Jabberwocky

For other uses, see Jabberwocky (disambiguation).

The Jabberwock, as illustrated by John Tenniel.

"Jabberwocky" is a poem of nonsense verse written by Lewis Carroll, originally featured as a part of his novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872). It is considered by many to be one of the greatest nonsense poems written in the English language. The poem is sometimes used in primary schools to teach students about the use of portmanteau and nonsense words in poetry, as well as use of nouns and verbs.

The poem

'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.

Glossary

The first verse originally appeared in Mischmasch—a periodical which Carroll wrote and edited for the amusement of his family—claiming to be a piece of Anglo-Saxon poetry.

Several of the words in the poem are nonce words of Carroll's own invention, many of them portmanteau. In the book, the character of Humpty Dumpty gives definitions for the nonsense words in the first stanza. In later writings, Lewis Carroll explained several of the others. The rest of the nonsense words were never explicitly defined by Carroll, who claimed that he did not know what some of them meant. An extended analysis of the poem is given in the book The Annotated Alice, including writings from Carroll about how he formed some of his idiosyncratic words. A few words that Carroll invented in this poem (namely "chortled" and "galumphing") have entered the English language. The word jabberwocky itself is sometimes used to refer to nonsense language.

Some of the words in the glossary below were defined not by Lewis Carroll, but by later commentators.

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

Bandersnatch — A swift moving creature with snapping jaws, capable of extending its neck.

Beamish — Radiantly beaming, happy, cheerful.

Borogove — A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, "something like a live mop". The initial syllable of borogove is pronounced as in borrow rather than as in worry.

Brillig — Four o'clock in the afternoon: the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.

Burbled — Possibly a mixture of "bleat", "murmur", and "warble". Burble is also a pre-existing word, circa 1303, meaning to form bubbles as in boiling water. The dutch word broebelen still remains this meaning of bubbling boiling water.

Chortled — Combination of chuckle and snort.

Frabjous — Possibly a blend of fair, fabulous, and joyous.

Frumious — Combination of "fuming" and "furious".

Galumphing — Perhaps a blend of "gallop" and "triumphant". Used to describe a way of "trotting" down hill, while keeping one foot further back than the other. This enables the Galumpher to stop quickly.

Gimble — To make holes as does a gimlet.

Gyre — To go round and round like a gyroscope. However, Carroll also wrote in Mischmasch that it meant to scratch like a dog. The g is pronounced like the /g/ in gold, not like gem.

Jubjub — A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion, according to the Butcher in Carroll's later poem The Hunting of the Snark.

Manxome — Fearsome. A portmanteau of "manly" and "buxom", the latter relating to men for most of its history.

Mimsy — Combination of "miserable" and "flimsy".

Mome — Possibly short for "from home," meaning that the raths had lost their way.

Outgrabe (past tense; present tense outgribe) — Something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle.

Rath — A sort of green pig. (See Origin and structure for further details.)

Snicker-snack — An onomatopoeia of unclear meaning, possibly referring to sharpness.

Slithy — Combination of "slimy" and "lithe." The i is long, as in writhe.

Tove — A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese. Pronounced so as to rhyme with groves. Note that "gyre and gimble," i.e. rotate and bore, is in reference to the toves being partly corkscrew by Humpty Dumpty's definitions.

Tulgey — Thick, dense, dark.

Uffish — A state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.

Vorpal — See vorpal sword.

Wabe' — The grass plot around a sundial. It is called a "wabe" because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond it on each side.

Pronunciation

In the Preface to The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll wrote:

[Let] me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity.

Also, in an author's note (dated Christmas 1896) about Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll wrote:

The new words, in the poem "Jabberwocky", have given rise to some differences of opinion as to their pronunciation: so it may be well to give instructions on that point also. Pronounce "slithy" as if it were the two words, "sly, thee": make the "g" hard in "gyre" and "gimble": and pronounce "rath" to rhyme with "bath."

Origin and structure

The poem was written during Lewis Carroll's stay with relatives at Whitburn, near Sunderland, although the first stanza was written in Croft on Tees, close to nearby Darlington, where Carroll lived as a boy. The story may have been inspired by the local Sunderland area legend of the Lambton Worm, as noted in "A Town Like Alice's" by Michael Bute (1997 Heritage Publications, Sunderland) and as later adapted in "Alice in Sunderland" by Brian Talbot.

The first stanza of the poem originally appeared in Mischmasch, a periodical that Carroll wrote and illustrated for the amusement of his family. It was entitled "Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry." Carroll also gave translations of some of the words which are different from Humpty Dumpty's. For example, a "rath" is described as a species of land turtle that lived on swallows and oysters. Also, "brillig" is spelled with two ys rather than with two is.

