How Doth the Little Crocodile
"How Doth the Little Crocodile" is a brief nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and first published in 1865 as part of his children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[1] In the story, the protagonist Alice recites it in Chapter II, "The Pool of Tears," while in a state of confusion after rapidly changing size, mistakenly substituting it for a familiar didactic verse she attempts to remember.[1]
The poem itself reads:
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws
This two-stanza work is a direct parody of the 1715 hymn "Against Idleness and Mischief" by Isaac Watts, from his collection Divine and Moral Songs for Children, which begins "How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour" to teach diligence and productivity.[2][3] Carroll inverts Watts' moralistic tone, replacing the industrious bee with a predatory crocodile whose "improvements" reveal a gruesome trap for prey, thereby satirizing the overly prescriptive nature of Victorian children's literature and education.[2]
Scholars highlight the poem's role in establishing Carroll's signature style of linguistic play and subversion, where innocent recitation turns absurd and macabre, mirroring Alice's disorientation in Wonderland. It has since influenced adaptations of Alice, including musical settings and illustrations, underscoring its enduring cultural resonance as a critique of rote learning and authority.
Background
Authorship and Composition
Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, improvised the poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile" orally in 1862 during a boat trip, which he later included nearly unchanged in the handwritten manuscript titled Alice's Adventures Underground, completed and presented to Alice Liddell in November 1864 before expanding it into the published book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865.[4] The manuscript, presented as a gift to Alice Liddell, reflected Dodgson's initial improvisations during the story's creation.[2]
The poem emerged from a specific outing on July 4, 1862, when Dodgson, then a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford, accompanied the three Liddell sisters—Lorina, Alice, and Edith—along with Robinson Duckworth on a boating excursion up the River Thames, known locally as the Isis.[5] During this "golden afternoon," ten-year-old Alice Liddell requested an improvised tale, prompting Dodgson to spin the initial Alice story spontaneously, incorporating verses like this one to entertain the children amid the summer heat.[6] This oral composition process, blending whimsy with familiar rhythms, captured the essence of Dodgson's playful storytelling style during such trips with the Liddells.
Dodgson's inspiration drew from Victorian children's moral poetry, particularly the didactic works of Isaac Watts, which he parodied to undercut their moralizing tone with absurd imagery.[7] By subverting the earnest lessons of 18th-century hymns and verses prevalent in 19th-century education, Dodgson transformed instructional content into nonsensical entertainment, aligning with his broader critique of rigid pedagogical norms.[2] This approach not only amused his young audience but also highlighted the artificiality of moral instruction through humorous inversion.[8]
Context in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
In Chapter 2 of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, titled "The Pool of Tears," the poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile" is recited by Alice shortly after she has undergone her first disorienting size changes—growing to nine feet tall after consuming a bottle labeled "DRINK ME," then shrinking rapidly while holding a fan. Alone and distressed, Alice attempts to verify her sense of self by reciting familiar lessons, starting with arithmetic ("four times five is twelve") and geography ("London is the capital of Paris"), both of which emerge garbled. Turning to poetry as another anchor from her education, she crosses her hands on her lap "as if she were saying lessons" and begins what she intends as a moralistic verse, but her voice sounds "hoarse and strange," and the words twist into the parody:
"How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!"[1]
This failed recitation deepens her despair, as she laments, "I’m sure those are not the right words," leading to further tears that swell the pool around her; moments later, she shrinks again and tumbles into it, setting the stage for her encounters with Wonderland's inhabitants, including the Mouse.[1]
Narratively, the poem underscores Alice's mounting anxiety and identity crisis in the wake of her physical transformations, portraying her desperate grasp at the structured propriety of Victorian childhood education as it unravels under Wonderland's influence. By mangling a didactic poem into an image of predatory absurdity—a crocodile luring fish to their doom—Carroll illustrates the tension between Alice's conscious propriety and the subconscious illogic seeping into her thoughts, marking her gradual alienation from her former self.[9] As Alice swims in the tear-filled pool and converses with the Mouse, who becomes offended by her mention of her cat Dinah and expresses hatred for cats and dogs, the poem's themes of deception and reversal echo the chapter's chaotic interactions.[1]
The inclusion of the poem establishes Carroll's signature nonsense poetry as an interruption to the prose narrative, introducing Wonderland's surreal logic early in the story and foreshadowing how familiar elements will be subverted into the bizarre. This moment, as the first such poetic intrusion, reinforces the book's thematic inversion of reality, where attempts at order only amplify disorder, and Alice's rote recitation—meant to console— instead propels the plot toward deeper absurdity.[9]
The Poem
Full Text
The poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile," as it appears in the 1865 first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is an eight-line parody recited by Alice in Chapter II to test her memory amid her confusion in Wonderland.[1]
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the [Nile](/page/Nile)
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the [Nile](/page/Nile)
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
The use of "doth" reflects 19th-century English style.[1]
The poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile" consists of two quatrains, each comprising four lines.[10] This structure is evident in the original publication within Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[1] Each stanza follows an ABAB rhyme scheme, with end rhymes pairing the first and third lines (e.g., "crocodile" and "Nile" in the first stanza) and the second and fourth lines (e.g., "tail" and "scale").[1]
The meter employs alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, resulting in lines of approximately eight syllables in odd-numbered positions and six syllables in even-numbered ones.[10] For instance, the first line—"How doth the little crocodile"—scans as four iambs (unstressed-stressed pairs), while the second—"Improve his shining tail"—uses three. This pattern creates a hymn-like rhythm, common in 19th-century English verse.[10]
Repetition and parallelism enhance the poem's rhythmic flow, with the word "How" initiating the first line of each stanza and "And" beginning the third line in both.[10] This device establishes structural symmetry between the quatrains, mirroring the balanced phrasing across lines.
