Which Lewis Carroll poem is subtitled 'An Agony in Eight Fits'?

Lewis Carroll’s poem The Hunting of the Snark is subtitled “An Agony in Eight Fits.”

The poem was published by Macmillan on 29 March 1876, with illustrations by Henry Holiday. Its subtitle uses “fits” in an intentionally playful way: the word can suggest sections or cantos of a poem, but it can also mean spasms or attacks. That double meaning suits Carroll’s mixture of formal structure and absurd, unsettling comedy.

The story follows a crew of ten—nine tradesmen and a beaver—who sail to hunt the mysterious Snark. The crew is led by the Bellman, whose map of the ocean is blank. Their expedition ends when the Baker finds the creature, only to vanish “softly and suddenly” because the Snark is a dangerous Boojum.

The poem is often grouped with Carroll’s nonsense writing, but it is more ominous than Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It contains eight named “Fits,” shares several invented words with “Jabberwocky,” and has inspired interpretations involving happiness, existential fear, and tragedy. Carroll himself resisted giving it one fixed meaning.