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Jabberwocky

"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The book tells of Alice's adventures within the back-to-front world of the Looking-Glass world.

For other uses, see Jabberwocky (disambiguation).

In an early scene in which she first encounters the chess piece characters White King and White Queen, Alice finds a book written in a seemingly unintelligible language. Realising that she is travelling through an inverted world, she recognises that the verses on the pages are written in mirror-writing. She holds a mirror to one of the poems and reads the reflected verse of "Jabberwocky". She finds the nonsense verse as puzzling as the odd land she has passed into, later revealed as a dreamscape.[1]


"Jabberwocky" is considered one of the greatest nonsense poems written in English.[2][3] Its playful, whimsical language has given English nonsense words and neologisms such as "galumphing" and "chortle".

: A swift moving creature with snapping jaws, capable of extending its neck.[21] A "bander" was also an archaic word for a "leader", suggesting that a "bandersnatch" might be an animal that hunts the leader of a group.[19]

Bandersnatch

: Radiantly beaming, happy, cheerful. Although Carroll may have believed he had coined this word, usage in 1530 is cited in the Oxford English Dictionary.[22]

Beamish

: Following the poem Humpty Dumpty says: "'borogove' is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, something like a live mop." In Mischmasch borogoves are described differently: "An extinct kind of Parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sun-dials: lived on veal."[19] In Hunting of the Snark, Carroll says that the initial syllable of borogove is pronounced as in borrow rather than as in worry.[21]

Borogove

: Following the poem, the character of Humpty Dumpty comments: "'Brillig' means four o'clock in the afternoon, the time when you begin broiling things for dinner."[18] According to Mischmasch, it is derived from the verb to bryl or broil.

Brillig

: In a letter of December 1877, Carroll notes that "burble" could be a mixture of the three verbs 'bleat', 'murmur', and 'warble', although he did not remember creating it.[22][23]

Burbled

: "Combination of 'chuckle' and 'snort'." (OED)

Chortled

: Possibly a blend of "fair", "fabulous", and "joyous". Definition from Oxford English Dictionary, credited to Lewis Carroll.

Frabjous

Frumious: Combination of "fuming" and "furious". In the Preface to The Hunting of the Snark Carroll comments, "[T]ake the two words 'fuming' and 'furious'. Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards 'fuming', you will say 'fuming-furious'; if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards 'furious', you will say 'furious-fuming'; but if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say 'frumious'."

[21]

: Perhaps used in the poem as a blend of "gallop" and "triumphant".[22] Used later by Kipling, and cited by Webster as "To move with a clumsy and heavy tread"[24][25]

Galumphing

: Humpty Dumpty comments that it means: "to make holes like a gimlet."[18]

Gimble

: "To 'gyre' is to go round and round like a gyroscope."[18] Gyre is entered in the OED from 1420, meaning a circular or spiral motion or form; especially a giant circular oceanic surface current. Carroll also wrote in Mischmasch that it meant to scratch like a dog.[19] The g is pronounced like the /g/ in gold, not like gem (since this was how "gyroscope" was pronounced in Carroll's day).[26]

Gyre

Jabberwock: When a class in the in Boston asked Carroll's permission to name their school magazine The Jabberwock, he replied: "The Anglo-Saxon word 'wocer' or 'wocor' signifies 'offspring' or 'fruit'. Taking 'jabber' in its ordinary acceptation of 'excited and voluble discussion', this would give the meaning of 'the result of much excited and voluble discussion'..."[19] It is often depicted as a monster similar to a dragon. John Tenniel's illustration depicts it with a long serpentine neck, rabbit-like teeth, spidery talons, bat-like wings and, as a humorous touch, a waistcoat. In the 2010 film version of Alice in Wonderland it is shown with large back legs, small dinosaur-like front legs, and on the ground it uses its wings as front legs like a pterosaur, and it breathes out lightning flashes rather than flame.

Girls' Latin School

: "A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion", according to the Butcher in Carroll's later poem The Hunting of the Snark.[21] 'Jub' is an ancient word for a jerkin or a dialect word for the trot of a horse (OED). It might make reference to the call of the bird resembling the sound "jub, jub".[19]

Jubjub bird

Manxome: Possibly 'fearsome'; Possibly a portmanteau of "manly" and "buxom", the latter relating to men for most of its history; or "three-legged" after the emblem of the Manx people from the Isle of Man.

triskelion

: Humpty Dumpty comments that "'Mimsy' is 'flimsy and miserable'".[18]

Mimsy

Mome: Humpty Dumpty is uncertain about this one: "I think it's short for 'from home', meaning that they'd lost their way, you know". The notes in give a different definition of 'grave' (via 'solemome', 'solemone' and 'solemn').

Mischmasch

Outgrabe: Humpty Dumpty says "'outgribing' is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle". Carroll's book appendices suggest it is the past tense of the verb to 'outgribe', connected with the old verb to 'grike' or 'shrike', which derived 'shriek' and 'creak' and hence 'squeak'.[19]

[18]

Rath: Humpty Dumpty says following the poem: "A 'rath' is a sort of green pig". Carroll's notes for the original in state that a 'Rath' is "a species of land turtle. Head erect, mouth like a shark, the front forelegs curved out so that the animal walked on its knees, smooth green body, lived on swallows and oysters."[19] In the 1951 animated film adaptation of the previous book, the raths are depicted as small, multi-coloured creatures with tufty hair, round eyes, and long legs resembling pipe stems.