The poem features vivid visual imagery centered on the crocodile's physical attributes, such as its "shining tail," "golden scale," "claws," and "smiling jaws."[10] These elements emphasize gleaming, metallic, and expressive details, contributing to the descriptive precision of the verses.[1]
Parody and Original Source
Isaac Watts' "Against Idleness and Mischief"
Isaac Watts (1674–1748), an English Nonconformist minister, hymnwriter, theologian, and logician, authored the poem "Against Idleness and Mischief" as part of his efforts to provide accessible religious and moral instruction for children.[11] The work appeared in his 1715 collection Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children, one of the earliest dedicated volumes of children's poetry in English, comprising 28 divine songs and eight moral songs aimed at fostering piety and virtue from a young age.[12] Watts, a prominent figure in Dissenting circles, drew on his theological background to craft simple, rhythmic verses that could be easily memorized, reflecting the growing emphasis on education in Protestant households during the early Enlightenment.[13]
The poem embodies the moralistic tone of Watts' children's literature, which sought to promote industry, diligence, and godly behavior amid the era's rationalist and reformist influences. In the Enlightenment context, such works countered perceived moral laxity by using nature as a didactic tool, aligning with broader efforts to cultivate disciplined minds through literature.[14] Specifically, "Against Idleness and Mischief" warns against the sin of sloth—echoing biblical proverbs on laziness—by presenting the busy bee as a virtuous exemplar of purposeful labor, urging children to fill their time with productive pursuits to avoid temptation.[15]
The full text of the poem, as published in the 1715 edition, consists of four stanzas in common meter, emphasizing its suitability for singing or recitation:
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labour or of skill
I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play
Let my first years be past,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.[12]
This structure reinforces the poem's instructional purpose, transitioning from observation of the bee to personal resolve, thereby modeling moral self-improvement for young readers.[16]
Comparison and Differences
Lewis Carroll's "How Doth the Little Crocodile" establishes direct textual parallels with Isaac Watts' "Against Idleness and Mischief" through deliberate substitutions that mirror the original's phrasing while altering its imagery. For instance, Watts' opening line, "How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour," becomes "How doth the little crocodile / Improve his shining tail" in Carroll's version, shifting the industrious insect to a predatory reptile.[9] Similarly, the bee's actions of "mak[ing] a visit" to the "opening flower" and "build[ing] her cell" with "sweet food" are parodied as the crocodile "pour[ing] the waters of the Nile" over its "claws" and welcoming "little fishes" into its "gently smiling jaws," retaining rhythmic echoes but transforming benign productivity into sinister consumption.[2] These alterations condense Watts' four stanzas into two, preserving the ABAB rhyme scheme and hymn-like meter to heighten the parody's familiarity.[17]
Thematically, the poems diverge sharply in moral intent, with Watts promoting diligence and virtue as models for children to emulate the bee's labor in service to God and society, whereas Carroll inverts this to portray the crocodile's deceptive allure and predation, subverting the didactic message into one of ironic menace.[9] Watts' emphasis on avoiding idleness through productive works yields to Carroll's depiction of idle cunning, where the crocodile's "smiling jaws" mask voracious intent, critiquing the rigid morality of Victorian children's literature.[2] This inversion highlights a broader ethical reversal, from emulation of virtuous industry to exposure of predatory hypocrisy.[17]
Carroll's subversive technique lies in maintaining the original's formal structure and rhythmic cadence—rooted in Watts' 1715 hymnal style—to underscore the replacement of innocent moral uplift with grotesque, material menace, thereby lampooning the rote memorization of didactic texts in Victorian education.[9] By grounding the parody in vivid, sensory details like the crocodile's "shining tail" and feasting jaws, Carroll employs degradation to dismantle the abstract piety of Watts' poem, transforming a tool of moral instruction into a vehicle for nonsense that questions authoritarian pedagogy.[2]
This approach draws from a established 19th-century tradition of burlesquing Watts' moralistic hymns in Victorian nonsense literature, where authors like Carroll used pastiche to satirize the era's emphasis on disciplined child-rearing and religious conformity, as seen in contemporaneous parodies that echoed Blake's earlier critiques of Puritanical rigidity.[17] Such parodies were common in mid-Victorian works, reflecting a cultural pushback against the hegemonic role of Watts' verses in schoolrooms and nurseries.[9]
Publication History
