[Orwn Acra]

A delightful discovery.

I was reading some of Carroll's lesser-known poems today. In "The Little Man that Had a Little Gun," from Sylvie and Bruno, there is the phrase "within him, without him." I don't know why I didn't connect this previously with the Sgt. Pepper song (altered slightly), and it is no secret Lennon was influenced by Carroll, who appears on that album's cover, but it doesn't seem that anyone has made this particular connection before (I googled), despite all that has been written about The Beatles. The poem is below. It plays with diminutives in English and is based off a nursery rhyme (it also contains a pre-atomic use of atom, which I find interesting for some reason).

The Little Man that Had a Little Gun

In stature the Manlet was dwarfish —
No burly big Blunderbore he:
And he wearily gazed on the crawfish
His Wifelet had dressed for his tea.
“Now reach me, sweet Atom, my gunlet,
And hurl the old shoelet for luck:
Let me hie to the bank of the runlet,
And shoot thee a Duck!”


She has reached him his minikin gunlet:
She has hurled the old shoelet for luck:
She is busily baking a bunlet,
To welcome him home with his Duck.
On he speeds, never wasting a wordlet,
Though thoughtlets cling, closely as wax,
To the spot where the beautiful birdlet
So quietly quacks.

Where the Lobsterlet lurks, and the Crablet
So slowly and sleepily crawls:
Where the Dolphin’s at home, and the Dablet
Pays long ceremonious calls:
Where the Grublet is sought by the Froglet:
Where the Frog is pursued by the Duck:
Where the Ducklet is chased by the Doglet —
So runs the world’s luck!

He has loaded with bullet and powder:
His footfall is noiseless as air:
But the Voices grow louder and louder,
And bellow, and bluster, and blare.
They bristle before him and after,
They flutter above and below,
Shrill shriekings of lubberly laughter,
Weird wailings of woe!

They echo without him, within him:
They thrill through his whiskers and beard:
Like a teetotum seeming to spin him,
With sneers never hitherto sneered.
“Avengement,” they cry, “on our Foelet!
Let the Manikin weep for our wrongs!
Let us drench him, from toplet to toelet,
With Nursery-Songs!

“He shall muse upon ‘Hey! Diddle! Diddle!
On the Cow that surmounted the Moon:
He shall rave of the Cat and the Fiddle,
And the Dish that eloped with the Spoon:
And his soul shall be sad for the Spider,
When Miss Muffet was sipping her whey,
That so tenderly sat down beside her,
And scared her away!

“The music of Midsummer-madness
Shall sting him with many a bite,
Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness,
He shall groan with a gloomy delight:
He shall swathe him, like mists of the morning,
In platitudes luscious and limp,
Such as deck, with a deathless adorning,
The Song of the Shrimp!

“When the Ducklet’s dark doom is decided,
We will trundle him home in a trice:
And the banquet, so plainly provided,
Shall round into rose-buds and rice:
In a blaze of pragmatic invention
He shall wrestle with Fate, and shall reign:
But he has not a friend fit to mention,
So hit him again!”

He has shot it, the delicate darling!
And the Voices have ceased from their strife:
Not a whisper of sneering or snarling,
As he carries it home to his wife:
Then, cheerily champing the bunlet
His spouse was so skilful to bake,
He hies him once more to the runlet,
To fetch her the Drake!

[Jerome Betts]

Interesting, Orwn. As well as nursery rhymes and diminutives, a sort of glance at Swinburne? Almost manic at times, an odd one.
Didn't know about the Carroll-Lennon connection. Perhaps Atom is a reduced form of atomy (emaciated body from an anatomy) or perhaps as used by (? Mercutio) in Romeo & Juliet.

[Rick Mullin]

OK, but that song was, and could only have been, written by George Harrison, who also sings it, ORWN!~,:^) I think he was more influenced by the Maharishi.

RM

[W.F. Lantry]

Interesting. I never would have made the connection.

On the other hand, without a little more textual or thematic mirroring, people might say the case is thin. We could just as well argue Harrison's is a christian text, given this line: 'For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?' (Mark 8:36)

It feels like the Maharishi's influence is strong here, but you're right, a case could be made for a secondary echo...

Best,

Bill

[Orwn Acra]

I only meant the title and lyrics! not the actual music. I don't believe that Harrison wrote it without any input from the others. I prefer Yoko Ono anyway.

Jerome, atom predates Shakespeare, actually, but I have never seen an earlier example than Carroll's, and it wasn't, to my knowledge, commonly used. It comes from the Greek (a- "not" + tomos "cut").

Bill, I don't know, I think Carroll's presence on the cover and the similarities between "without you, within you" and "within him, without him" are enough. All of Lennon's Carrollesque songs are on other albums.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Atoms go all the way back to Leucippus (perhaps further) in Western thought, at least. Lucretius' De rerum natura is all about atomism (and the Stallings translation is a true joy to read). I checked the OED to see about its usage in English, and it definitely originated before 1500.

Incidentally, I just read Leibniz's Monadology over the week, which is basically a trippy extension of atomism, and a quasi-precursor to theories of the God particle. Interesting stuff...

[Jerome Betts]

Orwn, I would still think it more likely that, in the context of all the diminutives in the verses, Carroll was thinking of the 'little atomies' pulling Queen Mab's carriage in Romeo and Juliet ('atomy is a diminutive fairy creature or sprite of surprising smallness') and used 'Dear Atom' as a the shortened singular of this with which the diminutive Manikin could address his equally diminutive wife.

[Lightning Bug]

I'm with Rick on this one... sounds more like the Maharishi to me. And George did indeed complain that the others rarely pitched in on his songs.

[ross hamilton hill]

The song credits are to George, Paul and John, but who knows, I have heard various rumours about songs being written by someone then given to someone else who then 'makes it their own' ( eg bird on a wire, astral weeks) .
'within you and without you' is a common enough idea and there's no reason to think George didn't get the words/or idea for the words, from Indian religious souces.

[Rick Mullin]

Ha! I like to think that John fought Georges Harrison and Martin with every liver in his pool to keep that song, every sonic instance of which could only have been conceived by George Harrison, OFF Sgt. Pepper. But now we are getting into your ideal concept of reality and its impact on remembered unhistory vs mine, ORWN~,:^)