Haddocks' Eyes


Haddocks' Eyes is a song sung by The White Knight from Lewis Carroll's 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass,.
"Haddocks' Eyes" is an example used to elaborate on the symbolic status of the concept of "name": a name as identification marker may be assigned to anything, including another name, thus introducing different levels of symbolization. It was discussed in several works on logic and philosophy.

Naming

The White Knight explains to Alice a confusing nomenclature for the song.

‘You are sad,’ the Knight said in an anxious tone: ‘let me sing you a
song to comfort you.’
‘Is it very long?’ Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry
that day.
‘It’s long,’ said the Knight, ‘but very, VERY beautiful. Everybody that
hears me sing it--either it brings the TEARS into their eyes, or else--’
‘Or else what?’ said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
‘Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is called “HADDOCKS’
EYES.”’
‘Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?’ Alice said, trying to feel
interested.
‘No, you don’t understand,’ the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
‘That’s what the name is CALLED. The name really IS “THE AGED AGED
MAN.”’
‘Then I ought to have said “That’s what the SONG is called”?’ Alice
corrected herself.
‘No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing! The SONG is called “WAYS
AND MEANS”: but that’s only what it’s CALLED, you know!’
‘Well, what IS the song, then?’ said Alice, who was by this time
completely bewildered.
‘I was coming to that,’ the Knight said. ‘The song really IS “A-SITTING
ON A GATE”: and the tune’s my own invention.’

To summarize:
The complicated terminology distinguishing between 'the song, what the song is called, the name of the song, and what the name of the song is called' both uses and mentions the use–mention distinction.

The song

The White Knight sings the song to a tune he claims as his own invention, but which Alice recognises as "I give thee all, I can no more". By the time Alice heard it, she was already tired of poetry.
The song parodies the plot, but not the style or metre, of "Resolution and Independence" by William Wordsworth.








Upon the Lonely Moor

Like "Jabberwocky," another poem published in Through the Looking Glass, "Haddocks’ Eyes" appears to have been revised over the course of many years. In 1856, Carroll published the following poem anonymously under the name Upon the Lonely Moor. It bears an obvious resemblance to "Haddocks' Eyes."