First Publication
The poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile" first appeared in Lewis Carroll's handwritten manuscript Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which he completed and presented to Alice Liddell on November 26, 1864, as a gift. A printed facsimile was published by Macmillan in 1886.[18] This early version featured the poem in Chapter I, recited by Alice as she navigates her changing size in the pool of tears, with Carroll's own illustrations accompanying the text.[18]
Carroll made only minor revisions to the poem for the published edition, primarily adjusting pronouns (such as "its" to "his" in the opening line) and phrasing to enhance rhythmic flow, resulting in no substantive alterations to its content or structure.[19] The poem debuted in print on November 26, 1865, within the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, issued by Macmillan & Co. in London in an initial run of 2,000 copies.[20] Illustrated by John Tenniel, the poem appears on pages 20 and 21 in Chapter II, "The Pool of Tears," where Alice recites it amid her disorientation following her fall down the rabbit hole.[20]
Contemporary reception of the book highlighted its inventive whimsy, with The Times describing it as "an excellent piece of nonsense" for elements like the poem's playful parody of didactic verse. However, some reviewers, such as the Athenaeum, critiqued the narrative's peculiar and overwrought tone, suggesting it might puzzle rather than delight young readers.
Subsequent Editions and Appearances
Following its debut in the 1865 edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile" appeared unchanged in subsequent reprints of the book, including the 1866 second issue and later Macmillan editions through the late 19th century.[21] It was included in combined volumes pairing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with Through the Looking-Glass (1871), such as the People's Edition first issued in 1887 and revised in 1897 as the 86th thousand printing of Alice.[22]
The poem received standalone treatment in The Nursery "Alice" (1889, published 1890), where Carroll abridged and simplified the text for young children, accompanied by enlarged, hand-colored versions of John Tenniel's illustrations and added explanatory notes to clarify the parody.[22][21] This edition excerpted the poem from its original context in Chapter II, "The Pool of Tears," to make it more accessible, though the core verses remained intact.[21]
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the poem appeared in poetry anthologies and collections of Carroll's works, such as William Boyd's Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (1870), which featured a completed version of the second verse, and The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (1937 and 1939 editions).[21] It was also referenced in historical compilations like The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1952), which discussed its parodic origins within 19th-century children's literature.[21]
Modern editions have preserved the poem with scholarly annotations, notably in Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice (1960), which includes footnotes explaining its parody of Isaac Watts and contextual notes on its role in the narrative.[21] Subsequent volumes in the series, such as More Annotated Alice (1990) and The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (2000), retained these details alongside Tenniel's artwork.[21]
Carroll made no substantive textual alterations to the poem after its initial revisions; later 20th-century editions introduced only minor typesetting changes for clarity and formatting consistency.[21]
Analysis
Themes and Interpretation
The poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile" subverts the moralistic framework of Isaac Watts' "Against Idleness and Mischief" by transforming the industrious bee's virtuous labor into the crocodile's predatory allure, where "improvement" manifests as a gleaming tail that lures prey rather than a model of diligence.[23] This inversion critiques Victorian didactic literature, replacing exhortations against idleness with an image of deceptive enhancement that celebrates cunning over ethical productivity.[24]
In the context of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice's muddled recitation of the poem underscores her disorientation upon entering the fantastical realm, symbolizing the inversion of familiar adult lessons into absurd, threatening forms and highlighting the instability of memory and self amid Wonderland's chaos.[25] The crocodile's "cheerfully" grinning visage and "gently smiling jaws" that "welcome little fishes in" further embody false smiles masking hidden dangers, evoking themes of predation disguised as benevolence that permeate Alice's encounters.[23]
Critics interpret this as a psychological exploration of childhood innocence confronting adult hypocrisy, where the poem's predatory "virtues" corrupt the purity of youthful learning, as William Empson notes in his analysis of the Alice books as the first instance of deathly humor revealing the cruelty beneath pastoral idylls.[21] Broader motifs in Carroll's work link this to questions of identity and logic, transforming virtue into vice as Alice's attempt to reaffirm her sense of self through recitation instead amplifies her existential doubt in a world where moral certainties dissolve.[26]
