Learn English – Does the “boiling the ocean” date to the mid-1800s, or is it more recent

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I was reflecting on Lewis Caroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter", considering the line:

And why the sea is boiling hot–

from

To talk of many things: Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–

Of cabbages–and kings–

And why the sea is boiling hot–

And whether pigs have wings

It made me wonder if this phrase has a meaning and origin related to the modern expression of "boiling the ocean".

Several sources say that the modern expression may have originated from Will Rogers during WWI, while other offer that Mark Twain may be the source. Neither being assertive in these positions.

When I consider Caroll's usage, it is paired with a portion of the poem that makes allusions to foolishness. "pigs have wings" and 'pigs flying' are commonly used to refer to impossible (and thus foolish) ideas. It can be argued that "cabbages and kings" draws a comparison between two things that are whimsically irreconcilable.

So then can we understand that a "boiling ocean" was a concept in some level of usage as far back as that period in time? Or do we have a predominance of consideration that Caroll's absurdist style plucked these from the æther?

tl;dr: Do we have any way of knowing if Caroll's use of these words may have influenced the modern expression?

edit: it does seem that we are seeing evidence that a "boiling ocean" was a mythological concept of some antiquity, and usages seem to be attributed to things that are beyond the hands of humans.

Best Answer

Two sources (for boil the sea) predate Carroll's 1871 quote. The first is unambiguously about heat:

If he utters a tone of dissent I will boil the sea dry

The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, Volume 32 (1840) p. 61 "The Dragon King's Daughter" (short story).

The second is less clear, in that it could be metaphorical:

Hail to our master! He whose sway,
Hell’s terrified realms obey.
In the fell ingredients throw!9
Now our charm has wrought its woe!
Thunders burst and boil the sea!
Dance about, with witches glee!
Let our timbrels shake the air!
Our delight is man’s despair!

The Mountain Sylph (an opera John Barnett, libretto by Thomas James Thackeray, 1834)

The figurative "boiling" is quite common, and old, which doesn't help track down a more literal meaning, but may have influenced later origins of a phrase meant literally. For example Edgar Allan Poe "A descent into the Maelström" (1841):

Here the vast bed of the waters... burst suddenly into phrensied convulsion—heaving, boiling

Alexander Pope's 1726 translation of Homer's Odyssey also uses this metaphorical sense:

Beneath, Charybdis holds her boist'rous reign
'Midst roaring whirlpools, and absorbs the main;
Thrice in her gulfs the boiling seas subside

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