Roger Lancelyn Green, in the Times Literary Supplement (March 1, 1957), and later in The Lewis Carroll Handbook (1962), suggests that the rest of the poem may have been inspired by an old German ballad, "The Shepherd of the Giant Mountains". In this epic poem, "a young shepherd slays a monstrous Griffin". It was translated into English by Lewis Carroll's relative Menella Bute Smedley in 1846, many years before the appearance of the Alice books. English computer scientist and historian Sean B. Palmer notes a possible Shakespearean source. The inspiration for the tittiesChrist Church, Oxford, where Carroll was a mathematician under his right name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The tree in question is large and ancient with many sprawling, twisted branches somewhat suggestive of tentacles, or of the Hydra of Greek mythology.

Although the poem contains many nonsensical words, its structure is perfectly consistent with classic English poetry. The sentence structure is accurate (another aspect that has been challenging to reproduce in other languages), the poetic forms are observed (e.g. quatrain verse, rhymed, iambic meter), and a "story" is somewhat discernible in the flow of events. According to Alice in Through the Looking-Glass, "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!".

The narrative contained in the middle four verses of the poem may be considered as an example of the monomyth.

Translations

"Jabberwocky" has become famous around the world, with translations into many languages. The task of translation is the more notable and difficult because many of the principal words of the poem are nonce words simply made up by Carroll, having had no previous meaning. Translators have generally dealt with these words by inventing words of their own. Sometimes these are similar in spelling or sound to Carroll's words while respecting the morphology of the language to be translated into. For example in Frank L. Warrin's French translation "'Twas brillig" is translated as "Il brilgue". In cases like this both the original and the invented words may echo actual words in the lexicon, but not necessarily ones with similar meanings. Translators have also invented words which draw on root words with meanings similar to the English roots used by Carroll. As Douglas Hofstadter has noted the word "slithy" echoes English words including "slimy", "slither", "slippery", "lithe" and "sly". The same French translation uses "lubricilleux" for "slithy", evoking French words like "lubrifier" (to lubricate) to give a similar impression of the meaning of the invented word. It makes a great difference whether the poem is translated in isolation or as part of a translation of the novel. In the latter case the translator must, through Humpty Dumpty, supply explanations of the invented words in the first stanza.

Full translations of "Jabberwocky" into French and German can be found in Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice along with a discussion of why some translation decisions were made. Yuen Ren Chao, a Chinese linguist, translated "Jabberwocky" into Chinese by inventing characters to imitate what Rob Gifford describes as the "slithy toves that gyred and gimbled in the wabe of Carroll's original". Satyajit Ray, the famous film-maker, translated this poem in Bengali.

Reception

"Jabberwocky" was meant by Carroll as a parody designed to show how not to write a poem. The poem has since transcended Carroll's purpose, becoming now the subject of serious study. This transformation of perception was in a large part predicted by G. K. Chesterton. According to Chesterton and Green, among others, the original purpose of "Jabberwocky" was to satirize pretentious poetry and ignorant literary critics, but has itself been the subject of pedestrian translations and explanations as well as being incorporated into classroom learning. Chesterton wrote in 1932,

Poor, poor, little Alice! She has not only been caught and made to do lessons; she has been forced to inflict lessons on others.

In the following years, individuals have taken to analyzing Carroll's nonsense words and seriously interpreting his instructions on the "correct" pronunciation of these words.

Reach

"Jabberwocky" has been the source of countless parodies and tributes. In most cases the writers simply change the nonsense words into words relating to the parodied subject (e.g. Frank Jacobs's "If Lewis Carroll Were a Hollywood Press Agent in the Thirties" in Mad for Better or Verse). Other writers use the poem as a poetic form, much like a sonnet, and create their own nonsense words and glossaries (e.g. "Strunklemiss" by S. K. Azoulay).

Derivative works

See also: Jabberwocky (disambiguation)

Since its creation, "Jabberwocky" has taken on some qualities of a folkloric myth or legend. The creatures and characters of the poem are often referenced or cited in popular culture, leading to many appearances in many media since its writing. Notable examples include:

Publishing

• In 1948, the Gaberbocchus Press was founded in London by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, and named after the Latin word for 'Jabberwocky', from a later translation made by Lewis Carroll's uncle, Hassard Dodgson.

