Carroll's "You are Old, Father William" is a parody of a well-known Victorian children's poem, "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them" by Robert Southey, first published in 1799. This is just one of the many famous didactic poems that Carroll parodies in Alice. Most of children’s literature in Carroll’s day was extremely didactic in nature. Children learned poems such as Southey’s by rote and often were required to recite them for adults at evening parties. Note how just preceding Alice’s garbled version of the poem, she “folded her hands,” assuming the typical position for formal recitation. Carroll’s parody is often used by critics as proof of the social commentary embedded in Alice, the parody itself showing Dodgson’s disapproval of traditional teaching methods. Others praise this work as early evidence of Carroll’s superb grasp of the elements of nonsense literature, seeing “Father William” as a precursor to other famous nonsense poems like “Jabberwocky.” The text of the original is printed below. Click here to see Southey’s and Carroll’s poems side by sia me.
