Essay - Logic/shakespeare in Alice and Wonderland Surpassing Shakespeare: Mathematics and Logic...

Logic/Shakespeare in Alice and Wonderland

Surpass*****g Shakespeare:

Mathematics And Logic Versus the Influence Of Shakespeare In Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Epigraph:

***** ultimate use of Shakespeare is to let him teach you ***** think too well, to whatever truth ***** can sustain without perishing." - Harold Bloom

Preface:

In ***** Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, ***** author alludes to the Bard of Avon's ability not only to entertain his readers but to engage them in quizzical and logical puzzles of character that result in their redef*****itions ***** truth and themselves. In fact, in Robert Atwan's review of Bloom's book he likens the bard's "multilayered architecture and dramatic intricacy" ***** a diagram of a complex hi-fi system. Though the quote and these attributes most definitely describe ********** plays, they also ring true of the ***** logic displayed in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderl*****. Though the greatest plays in the Englsh language and a children's story written by an eloquent mathematician who, accord*****g to Karoline Leach, may have been more man than myth, ***** not seem similar at first, both literary works present ***** as a complex puzzle, a Rubik's Cube for the mind. A simple perus*****l of The Bible, Greek Mythology, and Bhagavad Gita suggest ***** the search for truth h***** ***** at the center of literature since its earliest conception. For example, Paul's letter to ***** Corinthians explains humans' search for truth as seeing "through a glass darkly" (1 Corinthians *****3:12), and Sophocles' Oedipus tragedies are *****hing more than an allegory for the danger involved in ***** search for truth. Shakespeare, there*****e, cannot be credited with the theme of searching for truth, but he can be recognized ***** his contri*****ion ***** the logic and mystery of that Rubik's Cube. But though Bloom and other scholars like *****twan have long considered ***** to be the most modern authority on the literary *****me of searching for truth, Carroll's ***** of mathematics and ***** in ***** Adventures in Wonderland allow the more modern author to throw his own Rubick's ***** *****to the running for the ***** that used literature to most accurately portray or consider humans' search f***** truth. ***** Bloom is one o***** the m*****st respected English literature scholars of the post modern era, his assumptions about Carrol and Shakespeare can and should ***** challenged.

Though preeminent and foremost in many things, I refuse ***** admit that Shakespeare is the ***** father of ***** search for truth. Further*****, refuse to accept ***** generalizations ***** Carroll's witty novel with respect to the playwright and poet. In ***** following article, I suggest that Bloom could be wrong, at least partially. Certainly Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is not devoid of Shakespeare's influence, but it does not seem to fall conveniently into place amongst Bloom's theories e*****her. Through penning this article, ***** set out take Bloom to the wrack, combing ***** Alice's ***** in ***** ***** find not ***** references to Shakespeare, but also much grander references to ***** own discipline of *****