Literature

• In 1943, Henry Kuttner, writing with his wife C. L. Moore as Lewis Padgett, published a science fiction short story called "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" in the magazine Astounding, and it has since been republished in several anthologies. It posits that the poem is actually a communication with hidden meaning from the future. The story was the inspiration for the 2007 film The Last Mimzy.
• In 1951, noted mystery writer Fredric Brown drew substantively on the poem for the comic mystery novel Night of the Jabberwock, in which the narrator learns that the Alice novels are not fiction but are an encoded report detailing the existence of another plane of reality.
• In 1962, in his short story "Naudsonce," H. Beam Piper used a blend of the first few lines from "Jabberwocky" and Robert W. Service's "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" as a demonstration to a newly encountered alien race that humans use a spoken language. The contact team member stood before the alien assemblage and solemnly intoned "'Twas brillig and the slithy toves were whooping it up in the Malemute Saloon, and the kid that handled the music box did gyre and gimble in the wabe, and back of the bar in a solo game all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe the lady that's known as Lou".
• Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series had a vivid scene where Luke has an acid trip and winds up in the poem and Merlin must save him.
• A character in the book Alien vs Predator: Hunter's Planet by David Bischoff and Stephani Perry, on numerous occasions remembers bits and pieces of the poem, first as a way to pass the time, then as a comparison to the grotesque form of the Xenomorph.
• Military science fiction author John Ringo has based a certain portion of his Space Bubble series of books around the Jabberwocky, partially in reference to the nonsensical nature of quantum physics that the characters end up dealing with. The first novel of the series was named Into the Looking Glass as a number of the Higgs Boson portals within the book were named for Carroll's portal. The following books were named Vorpal Blade and Manxome Foe. The fourth book in the series is named The Claws that Catch. The Jabberwock has a body like that of a dragon and its head is like that of an insect; an image probably inspired by the book's original illustration (see above).
• The poem is implicitly referenced by James Thurber in the essay "What do you mean it was brillig?", first published in the New Yorker in 1939 and often reprinted.
• In the Sisters Grimm series, Little Red Riding Hood has a Jabberwocky, which she calls a "kitty".
• In the manga Project ARMS, the Jabberwock is an AI consisting of millions of nanomachines and is an incarnation of Alice's hatred of humanity. Its ability is to constantly evolve and adapt to any situation. Jabberwock's host is Ryo Takatsuki.

Film and TV

• In 1934, a Betty Boop short titled Betty in Blunderland was released featuring the Jabberwock as the antagonist.
• The 1941 film Pimpernel Smith quotes the poem in a humorous discussion of the differences between British and German culture.
• In the 1951 Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat is heard singing the poem before he materializes in front of Alice. Also, the Jabberwock was originally intended to appear in the film.
• In 1971, film director Jan Švankmajer made a 14 minute short film called Jabberwocky (Žvahlav aneb šaticky Slaměného Huberta) which features the whole poem. As the poem is read out, various toys come to life, dancing around. The only thing that seems to stop the toys is a black cat that appears. This animation film is available on the DVD Cinema 16: European Short Films.
• In a 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live, host Desi Arnaz plays a character who recites the Jabberwocky poem and is so baffled by its language shouts "Who the hell talks like this?!", throws the book down and walks off stage muttering Spanish.
• In 1977, Terry Gilliam directed a movie called Jabberwocky. A poster for the movie featured a coloured version of the Jabberwocky illustration, and the first stanza of the poem is recited at the start of the film. The movie's plot very loosely resembles that of the poem.
• In 1985 the made for TV version of Alice in Wonderland starring Natalie Gregory features the Jabberwocky
• In 1986 an episode of "The Real Ghostbusters" entitled "The Grundel" featured a Jabberwocky-like Ghost while the 'busters themselves recited part of the poem as they captured it.
• Mr T provided the voice for the Jabberwock in the 1987 animated TV film adaptation of "Alice Through the Looking Glass".
• In 1995, the vampire-cop drama Forever Knight featured an episode called "Curiouser and Curiouser," where Nick enters a delusional world where everyone is opposite and his vampiric father LaCroix (Nigel Bennett) recites lines from the Carroll poetry. In the final confrontation, a visibly-stabbed LaCroix recites the second-to-last stanza from the Jabberwocky poem, the Jabberwock referring to himself and the "beamish boy" referring to his son Nick, who attempted patricide in a previous episode.
• An episode of The Muppet Show adapted most of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, including this poem, for which special muppets of slithy toves, borogoves, mome raths, and the Jabberwock were designed, all based on Tenniel's illustrations.
• In Syfy's 2009 Alice (TV Miniseries) a CGI version based on John Tenniel's illustration attacks Alice and the Mad Hatter.
• In the upcoming Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland (2010), Christopher Lee will play the Jabberwock. The Jubjub Bird and the Bandersnatch will also appear in the film computer-animated.

Theatre

• In 1982, Meryl Streep performed as Alice in a musical based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The musical, staged by the New York Shakespeare Festival and Joseph Papp, featured a song called Jabberwocky and used the text of the poem as lyrics.
• In 2008, Scarlet Blade Theatre Performed their own devised production; The Jabberwock at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe; Heavily featuring Physical theatre and advanced Stage combat. It was received well with good reviews from The Scotsman and a "Critics Choice" was awarded by the British Theatre Guide..

