A popular modern armchair sport is diagnosing historical figures with modern psychiatric disorders based on their writings, photographs, reclusiveness, etc, without any first hand experience of the person. Why not add posthumous criminal conviction to the sport?
He is very clear about about his interests in his letters (booys are ugly, girls over 12 are not interesting but young girls are) but there is no recorded evidence that he ever turned thoughts into actions.
That is the one of the tools historians have to work with. Certainly that has to be tempered with the mind-set of the times, but new tools often provide new understanding. Calling it a "sport" is understandable sarcasm, but what else would you (not you, specifically, but the generic "you") recommend... suspending all academic historical research because of the possibility of doubt? If so... then lets just talk gear.
Speculation about so-called mental disorders that have highly dubious validity even today can hardly be considered a "new tool." Neither can speculation about criminal intent. It is conjecture that lacks the most important piece of information-the person in question, who is not present and can say nothing in their own defense. This is not to defend Carroll of anyone else from wrong-doing they might have wrong-done (if any), but to defend him and the Poes, Dickinsons, Woodmans, Maiers and many other creatives from conjectural posthumous psychiatric "diagnosis", criminal accusation.
The problem is that a lot of people in the 19th century were pedophiles by todays standard most monarchs would be considered pedophiles.
Today, both Poe and Carroll would probably have to register as sex offenders.
No matter his sexual preferences he was a good photographer and knew about light I have to admit I have never seen any of his nudes.
No, not quite. Only a convicted sex offender needs to register. As pointed out very accurately... he was never, to our current knowledge, formally accused or indicted as a offender of any kind.
Discussing photography is better than breaking out with derogatory, mischeivous and spurious, misplaced assumptions about a person's perceived ills particularly of somebody who is not able to defend himself.
Only fifty percent of photography is about cameras, film and chemicals. (Maybe even less.)
At least half of photography is about the mind of the photographer, what he thinks and how he perceives the world he makes photographs of.
Just criticism or not, studying and discussing a photographer's (or a writer's) personal life is just as important as studying his photographs or the methods he uses to make them.
Provided we observe the caveat; the person being discussed is not present to defend himself; discussing his reported behavior is not out of line.
We just need to keep the discussion on an academic level, not a personal level.
He is very clear about about his interests in his letters (booys are ugly, girls over 12 are not interesting but young girls are) but there is no recorded evidence that he ever turned thoughts into actions.
There are more than three of his nudes preserved but I don't remember the exact number. He destroyed a lot of them himself as stated above.
A creepy guy without a doubt and he was forbidden to see Alice Liddel for unknown reasons (probably just for being creepy and visiting a lot).
His letters are interesting reading, and you can try some Sylvie and Bruno if you want to know what he wrote apart from the books about Alice (don't be surprised if you don't finish it, it's crap)
The parents were alway present when he took photographs.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?