popularity seldom accorded an illustrator in England.‖66 John 56. Simpson (as note 46), p. 12. Morris (as note 6), p. 2. 58 For the record, Susan E. Meyer suggested that ―Carroll had admired Tenniel‘s rendition of Aesop‘s Fables and thought him suitable for the beasts in the Alice book.‖ See Susan E. Meyer, A Treasury of the Great Children‘s Book Illustrators, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983, p. 66. 59 Morris (as note 6), p. 139; Lewis Carroll, The Rectory Umbrella and Mischmasch, London: Cassell, 1932, pp. 43, 48, 49, for his early admiration for Punch. 60 Morris (as note 6), p. 139. 61 Ibid. 62 See the letter from Carroll to Tom Taylor, 20 December 1863, quoted from Morton N. Cohen and Roger Lancelyn Green (eds.), The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989, p. 27. 63 Morris (as note 6), p. 139. 64 Morris (as note 6), p. 119. 65 Cohen and Wakeling (as note 6), p. 1. 66 Meyer (as note 58), p. 77. 14 57.

(20) Tenniel died at the age of ninety-three on 25 February 1914. 3.2. The First Illustrator of Alice’s Adventures Joyce Irene Whalley claimed that so many illustrators ―have since tried to interpret Carroll‘s Wonderland creatures, but surely no one has portrayed them so memorably as their first illustrator, Sir John Tenniel.‖67 Being the first illustrator of Alice’s Adventures after the author himself, John Tenniel with his drawings not only set the benchmark for the visual interpretation of the book, but also wielded significant influence on the subsequent illustrators of the story. This can be confirmed by Will Brooker‘s study on five twentieth-century versions, the result of which suggests that, as the author confirms, ―not one of the five illustrators discussed in this section fully escapes the visual stamp that Tenniel first imposed in the mid-1860s.‖68 Among the illustrators of Alice’s Adventures, Tenniel was the only contemporary who was also befriended with the author Lewis Carroll. According to Otto F. Ege, ―[a] finely illustrated book is more likely to happen if both author and illustrator are contemporaries, each having the same ‗time spirit‘ experiences, sympathy with each other‘s points of view.‖69 The collaboration between Tenniel and Carroll met with all these conditions. There can be no doubt that Tenniel would understand the Alice story much better than other illustrators. With this unique advantage and his extensive experience in book illustration, Tenniel was able to make ―the first complete interpretation of a fantasy world, which has survived more than a century of change in children‘s books.‖70 The contemporary author of a review of Alice’s Adventures confirmed: ―Of Mr. Tenniel‘s illustrations we need only say that he has entered. 67. Whalley (as note 45), p. 226. Will Brooker, Alice’s adventures: Lewis Carroll and Alice in popular culture, New York: Continuum, 2004, p. 143. 69 See Ege (as note 8), pp. 10–11. 70 Whalley (as note 45), p. 226. 15 68.

(21) equally into the fun and graceful sentiment of his author.‖71 Tenniel‘s strong empathy regarding Carroll‘s text explains why the status of his version is irreplaceable and never out of date.. 71. Margaret Gatty, Aunt Judy’s Magazine for Young People, 1 June 1866, p.123; see also Virginia Haviland (ed.), Children and Literature: Views and Reviews, 1973, p. 20. 16.

