Jabberwocky is a poem by the English children’s writer Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll was the pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematician and lecturer at Oxford University.
“Jabberwocky” was published in 1872, in Carroll’s book Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The poem’s first stanza originally appeared in 1855, in a magazine that Carroll produced while he was a student. The poem describes the slaying of a dragon-like monster called a Jabberwock. The seven-stanza verse appears in a book that Alice finds not long after entering the magical Looking-Glass House, at the start of her adventure. The words originally appear backward, so Alice holds them up to a mirror to read them. The poem is full of invented words known as portmanteau. Portmanteau means the carrying over of syllables from different words to form new nonsensical words. Carroll’s rhythm and pace are charming:
Loading the player...Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Jabberwocky” has been called the greatest nonsense poem in the English language. It has been translated into several languages and given many interpretations. Many readers have puzzled over the possible hidden meanings of Carroll’s invented words. Carroll made a glossary of words for the first stanza’s appearance in 1855. According to this glossary, brillig is late afternoon, slithy (combining slimy and lithe) means smooth, and tove is a badger. Carroll also originally referred to his opening stanza as “Anglo-Saxon poetry,” and scholars have noted similarities between “Jabberwocky” and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. Other critics have sought literary, psychological, and even mathematical parallels in Carroll’s poem. The Irish novelist James Joyce borrowed Carroll’s portmanteau technique for many of the words in his famous last book, Finnegans Wake.
“Jabberwocky” works as an effective piece of literature even without an explanation for every term. Many readers feel that Carroll was trying to demonstrate the magical power of words when they are not restrained by literal meanings. After reading the poem, Alice remarks, “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!” For many, this is the perfect explanation for the effect Carroll wanted to achieve.
