The poem
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898)
Published in Through the Looking-Glass (1871).
'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.
About the author
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an English mathematician, logician and photographer at Oxford. 'Jabberwocky' first appeared in the magazine Mischmasch in 1855 and found its permanent home in Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where Alice finds it printed backwards and must hold it to a mirror. Carroll's invented words, from 'chortle' to 'galumph', have entered the language.
Themes
The triumph of sense over nonsense, or of nonsense over sense. A hero slays a monster with a vorpal sword, and the story is perfectly clear, even though half the words are invented. Carroll proves that grammar and rhythm carry meaning even when the vocabulary does not.
Reading note
Read it aloud: the ballad rhythm does half the work, and your voice will naturally stress the invented words as if they were old friends. Carroll later explained some words ('mimsy' is flimsy and miserable), but the poem works better if you do not look them up. Let the portmanteaus stay packed.