(22) 4. Alice’s Adventures and its Illustrations Alice‘s utterance, ―What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?,‖ actually reflects Carroll‘s concept of what an ideal book for children should comprise: pictures or conversations. Accordingly, Carroll‘s texts, as Frankie Morris put it, ―are practically all conversations (Alice‘s with others and those she has with herself), with just sufficient narration to carry the story line and next to no description.‖72 In addition, the book also includes forty-two brilliant illustrations, to which the reviewers gave high praise.73 It was Carroll‘s original plan to publish the book with his own illustrations. Only after the result of a trial engraving was unsatisfactory to him, he gave up this fancy idea and considered to ask for help from a professional.74 In a letter to his playwright friend and Punch writer Tom Taylor written on 20 December 1863, Carroll asked the latter to introduce him to Tenniel, who was then the chief cartoonist of Punch.75 On 25 January 1864, Carroll noted in his diary that Tenniel consented to illustrate the book.76 Although their collaboration was not always smooth, the result surpassed all expectations.77 The English painter Henrietta Ward, who knew Lewis Carroll very well, reported the author had once told her that ―the success Alice in Wonderland had achieved was due entirely to its beautiful illustrations.‖78 As will be shown in the following, the illustrations Tenniel contributed to the book are exceeding the level of mere beauty.. 72. Morris (as note 6), p. 149. The Times critic pronounced, ―Mr. Tenniel, who has illustrated a little work—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with extraordinary grace.‘ See Times, 26 December 1865, p. 5; The Publisher‘s Circular (December 8) announced, ―Mr. Tenniel has helped little Alice with his best pictures which we have seen for many a day.‖ And The Guardian (December 13) even said that the illustrations ―still better than the story.‖ See Cohen and Wakeling eds. (as note 6), p. 7. 74 According to Engen, ―It was probably Jewitt who finally convinced him if he intended to publish his illustrated story, he should consider the services of a professional draughtsman.‖ Orlando Jewitt was a wood-engraver of Camden Town. See Engen (as note 5), p. 69. 75 Dodgson to Tom Taylor, 20 December 1863 (Andrews Clark Library, University of California). See also Engen (as note 5), p. 67. According to Collingwood, it is by the advice of Tom Taylor that Carroll approached John Tenniel. See Collingwood (as note 1), p. 8. 76 DIARIES, 4:272. See Cohen and Wakeling eds. (as note 6), p. 3. 77 Meyer noted that there were difficulties in this collaboration from the outset. Just as she said, ―Carroll surely met his match with John Tenniel. The illustrator could be every bit as disagreeable as the author.‖ See Meyer (as note 58), p. 67. 78 E. M. Ward, Memories of Ninety Years, ed. Isabel G. McAllister, London: Hutchinson, 1924, p. 58. 17 73.

(23) 4.1. The Transformation of the Story Text The story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland developed from that of Alice’s Adventures Underground, which again originated from the stories told by Carroll to the three daughters of Dean Liddell of Christ Church. The name of the second Liddell girl is Alice Liddell (1852–1934), that is, the namesake of Alice in the book. Accordingly, the story had first been transformed from an oral into a written form, and, subsequently, the handwritten manuscript was transformed once more into the second, then expanded, version for publication; the result of this latter edition was the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland illustrated by John Tenniel. Very often, Carroll and the Liddell girls went rowing a boat on river expeditions. Telling stories had always been the most exciting part for them. Alice Liddell recalled that ―Tell us a story‖ had been ―the old petition‖ of the three Liddell sisters during these tours.79 ―I believe the beginning of ‗Alice‘ was told one summer afternoon when the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the river,‖ Alice recollected.80 The day was July 4, 1862. ―I made an expedition up the river to Godstow with the three Liddells; we had tea on the bank there,‖ Carroll wrote in his diary.81 A note dated February 10, 1863 was added on the opposite page: ―On which occasion I told them the fairy-tale of ‗Alice‘s Adventures Underground,‘ which I undertook to write out for Alice.‖82 So did Carroll. The result was the handwritten manuscript with his thirty-seven drawings. After being encouraged by his friends, Carroll decided to publish the story. To that end he set to rewrite and enlarge the original manuscript of about 18,000 words to about 35,000 words.83 As for the original illustrations, Carroll offered them to Tenniel ―to give him an idea of the sort of thing,‖ he wanted for the second version, which is nowadays known as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland equipped with forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel. Actually, Tenniel did follow Carroll‘s representations in a few cases, such as in that of Alice with Long Neck, Bill the Lizard. 79. Collingwood (as note 1), p. 96. Ibid. 81 Collingwood (as note 1), p. 93. 82 Collingwood (as note 1), pp. 93–94. Dodgson‘s diary entry for 4 July 1862. See also Sally Brown, The Original Alice, London: The British Library, 1997, p. 19. 83 Meyer (as note 58), pp. 66–67. But, according to Justin Schiller, the length of the text was actually growing from 12,715 to 26,708 words. See Justin G. Schiller, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: an 1865 printing Re-described, Kingston, New York: Jabberwock, 1990, p. 55. 18 80.