Mischmasch

: Humpty Dumpty says: "'Slithy' means 'lithe and slimy'. 'Lithe' is the same as 'active'. You see it's like a portmanteau, there are two meanings packed up into one word."[18] The original in Mischmasch notes that 'slithy' means "smooth and active".[19] The i is long, as in writhe.

Slithy

: possibly related to the large knife, the snickersnee.[22]

Snicker-snack

Tove: Humpty Dumpty says "'Toves' are something like badgers, they're something like lizards, and they're something like corkscrews. ... Also they make their nests under sun-dials, also they live on cheese." Pronounced so as to rhyme with groves.[21] They "gyre and gimble", i.e., rotate and bore. Toves are described slightly differently in Mischmasch: "a species of Badger [which] had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag [and] lived chiefly on cheese".[19]

[18]

: Carroll himself said he could give no source for this word. It could be taken to mean thick, dense, dark. It has been suggested that it comes from the Anglo-Cornish word tulgu, 'darkness', which in turn comes from Cornish tewolgow 'darkness, gloominess'.[27]

Tulgey

Uffish: Carroll noted, "It seemed to suggest a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish".[23]

[22]

Vorpal: Carroll said he could not explain this word, though it has been noted that it can be formed by taking letters alternately from "verbal" and "gospel". It has appeared in dictionaries as meaning both 'deadly' and 'extremely sharp'.[29]

[28]

Wabe: The characters in the poem suggest it means "The grass plot around a sundial", called a 'wa-be' because it "goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it". In the original Mischmasch text, Carroll states a 'wabe' is "the side of a hill (from its being soaked by rain)".[19]

[18]

Media[edit]

A song called "Beware the Jabberwock" was written for Disney's 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland sung by Stan Freberg, but it was discarded, replaced with "'Twas Brillig", sung by the Cheshire Cat, that includes the first stanza of "Jabberwocky".


The Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park in Manhattan, New York City, has at its base, among other inscriptions, a line from "Jabberwocky".[58]


The British group Boeing Duveen and The Beautiful Soup released a single (1968) called "Jabberwock" based on the poem.[59] Singer and songwriter Donovan put the poem to music on his album HMS Donovan (1971).


The poem was a source of inspiration for Jan Švankmajer's 1971 short film Žvahlav aneb šatičky slaměného Huberta (released as Jabberwocky in English) and Terry Gilliam's 1977 feature film Jabberwocky.


In 1972, the American composer Sam Pottle put the poem to music.[60] The stage musical Jabberwocky (1973) by Andrew Kay, Malcolm Middleton and Peter Phillips, follows the basic plot of the poem.[61][62] Keyboardists Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman released a musical version Jabberwocky (1999) with the poem read in segments by Rick Wakeman. [63] British contemporary lieder group Fall in Green set the poem to music for a single release (2021) on Cornutopia Music.[64][65]


In 1978, the musical group Ambrosia included the text of Jabberwocky in the lyrics of "Moma Frog" (credited to musicians Puerta, North, Drummond, and Pack) on their debut album Ambrosia.[66]


In 1980 The Muppet Show staged a full version of "Jabberwocky" for TV viewing, with the Jabberwock and other creatures played by Muppets closely based on Tenniel's original illustrations. According to Jaques and Giddens, it distinguished itself by stressing the humor and nonsense of the poem.[67]


The Jabberwock appears in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), voiced by Christopher Lee, and is referred to as "The Jabberwocky". An abridged version of the poem is spoken by the Mad Hatter (played by Johnny Depp).[68][69]

Works based on Alice in Wonderland

Translations of Through the Looking-Glass

Carpenter, Humphrey (1985). Secret Gardens: The Golden Age of Children's Literature. Houghton Mifflin.  0-395-35293-2 Medievil 1998 sony playstation 1

ISBN

Alakay-Gut, Karen. "Carroll's Jabberwocky". Explicator, Fall 1987. Volume 46, issue 1.

Borchers, Melanie. "A Linguistic Analysis of Lewis Carroll's Poem 'Jabberwocky'". The Carrollian: The Lewis Carroll Journal. Autumn 2009, No. 24, pp. 3–46.  1462-6519.

ISSN

Dolitsky, Marlene (1984). Under the tumtum tree: from nonsense to sense, a study in nonautomatic comprehension. J. Benjamins Pub. Co. Amsterdam, Philadelphia

Gardner, Martin (1999). The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition. New York: W .W. Norton and Company.

Green, Roger Lancelyn (1970). The Lewis Carroll Handbook, "Jabberwocky, and other parodies" : Dawson of Pall Mall, London

Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1980). . Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-394-74502-7.

"Translations of Jabberwocky"

Lucas, Peter J. (1997). "Jabberwocky back to Old English: Nonsense, Anglo-Saxon and Oxford" in Language History and Linguistic Modelling.  978-3-11-014504-5.

ISBN

Richards, Fran. "The Poetic Structure of Jabberwocky". Jabberwocky: The Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society. 8:1 (1978/79):16–19.

public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Jabberwocky

. Douglas R. Hofstadter, 1980 from Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid ISBN 0-394-74502-7, Vintage Books, New York

Essay: "Translations of Jabberwocky"

(2 mins), "Jabberwocky" read by English actor Brian Blessed

BBC Video

on YouTube read by English author Neil Gaiman

Jabberwocky

Poetry Foundation Biography of Lewis Carroll

.

The Lewis Carroll Journal published by The Lewis Carroll Society

on YouTube Sam Pottle

Jabberwocky by composer