Tweedledum and Tweedledee - Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel

Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel

The characters are perhaps best known from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There. Carroll, having introduced two fat little men named Tweedledum and Tweedledee, quotes the nursery rhyme, which the two brothers then go on to enact. They agree to have a battle, but never have one. When they see a monstrous black crow swooping down, they take to their heels. The Tweedle brothers never contradict each other, even when one of them, according to the rhyme, "agrees to have a battle". Rather, they complement each other's words. This fact has led Tenniel to assume that they are twins also physically, and Gardner goes so far as to claim that Carroll intended them to be enantiomorphs, i.e., three-dimensional mirror images. Evidence for these assumptions cannot be found in any of Lewis Carroll's writings.

Read more about this topic:  Tweedledum And Tweedledee

Famous quotes containing the words lewis carroll, lewis, carroll and/or john:

    “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
    Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)

    It’s an ideal house for delirium tremens.
    Dodie Smith, and Lewis Allen. Rick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland)

    There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
    —Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)

    To John I owed great obligation;
    But John, unhappily, thought fit
    To publish it to all the nation:
    Sure John and I are more than quit.
    Matthew Prior (1664–1721)