(24) Being Kicked out of the Chimney, Alice Swimming in the Pool of Tears (figs. 5–7).84 Nevertheless, Tenniel had made his choice with professional sense, regarding Carroll‘s original drawings. This fact can be best attested by the case of Alice Stucked in the White Rabbit’s House, as already discussed previously. 4.2. The Organization and Distribution of the Illustrations The number of illustrations in Alice’s Adventures was limited to forty-two in relation to the 192 text pages. Since the illustrations are not enough to go around for every page in the book, over three quarters of the text pages are filled with pure text without illustrations. Partly due to the same reason, if an illustration is assigned to a page, it stands alone with the text. The sizes of the forty-two illustrations vary from one to another. The largest illustration, a full-page, is The Court (fig. 8), which appears on the frontispiece, while the smallest picture, The Mad Hatter Singing a Song (fig. 9), is about one sixth of the former. Their shapes can also range from square, vertical oblong, horizontal oblong, L-shaped, and irregular. Some of them are framed with a black solid line, but most of them are left without a frame. Their placement in relation to the text can be headed, centered, let-in, marginal, or full-page. With so many possible combinations between different sizes, shapes, and placements of the illustrations, the page-layout is much diversified, and so is the reading experience when flipping from page to page. Generally, images appeal to the reader‘s attention more easily than does a plain text. No doubt that the illustration enhances the pleasure of reading in addition to its unique narrative function. As already mentioned, Tenniel‘s illustrations are strategically set close by its. 84. Alice Liddell recollected that ―as a rule Tenniel used Mr. Dodgson‘s drawings as the basis for his own illustrations.‖ See Alice Liddell Hargreaves, ―Alice‘s Recollections of Carrollian Days As Told to her Son, Caryl Hargreaves,‖ in: The Cornhill Magazine, n.s. July 1932, p. 9. This testimony is of course not true in that the similarities are unavoidable when the same episode or even the same moment was selected to be illustrated. 19.

(25) corresponding text on the same page.85 This strategy can be called ―the principle of immediacy‖ between picture and text. Thus, the distribution of the illustrations would correspond to the distribution of the episodes that are selected to be depicted. Yet, it is only natural to put the illustrations next to their textual references. Special attention has to be paid to those examples which do not follow this principle. Alice with the Queer-Looking Party of Animals (fig. 10), for example, is moved away from its corresponding text on page 30 to be used as an opening illustration, placed over the title of chapter III on page 29. An opening illustration, though, is not necessarily against the principle of immediacy. The Caterpillar and Alice (fig. 11) at the beginning of chapter V, for example, has the same function as opening illustration as the scene Alice with the Queer-Looking Party of Animals.86 Its textual reference at the very beginning of the chapter—―THE Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth‖—directly follows the chapter headline set under the picture. Technical problems can also cause exceptions to the principle of immediacy. In the case of Alice and the Puppy (fig. 12),87 the illustration is on the recto while the reader has to turn to the next page, the verso, in order to find the entire episode it depicts. In this scene, the enormous puppy with large round eyes is exhibiting the typical body posture of playfulness, by lowering the front end to the ground with bent forepaws extending somewhat, staring sideways at Alice who is partially hiding herself behind a great thistle and with a little stick in one hand stretching toward the puppy in a defense posture. One might suggest that the lines right beneath the illustration on the same (recto) page contain the corresponding text to this illustration, which reads: ―Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and 85 86 87. Hancher (as note 18), pp. 123–127. Carroll (as note 11), p. 59. Carroll (as note 11), p. 55. 20.

(26) held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of […].‖88 The verbal description and Tenniel‘s visual representation seem to match very well as far as the part about Alice is concerned, but the part about the puppy is obviously incompatible. The puppy in Tenniel‘s illustration is standing steadily on the ground rather than acting as the text describes it: He ―jumped into the air off all its feet at once […].‖ For this reason, the text quoted above does not correspond to Tenniel‘s illustration. In order to know how an illustration to the above quoted text could look like, the visual interpretation of the scene by the American illustrator Peter Newell can be compared. Peter Newell (1862–1924) was a native from Illinois. Already as a child, he showed not only passion but also talent for drawing. As a self-taught artist, he ―earned his earliest recognition as an illustrator from his amusing pen-and-ink sketches.‖89 When American publisher Harper and Brothers decided to publish an updated version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Newell was invited to illustrate the book, which was published in 1901.90 Unlike Tenniel‘s version, in which the illustrations are synchronized with the text on the same page or nearby, the illustrations in Newell‘s version are as a rule separated from the text and occupy the recto of an isolated page rendered full-page and provided with a quote from the text used as a caption underneath. The essential visual elements of Newell‘s illustration of the respective scene (fig. 13) are almost similar to those in Tenniel‘s picture: the puppy, Alice, a small stick and the thistle.91 Yet, Newell depicts the puppy as jumping in the air. This is the opposite of what Tenniel shows; his puppy is playfully crouched on the ground. The caption 88. Ibid. Michael Patrick Hearn, ―Peter Newell‖, in: More Annotated Alice, edited by Martin Gardner, New York: Random House, 1990, p. xxii. 90 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, illustrated by Peter Newell, New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1901 91 Carroll (as note 90), plate between pp. 56–57. 21 89.

