In Tenniel's drawing of Father William balancing an eel on his nose from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the foreground is easy to understand. Father William has caught an eel in the lake behind and is balancing it on his nose.
But on the other side of the lake there is a structure which appears to funnel water into the lake, a dam or a weir possibly. Or maybe something else entirely. Can anyone tell me what it is. Also, it seems fairly distinctive. Is this likely to be based on an actual location, and if so where is it?
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5It's easy to understand that he's balancing an eel on his nose? I'll have what you're drinking.– ValorumCommented Dec 6 at 13:36
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4@Valorum, The intent of the illustrator is more obvious if you have read the poem. allpoetry.com/Father-William– Solomon SlowCommented Dec 7 at 17:04
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1 Answer
This point was discussed in The Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. In describing the background of the illustration, he notes there is "what seems to be a bridge" (the structure described by the OP), and quotes Philip Benham writing in Jabberwocky (Winter, 1970) that:
The 'bridge' is in fact an eel trap, built across a stream or river, and consists of a barrier of conical baskets woven out of rushes or sometimes willow.
This fits the appearance of the structure, and is presumably how Father William caught the eel, which he then proceeded to balance on the end of his nose. Gardner also gives the detail:
Robert Wakeman adds that one made of iron still exists near Guildford. "A small hole at the end of each basket enables the eels to escape into a separate pond, while other types of fish are unable to go through the holes." For more details and other pictures of eel traps, see Michael Rancher's The Tenniel Illustrations to the "Alice" Books (Ohio State University Press, 1985).
Gardner was an avid investigator of this sort of detail, so if he could not identify a specific real-world model for it, it is quite possible that there simply wasn't one. These structures were quite common in their day, so it is reasonable to assume that Tenniel just sketched a generic example.
answered Dec 6 at 10:19
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9Thanks. It seems that eel traps were common on the River Thames (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel_buck), and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was invented on a boat trip on the Thames, so it makes sense. It looks like some still exist on the river Test in Hampshire Commented Dec 6 at 10:38
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17An actual photograph of a nineteenth-century eel trap very, very similar to the one shown in Tenniel's illustration, may be found here: historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/education/…– BuzzCommented Dec 6 at 13:22
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Does Martin Gardner say whether Father William is a parody of some specific poem, and, if so, which?– PJTraillCommented Dec 9 at 17:46
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1@PJTraill "... a clever parody of Robert Southey's (1774-1843) long- forgotten didactic poem, The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them." Commented Dec 9 at 18:01
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@PJTraill Would you like to ask that as a question maybe? Comments are very impermanent. Commented Dec 9 at 18:17