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"Jabberwocky" is a ballad by the English writer Lewis Carroll. The poem originally appeared in Carroll's 1871 novel Through the Looking Glass (the sequel to the famous Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). An example of Victorian nonsense verse, "Jabberwocky" tells a tale of good vs. evil in which a young man sets out to slay a fearsome monster ...
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- Summary
- Poetic Techniques
- Nonsense Writing
- Analysis, Stanza by Stanza
- Context
The poem begins with the speakerusing strange and unknown words to describe a scene. There are “toves,” “borogroves” and “raths”. These things move within the landscape in different ways, and make different noises. They are part of a world that is wholly separate from our own. In the next lines, a speaker jumps into the narrative and tells his son ...
Carroll also makes use of a number of other poetic techniques. These include alliteration, enjambment, assonance, and consonance. The first, alliteration, occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and begin with the same letter. For example, in the first stanza “gyre” and “gimble,” and “claws” and “catch” in the s...
Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’ has been categorized as part of a broader category of literature known as nonsense writing, and more directly nonsense verse. The form of writing originated from traditional nursery rhymes and games but was then evolved by writers such as Edward Lear and was later popularized by Lewis Carroll. Largely, this kind of wri...
Stanza Two
The second stanza is a little less confusing but is still speaking about a world very different from our own. A speaker jumps into the narrative and tells his son to look out for the “Jabberwock”. The Jabberwock is the most important creature in the poem, but again, Carroll does not give enough context clues, at first anyway to know what exactly it is. All a reader knows is that it has “ jaws that bite [and]… claws that catch!” It is obviously something scary and darkens the overall tone of t...
Stanza Three
In the third stanza, the speaker describes how “he,” presumably the son mentioned in the previous lines, is going to go hunt these creatures. He is seeking them out with his “vorpal sword” in hand. The word “vorpal” has never been properly defined, but it is obviously a modifier to the word “sword,” defining what kind of sword it is and/or what it can do. The son spent a long time looking for the Jabberwocky. He is a “maxome foe,” suggesting the Jabberwocky is the ultimate, most dangerous of...
Stanza Four
All of a sudden, as the “uffish” perhaps meaning simple or frustrated “thoughts” are in his head, the “Jabberwock” is there. He has flaming eyes that speak to the intimidating nature of the creature and its inherent danger. The symbolof fire makes the Jabberwock seem evil and something that should be fought back against. The speaker also says that the Jabberwock moved “whiffling”. This likely means fast, and sounds somewhat onomatopoeic, as if mimicking the sound of air rushing past a surface...
The poem was included in Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. It was Alice who found the poem in a nonsensical book that turned out to be written backward. She held the pages up to a mirror and the reflected image was the poem ‘Jabberwocky’.
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
Summary & Analysis. Lewis Carroll ’s 28-line poem “Jabberwocky” first appeared in the opening chapter of his fantastical book for children, Through the Looking-Glass (1871). This book, which is the sequel to Carroll’s most famous work, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), takes place in a mirror-world where everything is backward.
Jan 22, 2016 · Jabberwocky: a summary. In terms of its plot, ‘Jabberwocky’ might be described as nonsense literature’s answer to the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf: what Christopher Booker, in his vast and fascinating The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, calls an ‘overcoming the monster’ story.
"Jabberwocky" is a poem by Lewis Caroll in which the speaker warns his son about the fantastical Jabberwock, which the son defeats using his "vorpal" blade. In...
“Jabberwocky” is a mock-serious poem that was first published as a part of Lewis Carroll’s 1871 children’s book, Through the Looking-Glass. However, the poem’s joyfully nonsensical language has given it a life of its own that goes far beyond the book.
Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky Plot Summary. Learn more about Jabberwocky with a detailed plot summary and plot diagram.