(27) under Newell‘s depiction of the scene writes, ―The Puppy jumped into the air,‖ which is taken directly from the text of the episode and exactly represented in the illustration. The moment rendered in Tenniel‘s Alice and the Puppy is in fact embedded in the episode on the following page, which reads, ―then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run over, and, the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick.‖92 In this case, the separation of the corresponding text from its illustration results from a miscalculation of the size: either the size of the remaining space below the corresponding text was too small or the size of the illustration was too large. Therefore, it was unavoidable that one of the two is destined to be pushed over to the next page. When considering The White Rabbit Blowing a Trumpet (fig. 14), it becomes evident that the same problem can appear in the opposite sense.93 This time the illustration is placed on the verso, and the reader sees the text in advance on the previous page, the recto: ―On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:—‖94 there are three actions described in this segment of text: he blew the trumpet, unrolled the parchment scroll, and read the accusation. Tenniel‘s illustration shows that the White Rabbit is blowing the miniature trumpet in his right hand, while holding the still rolled-up scroll in his left hand. The motif of ―the rolled-up scroll‖ is functioning as a temporal marker denoting that the scene stops at the first action, before unrolling the parchment scroll. As a consequence, only the first clause of the quoted text corresponds to the illustration. Since the line is already at the bottom section of the page, its corresponding illustration could not but be moved to the following page. Otherwise, 92 93 94. Carroll (as note 11), p. 56. Carroll (as note 11), p. 166. Ibid. 22.

(28) the respective text would have, instead, been moved to the next page. It is, in fact, the frontispiece (fig. 8) that corresponds to the third action, ―and read as follows:—,‖95 in which the White Rabbit, shown in profile on the upper left, is concentrated on the already unrolled scroll (that of the second action) he is holding in his hands and reads the accusation to the court. The lacking integration of the corresponding text and the illustration on the same page is obviously caused by the fact that the picture does not fit into the remaining space on the page, either above or below the corresponding text. The corresponding text is already too close to the page bottom thus leaving not enough space for the placement of any illustration. The only remedy for this dilemma is to extend or reduce the text above the corresponding text. The placement of the illustrations largely follows the principle of immediacy between text and image. Occasionally, when an illustration assumes a special function, such as to open a chapter, or due to technical problems, as discussed above, it was inevitable for Tenniel to find a compromise. 4.3. The Functions of Tenniel’s Illustrations in Alice’s Adventures Until the middle of the nineteenth century, in the time Alice’s Adventures was produced, the most common technique of book illustrations was wood engraving.96 Compared to the traditional forms of metal engraving, etching and lithography, wood engraving was the only illustration form that could be printed on the same page as the text; consequently, it was possible to compose in-text images,97 which not only reformed but also revived both the book format and content. Illustrators competed with writers for the predominance; in this contest, the illustration assumed, step by 95. Carroll (as note 11), p. 165. Meyer (as note 58), p. 26. 97 Keri A. Berg, ―Contesting The Page: The Author and the Illustration in France, 1830-1848,‖ in: Book History 10, 2007, p. 69. 23 96.

