Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
 Waiting in a hot tureen!
 Who for such dainties would not stoop?
 Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
 Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

 Beau--ootiful Soo-oop! Beau--ootiful Soo-oop! Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
     Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

 Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
 Game, or any other dish?
 Who would not give all else for two
 Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?
 Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

 Beau--ootiful Soo-oop! Beau--ootiful Soo-oop! Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
     Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!

Note: A parody of ‘Star of the Evening’, James M. Sayles

Unlike most of Carroll’s delightful little parodies, this one is not a particularly funny poem in its own right. Read alongside ‘Star of the Evening’, however, it is hilarious - from the sheer bathos of replacing ‘star’ by ‘soup’, to the way in which Carroll follows the rather sappy rhythms and intonations of the original, this poem is a lovely example of the parodist’s art.

Carroll is also, I feel, far more explicitly poking fun at the original than he was in some of his other parodies. Note the exaggerated lengthening and stressing of the syllables, the better to indicate that the poem is to be sung in as affected a manner as possible, and the playful rhyming of ‘two p…’ with ‘soup’. All in all, a wicked parody that would have been even funnier to Carroll’s original audience than it is to us.

— Martin

Links

Carroll’s poem alongside the original:

http://home.earthlink.net/~lfdean/carroll/parody/soup.html

Some intriguing notes and speculations:

http://www.ucd.ie/~classics/2000/imholtz.html

Googling for today’s poem brought up a discussion on translating Carroll:

http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~jarloue/harkat/carroll.html

Biography of Carroll:

Poem #265

And if anyone can find an mp3 of ‘Star of the Evening’, do send in a link.