Literary Techniques
In "How Doth the Little Crocodile," Lewis Carroll employs irony to juxtapose a cheerful, innocuous tone with the underlying horror of predation, creating an effect of bathos that undercuts the original moralistic intent of Isaac Watts's poem. For instance, the line "How cheerfully he seems to grin" presents the crocodile's predatory smile as amiable, masking its lethal nature as it "welcomes little fishes in with gently smiling jaws," thereby subverting expectations and highlighting the absurdity of applying virtuous language to a dangerous creature.[2][27]
Carroll's wordplay further enhances this subversion through ambiguous phrasing that shifts from moral to physical connotations, such as "improve his shining tail," which echoes Watts's call for industrious self-betterment but instead suggests the crocodile polishing its scales for deceptive allure. Similarly, "welcomes" carries a dual implication of hospitality and consumption, turning a seemingly benevolent act into a grim euphemism for devouring prey, a technique that amplifies the poem's satirical bite against didactic verse.[10][2]
The poem features anthropomorphism by attributing human-like expressions to the crocodile, such as its "grin" and "smiling jaws," which heighten the sense of unease through grotesque whimsy, transforming a mere animal into a disconcertingly relatable figure whose charm belies its threat. This device, a staple of Carroll's style, evokes a blend of familiarity and revulsion, drawing readers into the crocodile's deceptive world.[10][28]
Carroll's approach draws on the tradition of nonsense poetry pioneered by Edward Lear, incorporating whimsical absurdity and intertextual play, yet it distinguishes itself with a sharper satirical edge aimed at Victorian didacticism, replacing moral uplift with predatory inversion to critique rote moral instruction.[28][2]
Cultural Impact
The poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile" has been featured in several adaptations of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, particularly in film and audio media where it underscores the story's themes of parody and transformation.
In Walt Disney's 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland, the full poem is recited by the Caterpillar (voiced by Richard Haydn) in a scene with Alice, as an example of how things have "improved" in Wonderland, highlighting the parody's ironic twist.[29]
The 1972 British musical film Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, directed by William Sterling, incorporates the poem as performed by Fiona Fullerton as Alice, with lyrics emphasizing the crocodile's cheerful grin and welcoming claws, enhanced by visual effects depicting the creature's scales and jaws to amplify the whimsical yet sinister imagery.
Audio adaptations have preserved the poem's performative aspect, as seen in a 1943 stage production of Alice in Wonderland scored by Richard Addinsell, where it appears as a song to capture the narrative's progression.[30]
Recent cinematic takes, such as Tim Burton's 2010 film Alice in Wonderland, echo its motifs of smiling menace in the Cheshire Cat's grinning appearances and riddling dialogues.[31]
Influence in Art and Literature
The surrealist painter and sculptor Leonora Carrington drew direct inspiration from "How Doth the Little Crocodile" for her 1998 painting of the same title, which reimagines the poem's grinning crocodile and its Nile imagery as a fantastical vessel rowed by anthropomorphic crocodiles, blending Carroll's nonsense with Carrington's exploration of the subconscious and mythological motifs. This work exemplifies how the poem's whimsical depiction of animal mischief has resonated in modern visual art, transforming Victorian parody into surreal symbolism.[32]
Carrington extended this influence into sculpture with a bronze piece cast around 1998, portraying a five-ton boat composed of intertwined crocodiles, evoking the poem's cheerful predator. Donated to the Mexican government in 2000, the sculpture was installed at Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City as of 2025, where it stands as an enduring public monument to Carrington's fusion of literary source material with feminist and surrealist themes.[33][34][35]
The artwork's reach extended into popular culture via a Google Doodle on April 6, 2015, commemorating Carrington's 98th birthday, which animated elements from the painting and introduced the poem's indirect legacy to a global audience through interactive digital illustration. In scholarly contexts, the poem has informed postmodern and feminist analyses of Carroll's oeuvre, as seen in a 2018 master's thesis examining representations of the child and the feminine in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where it is interpreted as subverting Isaac Watts's moralistic "Against Idleness and Mischief" to celebrate childish glee and autonomy against Victorian repression.[36][37]