"The Mad Gardener's Song" is a poem by

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

that appears in his two linked novels: ''

Sylvie and Bruno ''Sylvie and Bruno'', first published in 1889, and its second volume ''Sylvie and Bruno Concluded'' published in 1893, form the last novel by Lewis Carroll published during his lifetime. Both volumes were illustrated by Harry Furniss. The nove ...

'' and ''Sylvie and Bruno Concluded'' (published in 1889 and 1893 respectively). "And what a wild being it was who sang these wild words! A Gardener he seemed to be—yet surely a mad one, by the way he brandished his rake—madder, by the way he broke, ever and anon, into a frantic jig—maddest of all, by the shriek in which he brought out the last words of the stanza!" (''Sylvie and Bruno'', Chapter V).

Structure

The poem consists of nine stanzas, each of six lines. Each stanza contains alternating lines in

iambic tetrameter Iambic tetrameter is a meter (poetry), poetic meter in Ancient Greek poetry, ancient Greek and Latin poetry; as the name of ''a rhythm'', iambic tetrameter consists of four metra, each metron being of the form , x – u – , , consisting of a spo ...

and

iambic trimeter The Iambic trimeter, in classical Greek and Latin poetry, is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic metra (each of two feet) per line. In English poetry, it refers to a meter with three iambic feet. In ancient Greek poetry and Latin po ...

, and the three trimetric lines rhyme with each other. The verses are scattered throughout the novels, eight verses in ''Sylvie and Bruno'' and one in ''Sylvie and Bruno Concluded'', as follows: From ''Sylvie and Bruno:'' Verse 1—Chapter V. A Beggar's Palace. Verse 2—Chapter VI. The Magic Locket. Verse 3—Chapter VI. The Magic Locket. Verse 4—Chapter VII. The Baron's Embassy. Verse 5—Chapter VIII. A Ride on a Lion. Verse 6—Chapter IX. A Jester and a Bear. Verse 7—Chapter XII. A Musical Gardener. Verse 8—Chapter XII. A Musical Gardener. From ''Sylvie and Bruno Concluded:'' Verse 9—Chapter XX. Gammon and Spinach. The last four lines of the eighth verse are repeated just before the final verse in ''Sylvie and Bruno Concluded''.

Text

Reception

In his ''Bright Dreams Journal'', Gary R. Hess called the poem "the only bright part of the book." In ''The Aesthetics of Children's Poetry: A Study of Children's Verse in English'', Katherine Wakely-Mulroney described the poem as "an incantatory, cyclical poem which reflects and even prefigures aspects of the prose narrative."

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...

selects the poem, along with "The Hunting of the Snark," "A Pig-Tale," and "The Walrus and the Carpenter," for inclusion in ''The Best Poems of the English Language,'' calling it "unmatchable" and writing: "That presumably unopened letter starts the Gardener off on a series of hallucinations, the most harrowing of which is the last ... As pontiff, he would be unmarried: the dread letter will have to be opened."

Collections

Adaptations

"The Mad Gardener's Song" featured on the BBC show '' Play School'' in 1981. Composer Stuart Findlay set "The Mad Gardener's Song" to

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

, and piano in 1994.

Notes

External links

SYLVIE and BRUNO
on the

Gutenberg Project Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libra ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mad Gardener's Song Poetry by Lewis Carroll 1889 poems 1893 poems Nonsense poetry Poems about nature Poems about animals British humorous poems