(29) step, a stronger role within the book. It took some time for the illustration to evolve from one form to another. ―As illustration evolved from a decorative to a narrative art form—from the early illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages to the classics of the eighteenth century—the images themselves took on greater significance.‖98 The evolution of the book illustration has been a history of discovering the capacity in an illustration. Otto F. Ege observed: ―Fine illustrations can assume many different roles. They can document a text, decorate the page, sell the story, create a mood, or interpret the story.‖99 Tenniel‘s illustrations assumed all these roles mentioned by the author except the documentary function. On the most intuitive level, the illustration enhances the visual perception of the illustrated page, let alone the decorative effect; With regard to the economic factor, the author of a review published in the children‘s journal Aunt Judy’s Magazine remarks: ―Forty-two illustrations by Tenniel! Why there needs nothing else to sell this book, one would think;‖100 As to the aspect of creating a mood and interpreting the story, they are exactly what Tenniel‘s illustrations are primarily about. Firstly, Tenniel created stunning images of the Wonderland characters according to Carroll‘s rather meager descriptions. Thomas E. Wartenberg emphasized the important role of Tenniel‘s figures that left their mark in the collective memory: ―[O]ur imaginings of Alice and the Mad Hatter are as much the result of the illustrations that picture them as they are of the words that describe them.‖101 Regarding the character image, Tenniel‘s visual representations contributed more to the reader‘s impression than Carroll‘s verbal description did; secondly, Tenniel‘s 98. Berg (as note 97), p. 73. Ege (as note 8), p. 5. 100 Aunt Judy’s Magazine for Young People 1, 1866, p. 123. 101 Thomas E. Wartenberg, ―Beyond Mere Illustration: How Films Can Be Philosophy,‖ in: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64, 2006, p. 25. 24 99.

(30) illustrations built up the more concrete and detailed settings than the text suggests for the story; this is demonstrated by The Court, Frog-Footman and Fish-Footman, Alice in the Duchess’s Kitchen, The Queen of Hearts Pointing a Finger at Alice, and Alice Listening to the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon (figs. 8, 15–18); thirdly, Tenniel‘ illustrations construct various types of scenes to integrate with text to create various patterns of page layout, to guide the reader‘s perception of spatial relationship and emotional context within the illustration, to interplay with Carroll‘s verbal narrative. Occasionally, Tenniel‘s visual narrative went wrong. The illustration of Bill the Lizard Being Kicked out of the Chimney (fig. 6) may demonstrate how the visual narrative of an illustration could weaken the effect of the verbal narrative. In this scene, the protagonist is a lizard, most probably Bill, even though his identity is not revealed by the text. The lizard is rising up from the top opening of a chimney, of which he is kicked out. Theoretically, the identity of Bill the lizard should not be revealed at this point. As Alice is trapped in the Rabbit‘s house, she is able to find out what is happening outside the house only by what she can hear. On hearing someone says, ―Here, Bill! The master says you‘ve got to go down the chimney,‖102 Alice says to herself, ―Oh, so Bill‘s got to come down the chimney, has he?‖ Later, ― […] she heard a little animal (she couldn‘t guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself, ‗This is Bill,‘ she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.‖103 Special attention has to be paid to the passage just quoted above: ―she couldn‘t guess of what sort it was.‖104 Alice is not supposed to know what Bill is by now. That is the reason why Carroll did not reveal Bill‘s identity for the time being. This was not only in accordance with the logic of the narrative; but the author also used a literary device, 102 103 104. Carroll (as note 11), p. 50. Carroll (as note 11), p. 51. Ibid. 25.

(31) called ―suspense,‖ with the clear objective to create a captivating plot. When kept in suspense, a reader would be more captivated by a puzzle with which he is directly confronted and he would be, as a consequence, more interested to know what would happen next to the respective characters. As both the illustrator and the first reader of the final draft, Tenniel had to wait for two more pages, according to the page layout of the book published in 1866, to know what kind of animal Bill really was. That is when Alice ―ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle.‖105 As she has escaped from the confined house, Alice can now infer who Bill is, from the poor state of Bill. If Tenniel had chosen this later scene to depict instead of the Bill the Lizard Being Kicked out of the Chimney scene, the revealing of Bill‘s identity would not be a problem. However, the scene of Bill the Lizard Being Kicked out of the Chimney is too tempting to be skipped. It is no coincidence that this scene was chosen by both Carroll, in his manuscript (fig. 19), and by Tenniel, whose representation of the scene mostly followed Carroll‘s composition. Did Carroll mislead Tenniel in his interpretation of the scene representing Bill the Lizard Being Kicked out of the Chimney? It has to be asked, if Carroll ever aware of the potential contradictions between the original drawing he made and the literary device he built in the text. Did Carroll have any idea about the function and usage of ―suspense‖ in storytelling? Since these questions were probably never discussed, either by Carroll himself or by Carroll‘s contemporaries, there might be no way to find out the truth. Peter Newell, too, depicted the scene of Bill the Lizard Being Kicked out of the 105. Carroll (as note 11), p. 53. 26.

