Initially I was not exactly sure how Carrol’s The Hunting of the Snark fit into our class discussions about the study of play. So in order to unlock the mystery of the poem’s pertinence, I did what seemed logical: I thought about it. After considering the poem and our discussion last Tues evening, I discovered that one could have a hay day making comparisons between Carrol’s work and themes in the course. Parallels between the two range from base to complicated.
On the surface it is obvious that imagination and alternate worlds are present in the poem and in many games (ex: the World of War Craft video). And accordingly, I wondered if the poem and if these imaginary worlds fit into an era of becoming or into an era of being. I would argue that both the poem and video game—as well as Second Life –‘worlds’ are unique because they can fit into the world of both Heraclitus and Plato.
As for The Snark fitting into the world of Heraclitus, the characters are constantly hunting the Snark and are, therefore, participating in ceaseless play. The rules of the world in The Snark are unlike the rules of the real world. They seem absurd. Obviously the logical order of our world does not exist in the poem. In much the same way, video game worlds fit into an era of becoming. Whenever a game is on, ceaseless play is being practiced and the ‘rules’ of this play do not correspond with the rules of reality (flying in second life for example).
However, the poem also fits into the era of being. The world in the poem is not one of chaos. It is a world of order. The world in the poem follows its own logical system, albeit different from the logic of the real world. If a character in the poem says something three times, then whatever is said is true. In our world this would seem a logical fallacy but in the Snark world, such a rule is an example of a kind of order present in the poem. The Snark world is simply an alternate logical world. The same is true of video game worlds. There may be ceaseless fighting, flying and winning but it is all governed by code. A character in World of War Craft or in Second Life cannot act outside the bounds set up by the codes, the rules, of the game. The same is true for the characters in Snark world; they cannot act against the world’s logic.
It seems that video games are interesting because they exist in the era of becoming as well as in the era of being.
1 response so far ↓
1 Kelly Kenny // Jan 29, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Like Hilary, I, too, found myself wondering how “The Hunting of the Snark” would fit into class discussion. Before reading the poem, I did a Wikipedia search for the text, curious to see what the type of entry would have been contributed for it.
In the opening sentence of the “Hunting of the Snark” wiki entry, the piece is introduced as a “nonsense poem”. Nonsense, according to Merriam-Webster, is defined as “words or language having no meaning or conveying no intelligible ideas” or “language, conduct, or an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense”. Nonsense is further defined as “things of no importance or value”. For me, the label “nonsense poem” immediately brought these definitions to mind.
Yet, in reading it, I was struck by the system of order that Carroll had created. As mentioned in Hilary’s post, the system of logic that Carroll constructed seemed no less logical than that of the virtual worlds we inhabit every day. Virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft provide players with an escape into a world of language, creatures, and worlds that are not mimetic representations of daily life. Rather, the world of the Warcraft realms tends to be populated with Carroll-esque characters, from gryphons to murlocs, and full of characters speaking outside of modern, accepted dialect. In reading the Carroll poem, I think it is important to examine it in the context of contemporary society’s interpretation other “nonsense” texts that we encounter on a regular basis.
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