Jabberwocky

[IWilKikU]

Do you guys think there's anything more to this poem than just a fun narrative that has a bunch of nonscencicle words?

[Isagel]

I had to reread it, and decided to post it here, just in case that soembody else needs to reread it as well. I always thought that this is a scary poem. There is something a little wrong about Lewis Carroll. I never considered his tales funny, but nightmarish. I think this poem makes an excellent work with letting the sounds display emotions, or describe something, even if they are nonsense.

JABBERWOCKY

`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, has 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.

[Isagel]

Thought I hade to expand on this. "There is something a little wrong about Lewis Carroll" isn´t much of a sensibel critique, is it ? :-)

My boyfriend and sat for I while this night and discussed the Alice books. A lot of the scary things , I guess is partly brought up by my own imagination. When given these nonsense words, I make them into something scary. I remember reading how one of my favorite poems Aniara was almost banned as a opera in France because of a nonsense song that was interpreted as vulgar. The song was not vulgar. The minds of the censors where. Perhaps the case is similar with me and mr Carrol. Perhaps the nightmarish things in Jabberwocky is in the mind of the reader.

But still, Carrol manage to give the same feeling as when you where a child and tried to navigate among grown ups. The jokes are strange, the words only half understandable. There are rules -and there is a kind of logic to the rules, even if they do not make sense. And if you disobey you might be punished.

I think there is a big difference in style between Carrol, who scares me, and Peake who makes me smile. Both write in nonsense words, but the tone is altogether differnt. Perhaps some lit student can tell me why?

[amuse]

mr. j.r.r.tolkien would be able to :)
he used very guttural harsh sounds and hard consanants when the orcs spoke - hard g's, r's; he did this with dwarves as well, but they rhymed and there was more balance. the elves had lyrical m's, s's, n's, l's melded together nicely. (and all the rest of the wonderful things that the man did with languages.)
at some point words become emotional. does "frabjous" by itself make you happy? i think of a fractious child! "tulgey" sounds pretty unpleasant, too. there's something lengthy about his vowel sounds as well, too i think.
not that i'm a lit student! oops - to you all, let's hear your takes on it.

[IWilKikU]

Well I am a lit student, and I have my opinion about it, but I wanted to hear yours before sharing mine. I havn't read the Alice books, but from what I understand, someone recites this poem to her and she responds by saying somthing along the lines of: its hard to understand, but I think someone killed something. I think Carrol was trying to, A) convey an emotion through words that weren't in use. Which he did quite well if you found it frightening. He only gives us a few words that are in plain English and they have scary connotations, jaws, claws, but the words that he makes up deffinatley have connotations even if they don't have a litteral meaning. I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't like to meet a "burbling" "Jabberwock" in a dark alley. And B) to some extent I think he was mimicing 16th and 17th century poets like Donne, Shakespeare, Marlow, ect... who invented a good chunk of the English Languege. Shakespeare coined literally thousands of words that are in the dictionary today. I think Carrol was either commenting on the poets ability to shape the languege, or throwing some new words out there that 300 years down the road may be common English.

I think A is a little more legit than B as I havn't found anyone else to recognise B other than myself.

[Shea]

Originally posted by IWilKikU
I think A is a little more legit than B as I havn't found anyone else to recognise B other than myself.

I would definately agree with B, but both are legit.

When I was in high school, my poetry class did a performance called "Reader's Theater". We performed this poem with one of the students in a big trench coat carrying a sword reciting it in a maniacle (sp?) way. The rest of us were scattered on the stage alone or in pairs and we would shiver in terror whenever he happened to come near.

Does anyone remember Humpty's interpretation?

`You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. `Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'

`Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. `I can explain all the poems that were ever invented--and a good many that haven't been invented just yet.'

This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

`That's enough to begin with,' Humpty Dumpty interrupted: `there are plenty of hard words there. "BRILLIG" means four o'clock in the afternoon--the time when you begin BROILING things for dinner.'

`That'll do very well,' said Alice: and "SLITHY"?'

`Well, "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.'

`I see it now,' Alice remarked thoughtfully: `and what are "TOVES"?'

`Well, "TOVES" are something like badgers--they're something like lizards--and they're something like corkscrews.'

`They must be very curious looking creatures.'

`They are that,' said Humpty Dumpty: `also they make their nests under sun-dials--also they live on cheese.'

`Andy what's the "GYRE" and to "GIMBLE"?'

`To "GYRE" is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To "GIMBLE" is to make holes like a gimlet.'

`And "THE WABE" is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?' said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

`Of course it is. It's called "WABE," you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it--'

`And a long way beyond it on each side,' Alice added.

`Exactly so. Well, then, "MIMSY" is "flimsy and miserable" (there's another portmanteau for you). And a "BOROGOVE" is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round-- something like a live mop.'

`And then "MOME RATHS"?' said Alice. `I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble.'

`Well, a "RATH" is a sort of green pig: but "MOME" I'm not certain about. I think it's short for "from home"--meaning that they'd lost their way, you know.'

`And what does "OUTGRABE" mean?'

`Well, "OUTGRABING" is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe--down in the wood yonder--and when you've once heard it you'll be QUITE content. Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?'

`I read it in a book,' said Alice. `But I had some poetry repeated to me, much easier than that, by--Tweedledee, I think it was.'

[IWilKikU]

Thanks Shae, I was wondering if the Alice books said anything more on that.

[Shea]

No problem :D