Jabberwocky
By: Lewis Carroll
Jabberwocky
This whole poem is nonsense.
Wait, what?
No, it's true. "Jabberwocky" is, in all probability, the most famous
nonsense poem ever written in English. The vast majority of the words
in this poem are clever inventions of its author. This makes sense if you
consider the fact that it was originally published in its entirety in the
1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, and what Alice Found There by
Lewis Carroll. Does that sound familiar? It should. With its companion
piece, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "Jabberwocky" is the basis for
the wildly popular Disney movie Alice in Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson?
Carroll created the pen name Lewis Carroll by
translating his first and middle names into Latin,
reversing their order, and loosely translating them back
into English. He published under this pseudonym to
protect his privacy.
Lewis Carroll
• Carroll, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,
was born in the English village of Daresbury. He was the
eldest son (out of 11 children) of a minister.
•
To entertain his siblings, Carroll wrote stories and poems
and drew pictures, which he collected in magazines that he
gave out to the family.
•
Carroll was a student at Rugby School, where he excelled
academically but was the victim of bullying. He went on to
study mathematics and classical studies at Christ Church,
Oxford.
So nonsense has a point?
• Jabberwocky," despite its goofy language, is
about facing your demons. It's a strange world we
live in, filled with all sorts of unknowns, and every
now and again you're bound to round a corner
and come face to face with something horrible
(metaphorically, we hope). But we all have
"vorpal blades" (L. 18) lying around somewhere,
just waiting to vanquish our awful foe. And when
we do, it's awesome. We're awesome. And we go
along our merry way.
So much nonsense!
• Identify the unknown words in the text. What part of
speech do you think they are – noun, verb, adjective or
adverb?
• brillig -_________
mimsy -_________
• slithy -_________
borogoves - _________
• toves - ________
outgrabe - _________
• gyre - _________
mome -_________
• gimble -_________
raths - ________
• wabe - ________
• How did you decide what part of speech they were?
Decide on the meaning of the words.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
brillig -_______________________________
slithy - _______________________________
toves - _______________________________
gyre - _______________________________
gimble -_______________________________
wabe - _______________________________
mimsy -_______________________________
mome - _______________________________
raths - _______________________________
borogoves - ___________________________
outgrabe – ___________________________
How did you decide the meaning of the words?
There is one documented explanation of the first stanza by
Carroll himself. He gives us a summary through the
character of Humpty-Dumpty (yup, the one who fell off
the wall) in Through the Looking-Glass. For what it's worth
(after all, nothing is entirely reliable in Carroll's
Wonderland), I present to you a summary of the first
stanza vocabulary according to Humpty:
• Brillig: four o' clock in the afternoon, because
you start broiling things for
dinner
• Slithy: lithe and slimy
• Toves: "something like badgers, something like
something like corkscrews"
(125)
• Gyre and gimble: to gyre is to go around like a
and gimble is to make holes in
something
• Wabe: the grass plot surrounding a sun-dial (so
because it goes a ways in each
direction)
• Mimsy: combination (called a portmanteau) of
miserable
that's when
lizards, and
gyroscope,
named
flimsy and
• Borogoves: a "thin, shabby-looking bird" that
resembles a mop
• Mome raths: "well, a rath is a sort of
green
pig, but mome I'm not sure about, I think it's
short for 'from home' – meaning they'd lost
their
way, you know" (126)
• Outgrabe: a combination of whistling
and
bellowing with a sneeze in the
middle
(apparently the present
tense of this verb is
outgribe, meaning outgrabe is past tense, a
little like give and gave).
Now that we have read this
poem that makes no sense, it
is time for some nonsense.
Typical Student Questions
• Where am I going to see a stupid Jabberwocky
in the “real world?!”
• Why, in the movie! Duh!!!
• Reading comprehension even if it is nonsense
can be a money-maker!