Jabberwocky

A Short Analysis of ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll

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By Dr Oliver Tearle

‘Jabberwocky’ is perhaps the most famous nonsense poem in all of English literature. Although the poem was first published in Lewis Carroll‘s novel Through the Looking Glass in 1871, the first stanza was actually written and printed by Carroll in 1855 in the little periodical Mischmasch, which Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) compiled to entertain his family. Below is ‘Jabberwocky’ (sometimes erroneously called ‘The Jabberwocky’), followed by a brief analysis of its meaning. ‘Nonsense’ literature it may be, but let’s see if we can make some sense of the glorious nonsense.

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Five Fascinating Facts about ‘Jabberwocky’

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Interesting facts about the classic nonsense poem, ‘Jabberwocky’

1. The poem ‘Jabberwocky’ gave us a number of new words which are now in pretty common use. The most famous of these is ‘chortle’, a kind of laugh that is a blend of a ‘chuckle’ and a ‘snort’. But the poem – which was written, of course, by the fascinating Lewis Carroll – also gave us the word ‘galumph’ (to walk clumsily and noisily) and ‘slithy’, in the sense of ‘lithe and slimy’. ‘Jabberwocky’ may also have influenced our modern use of the word ‘mimsy’, though this remains difficult to determine (‘mimsy’ already existed with a similar meaning, though Carroll’s poem probably helped to popularise it). We’ve analysed the language of ‘Jabberwocky’ here.

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