(32) Chimney. The strategy Peter Newell adopted to keep the literary device of ―suspense,‖ immanent in the verbal narrative, is, in fact, to select a moment few seconds later than the moment Tenniel had chosen. This moment is contained in the following line, ―Catch him, you by the hedge.‖ The scene (fig. 20) is composed from a long shot, which differed from the full shot used by Tenniel.106 Thus, the house of the White Rabbit, the White Rabbit himself, the crowd of animals and Bill are all included in the scene. Only that Bill is intentionally rendered flying high scarcely perceptible against the background of the dark sky so as not to reveal too apparently what Bill is. In Newell‘s version, the identity of Bill is formally disclosed in the following illustration, which appears two pages afterwards.107 In this picture (fig. 21), surrounded by animals, a lizard—obviously poor Bill—is rendered frontally in a full shot view. Leaning back exhaustedly, he is supported by two guinea pigs, one of them making Bill drink from a bottle. The illustration not only successfully visualizes the scene described in the text but also extends and enhances the narration of its corresponding text. Tenniel, instead, did not include this later scene in the whole program. The illustration of Bill the Lizard Being Kicked out of the Chimney was the only setting in the chapter, where Tenniel could stage Bill. Even though Tenniel‘s illustration fills the gap left by the text, it neglects the literary device of ―suspense,‖ which would otherwise create a more exciting reading experience for the reader. The special role of Tenniel‘s pictures in the text was commented by Thomas E. Wartenberg: ―John Tenniel‘s illustrations are more than simply ‗handy and popular illustrations‘ of the book, attempts to keep the attention of young readers or listeners. They were part of the book in its original publication and are now taken to be an. 106 107. Carroll 1901 (as note 90), page facing p. 52. Carroll 1901 (as note 90), page facing p. 54. 27.

(33) integral part of it.‖108 Finally, Tenniel‘s occasional inaccurateness in illustrating Carroll‘s text did not obscure the great popularity of Alice’s Adventures.. 108. Thomas E. Wartenberg, ―Beyond Mere Illustration: How Films Can Be Philosophy,‖ in: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64, 2006, pp. 24–25. 28.

(34) 5. Page layout and Narrative. The issue of page-layout arises from the need to integrate the images with the text on the page. A book with pure text can, of course, have different types of layout by way of playing with the elements of letters, with regard to typeface, size, color, thickness, or concerning the proportion of the space that the text occupies on a page and the way it is displayed. But, this is not a usual practice to formulate the page-layout in a single book. The main body of a book with pure text usually displays the same type of page-layout throughout the whole text. When images appear, the visual patterns of the pages change consistently, while otherwise the surface of a text page would be plain. Whenever illustrations appear in Alice’s Adventures, they are displayed as single pictures that vary in size, shape, and position, in other words, the way how they are incorporated in the text. Apart from this pattern, no other coherent format can be observed. In many chapters, for instance, an opening illustration is put on top of the title, but not in every chapter. Obviously, the variety of page-layout is a prominent feature of Alice’s Adventures. An analysis of the way how verbal and visual elements are integrated into the page composition provides us with the skills to process narrative information in all its forms. Page-layout has not only an aesthetic purpose. It also plays a significant role in the narrative. When considering how people normally read a pictured book, it can be revealed how the page-layout helps to affect the reading experience or even the perceiving patterns of a reader towards the story. A reader would normally first observe the opening picture before proceeding to the text that follows.109 Whereas the representation of the opening picture usually reveals intriguing information, its. 109. Just as Perry Nodelman put it: ―We usually look at a page from the top down, and because of their inherently attractive nature, we tend to look at pictures first, then read words.‖ Nodelman (as note 20), p. 55. 29.

