Abstract
Published in 1865, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland offers us a story characterized by humour, fantasy and nonsense. Originally entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground, it tells how the young Alice dreams she follows a White Rabbit down to a rabbit hole, and how she strolls in a fantastic world, Wonderland, inhabited by whimsical creatures. This world, which has been first created by Carroll to divert children, is often considered as a poetic one. But is Wonderland indeed a poetic world? The adjective "poetic" implies many notions: poetic language, creation, beauty, emotion. To what extent could we consider that both Lewis Carroll and Alice have created a poetic world? Are there limits to the poetic vision that the reader can have of Wonderland? In order to answer these questions, we will first study the poetic language of Wonderland; then we will explain how imagination and nonsense, which characterize the world, creates poetry. Finally, we will endeavour to stress the limits that can be found to the poetic vision of Wonderland. What characterize first Wonderland are its inhabitants; and those inhabitants reveal much of their personality through their conversations. Carroll manages to create both a poetic and innovative language.
