Continuing what has seemingly become my informal series on magic words and art, today I’m going to hit you in the face with what is perhaps the greatest poem of nonsense verse in the English language, “Jabberwocky.”
Written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a brilliant practitioner in the art of literary nonsense, but who was also sometimes an equally impressive mathematician, logician, and photographer. Oh, and he also did some writings under the nom de plume of Lewis Carroll.
The poem is housed within the second half of Carroll’s most famous work, Through The Looking-Glass, And What Found There. Fascinating things can be pulled out of the two works, this one, and it’s predecessor, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. The two books are day and night of each other, or more accurately, reflections of each through an oddly reflecting mirror. The first book opens up outdoors in the summer (on Alice’s birthday, May 4) and the second book opens indoors six months later (on November 4, the day before Guy Fawkes Night). And whereas the first book had a deck of 52 cards as it’s theme, this book was more based around a chessboard with Alice herself as a pawn.
I could go on forever about how nonsense and dream logic can blend wonderfully, especially in the case of these works, but I want to talk about “Jabberwocky” right now instead. But before I do, thanks to the beauty of the public domain, I can just share the poem with you here (with both Wikisource and this fine site willing to offer you audio versions to read along with):
‘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.
The first verse of the poem originally appeared in Mischmasch, a periodical that Carroll wrote and edited for the amusement of his relatives, and he passed it off as piece of found Anglo-Saxon poetry. The finished poem was something of a joke of Carroll’s, a parody on how bad poetry could be, and how it should not be written, but somewhere in there, a transition to viewing it as a work desiring serious study happened. This was predicted by G.K. Chesterton who commented on how the satire became taken serious, suffering through pedestrian translation and analysis and eventually becoming a subject of classrooms. In 1932, Chesterton wrote, “Poor, poor little Alice! She has not only been caught and made to do lessons; she has been forced to inflict lessons on others.”
Poor Alice indeed. I imagine if you mention Lewis Carroll at all these days, people automatically begin to think about the presumed pedophilic relationship between him and the real life Alice Liddell. She was the daughter of the new Dean at the school he worked at and he grew quite close with the entire family, but especially Alice and her two sisters. Plus, he had a hobby of photographing young girls either nude or semi-nude. After his death, his family removed quite a few pages from the various volumes of his diaries, in “the interest of preserving the family name,” especially the entry for June 27, 1863, when it’s presumed that Carroll proposed marriage to the 11 year old Alice. It’s entirely likely, but there’s also very interesting rival theories that Carroll was involved with Alice’s older sister, Lorina, or maybe even her mother.
Above is a picture of a young woman (from here) standing beside the tree in the gardens at Christ Church, Oxford that is supposed to have inspired the Jabberwock in Carroll, especially with it’s lond and winding limbs evocative of the Hydra.
I should really mention the artist whose illustrations helped to bring some of Carroll’s fantastical creatures alive, John Tenniel, a serious political cartoonist for Punch magazine in the late 1800s. He wanted to be know more for his topical caricatures, but instead is known for some of the most famous literary illustrations ever, especially considering how much a reader would have to initially rely on his depictions for some clarity and description that Carroll’s work sometimes lacked (especially in the case of the Jabberwock).
I should also mention that I recently picked up Alice In Sunderland by Bryan Talbot, author of The Adventures Of Luther Arkwright and The Tale Of One Bad Rat (the second most borrowed graphic novel in American libraries). The insides look absolutely amazing with a combination of convential art of varying styles and photo work and, well, I’ll let Wikipedia explain to you that “it explores the links between Lewis Carroll and the Sunderland area (where Carroll lived and the Alice books were written), with wider themes of history, myth, and storytelling – and the truth about what happened to Sid James on stage at the Sunderland Empire Theatre.” I could not be more excited to read it.
From magic words to German expressions to portmanteau and nonsense words (though I love that some of the words from the poem, such as “chortled” and “galumphing” have found a home in the English language) and the art that accompanies them, we just keep going down that rabbit hole, don’t we?
If reading the poem isn’t your cup of tea, then perhaps you’d just prefer to watch the Muppets’ version? Or maybe Kate (daughter of Richard) Burton’s fairly powerful reading of it from the 1983 movie version? Or maybe this scene from the 1985 TV version produced by Irwin Allen in which the Jabberwock is remarkably conventionally rubber suited.
An excellent internet resource about both “Jabberwocky” and the Alice books.
“From Lewis Carroll To Sid James,” a review of Alice In Sunderland by The Guardian.
Jabberwocky, the first film by Terry Gilliam as a solo director.
Tenniel’s illustrations for Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland at Project Gutenberg.
The upcoming Tim Burton version of Alice In Wonderland.
And special thanks to Magic Molly Young for her kind permission to use the above picture of her, which is excellent in every way possible. Here is a list of things she’s written (which you should be reading!) and look for her writing in the pages of Maxim coming next February in which that magazine becomes interesting for the first time ever.
And until next time… THE JABBERWOCK STRIKES!
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” -Lewis Carroll.