Music

• Michael Hedges often performed yoga moves on stage while reciting this poem.
• The American Psychobilly band Th' Legendary Shack Shakers quote the poem on their release, Swampblood (the title track includes the line "Well T'was Brillig and the Slithey Toves I bid the World Goodbye by the Dead Bog Oaks".
• René Clausen and Jan Moeyaert composed a choral piece titled Jabberwocky out of this poem.
• A recitation of "Jabberwocky" is included on A Book of Human Language, hip hop MC Aceyalone's sophomore album.
• Donovan set the poem to music on his album HMS Donovan.
• A full recitation of "Jabberwocky" is included on Ambrosia's 1975 self-titled album, in the song "Mama Frog".
• English band Hatcham Social have recorded their own rendition of the poem.
• The band Dzeltenie Pastnieki based the opening track on their 1984 album Alise around a Latvian translation of the poem, titled "Džabervokijs".
• The band The Crüxshadows quoted the poem on their Tears album in 2001.
• The band Forgive Durden released "Beware The Jubjub Bird And Shun The Frumious Bandersnatch", their first single, in 2006.
• The band The Books feature excerpts from "Jabberwocky" frequently in their song "Vogt Dig For Kloppervok".
• The band Fear Before wrote a song named "Jabberwocky" which features many of the concepts from the poem, and is found on the self-titled album as track 5.
• The band Bloodrock has a song called "Gotta Find a Way" from there 1970's album Bloodrock. Towards the start of the song is a backmasked message [Quote: "Anyone who is stupid enough to play this record backwards deserves what he is about to hear"] with excerpts from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky. Possibly the earliest parody of backwards messages.
• The folk-band Omnia wrote music with the poem in a song named "Jabberwocky".
• A musical arrangement of "Jabberwocky" was written for mixed choir by Sam Pottle.
• In 1999 Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman recorded Jabberwocky, a progressive rock album based on the poem. Excerpts from the poem (read by Rick Wakeman) precede each musical segment.
• Bassoonist/composer John Falcone has written an ever-expanding collection of settings of the poem, called "Jabberwocky Jam" - beginning with a solo version for bassoon or cello, and including cello/piano and bassoon quartet arrangements - all with a narrator reciting the poem between musical segments.
• The third movement of the orchestral suite "Through the Looking Glass" by Deems Taylor is called "Jabberwocky."

Games and toys

• Due to its popularity as a poem, a multitude of role-play and video games have used the artifacts and characters of the poem in their respective universes. In particular, the "vorpal swords" or "vorpal blades" are used in Dungeons & Dragons and numerous computer games and video games, while Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay featured the Jabberwock as a particularly nasty and lethal creature in its monsters' list. Games based around this poem are also popular in the classroom. One activity that can be used to teach is to take all the nonsense words out and ask students to guess what they mean.
• In Pikmin for the Nintendo GameCube and Wii, Captain Olimar states that his wife's warning to not gain weight on his vacation (which had become a survival situation) "made me chortle." In Pikmin 2 he finds an item called a "Vorpal Platter".
• The Monster in My Pocket toy line includes the Jabberwock (#50), which is made in the likeness of John Tenniel's illustration.
• The Jabberwock is a major antagonist in the computer game American McGee's Alice representing Alice's subconscious guilt. Having been rebuilt as a sub-mechanical creature by a deranged Mad Hatter, the Jabberwock seeks to drive Alice into insanity.
• The Poem is recited in the 1991 Don Bluth laserdisc game Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp. Where the hero, Dirk the Daring is trying to avoid being devoured by the head of the Cheshire Cat (who is reciting the poem) and who is also fleeing the wrath of the Jabberwocky.
• The Jabberwocky is a monster in the D&D parody "Munchkin." The vorpal blade is also included with the description "+10 to anything beginning with the letter 'J.' Don't ask why. Don't ask what 'vorpal' means either."
• The Jabberwocky appears as a boss in the Super Nintendo video game Secret of Mana. In the game it is depicted as a two-headed dragon.
• The Jabberwock is a monster from Final Fantasy IX. It resembles a small reptilian dragon with a fish-like face, and holds a book. There is also an alternate purple version as part of the 'spirits of Gaia' sub-quest. Also the Bandersnatch is present as well, as a large dog-like creature with a spiralled tail, apparently capable of 'biting heads off'.
• The 4th and 5th stanza are quoted at the entrance to the Gallery of Evil on the popular virtual pet website Neopets. The Jabberwocky and the JubJub are among the pet species available on the site. Both are depicted as rather cute, nonthreatening creatures.

See also

• Works influenced by Alice in Wonderland

External links

• More about the origins and original meanings of the poem
• Template:Dmoz
• Character description of the Jabberwock
• Jabberwocky Reading (video)