(35) precise meaning remains uncertain, until the reader takes into account the respective text. This creates suspense in the reader‘s mind. As can be demonstrated on the example of page 29 (fig. 22), in which the illustration of Alice with the Queer-Looking Party of Animals (fig. 10) is removed from its corresponding text to the top over the chapter title and is used as an opening image. The moment this opening image depicts is the following: ―They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle.‖110 It is this opening illustration that on the outset creates curiosity about the scene‘s content, and, automatically, propels the reader to search for the answer. Tenniel constructed in this opening illustration the whole picture of the scene by collecting the related information dispersed in the text. The reader would have, otherwise, to run through the whole chapter, so as to find out how many animals appear sitting ―in a large ring.‖111 Without the visual construction by this opening illustration, when following only the linear narrative of the text, the reader would not be able to obtain a complete scene. The example reveals the special role the layout plays in the narration of a story.. 5.1. From Illustration to Page Layout It has to be stated that Tenniel was widely responsible, if not totally in charge, of the page layout. This fact is attested by the following lines contained in his letter to Carroll on 8 March 1865: ―I cannot see your objection to the page as at present arranged, but if you think it would be better to place the picture further on in the text, do it by all means.‖112 Working on book illustration is quite different from creating an isolated painting which is to be framed in a certain way and hung in a certain place to be watched when. 110 111 112. Carroll (as note 11), p. 30. Carroll (as note 11), p. 29 Engen (as note 5), p. 142. 30.

(36) it is finished. According to Ege, an illustrator ―must be willing to exploit a freedom of expression within the limitations laid down by author and book designer, just as a mural painter must accept the conditions imposed by the architect.‖113 In other words, an illustration always establishes itself within a special context, namely being part of the page-layout. When an illustration is to be born from the text, the issue of page-layout is being taken into consideration, too. Ege underlined that an illustrator is deplorable ―if he disregards the other phases of the art of the book such as type design, page composition and binding.‖114 That is why an illustration can be displayed in different shapes or sizes, and arranged as an opening illustration, a banner illustration, an in-text illustration, a final closing illustration, or a full-page. Even the illustration in a full-page is part of a page-layout in a greater visual unit, for example, a double-spread.115 Seven patterns of page-layout, in which the illustration and the text are arranged, can be identified in Alice’s Adventures. In pattern 1 (fig. 23), an illustration is on top of the text with only one side of the two facing each other. The illustration of this pattern might be either an opening illustration or not. There are twenty-five cases in total that belong to this pattern of page-layout in the book. Three of them—in chapter 1, 3 and 5—are provided with an opening illustration. The scene of The White Rabbit Looking at a Watch (fig. 24), the opening illustration of the chapter 1, is justified by the fact that the White Rabbit is the first character in Wonderland, which is introduced to the reader.116 It is in this instance, when catching sight of the White Rabbit, Alice‘s adventures in Wonderland begin; the scene of Alice with the Queer-Looking Party of 113. Ege (as note 8), p. 10. Ibid. 115 In printing, a double-spread means ―two facing pages of a publication treated as a single unit.‖ See Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/double-spread, June 19, 2018. 116 Carroll (as note 11), p. 1. 31 114.

(37) Animals (fig. 10) is qualified for the opening illustration of chapter 3 since it presents to the reader an entire picture of the scene, as already described above. In chapter 5, the scene of The Caterpillar and Alice (fig. 11) is of special interest by that it is both an opening illustration and also an intermediary illustration which functions as a transition from the end of the previous chapter to the beginning of the chapter it tops. The end paragraph of the previous chapter has to be closely considered; it reads, as follows: ―She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and talking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.‖117 The text already anticipates the imminent scene of The Caterpillar and Alice, in which ―Tenniel depicts a slightly later moment, the start of chapter 5 rather than the end of chapter 4,‖ as Hancher noted.118 The prove is that the Caterpillar is acting as what the text describes in the first paragraph of chapter 5, ―at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth,‖ in relation to the moment of being still ―quietly smoking a long hookah,‖ described at the end of chapter 4.119 Hence, the scene of this illustration had already been anticipated by the text at the end of the previous chapter, and it simultaneously opens the narrative of the new chapter. Being a visual element, it connects two ends of narrative by way of establishing itself as a smooth transition from verbal to visual and once more from visual to verbal. In pattern 2 (fig. 25), the page is divided into two equal rectangular columns, the illustration on the left being running vertically side by side with the text on the right in full length of the page space. Pages 14 and 51 are displaying this pattern. The advantage of this pattern is to create the space to the largest extent for the 117 118 119. Carroll (as note 11), pp. 57–58. Hancher (as note 18), p. 31. Carroll (as note 11), p. 32.