The Hunting of the Snark letters asking for the meaning of the poem, Carroll often replied that he did not know. However, in an 1896 reply to one letter, he agreed with one interpretation of the poem as an allegory for the search for happiness. Widely varying interpretations of "The Hunting of the Snark" have been suggested: an allegory for tuberculosis, a mockery of the Tichborne case, a satire of the controversies between religion and science, the repression of Carroll's sexuality, and a piece against vivisection, among others. According to Cohen, the poem represents a "voyage of life", with the Baker's disappearance caused by his
The Spider and the Fly (poem) Lewis Carroll was readying "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" for publication he replaced a parody he had made of a negro minstrel song with a parody of Howitt's poem. "The Mock Turtle's Song", in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", is a parody of Howitt's poem; it mimics the meter and rhyme scheme, and parodies the first line, but not the subject matter, of the original. The Spider and the Fly (poem) The Spider and the Fly is a poem by Mary Howitt (1799–1888), published in 1828. The first line of the poem is "'Will you walk into my parlour?' said