The Hunting of the Snark

The Hunting of the Snark, nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll, first published in 1876. The fanciful eight-canto poem describes the sea voyage of a bellman, boots (bootblack), bonnet maker, barrister, broker, billiard marker, banker, beaver, baker, and butcher and their search for the elusive undefined snark. A dedicatory poem that Carroll attached to the work contained an acrostic on the name of his then-favourite child friend, Gertrude Chataway, whose name is also found in the first words of each stanza of the poem: Girt, Rude, Chat, Away. While scholars have attributed to the work hidden meanings from political subversion to existential agony, Carroll maintained that it was intended simply as nonsense.