“Jabberwocky” is admittedly non-sense. So, it probably doesn’t
speak very well of me that I want to try to explore its meaning.
Nonetheless, here goes. The meaning of this curious concoction of words
and images by Lewis Carroll has been widely debated. God only knows
what Carroll would make of anyone attempting to make sense of non-sense.
I’ve read Jabberwocky for years with wonderment, but recently I
re-read it, and suddenly it all popped into focus for me. Jabberwocky
is a précis of all the romantic tales of medieval poetry ever written.
In Beowulf, for example, the mighty prince meets up with the monster and
a mighty battle ensues. So too here, in mock miniature, the youthful
hero, “my son,” is being prepped for battle by an elder narrator. He
tells him how things stand in stanza one. “Twas brillig and the slithy
toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” There now that’s plain as day.
Then in stanza two the narrator explains the evil creatures likely to
attack him, the Jabberwock, the Jubjub bird, and the “frumious
Bandersnatch.”
Carroll is saying, “This is serious business children, pay
attention!”
In stanza three, we see the oft-praised sword of the hero, here
called vorpal, and we hear about the hero’s great battle, again in
miniature. “The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!” That’s it. Battle
over. The great epics of old are getting a severe pruning. In stanza
four, back in the king’s rath, the “boy” is praised for his heroism, and
the poem returns to the opening verse, now with emphasis on the past
tense of the threat. “’Twas brillig….”
There is a sort of contrarian theory that claims that even the
original medieval poems were written as mock-heroic epics, in which case
Jabberwocky is no more satirical and silly than its models. But even if
you take the Arthurian poetry of a thousand years ago at face value, you
have to admit that they take you into a mythical world which is unlikely
to have existed exactly as described. A large measure of exaggeration,
if not self-mockery, had to be involved.
Of course the hardest thing to overcome is the presence of so
many non-sense words. We are so used to having our dictionaries to
guide us. Our natural tendency is to reduce all poetry to words and
strangle meaning out of word chunks. Here, in the absence of exact
word meanings, for the most part, the reader is left to sense how the
sounds of the words convey the meanings. This method of interpretation
is probably much closer to that which the bards of old used to spin
their poetic tales around a warm hearth fire on a cold winter night.
Thus, in the first stanza “gyre” seems to me to mean to circle
about in fear, and “mimsy” appears to be a state of waffling
uncertainty. Everybody from the “slithy toves” to the “borogoves”
were in a right fit. Raths were, in fact, defensive medieval houses
used by the Celts, and the folk are all in a state of advanced
“outgrabe,” if you follow me here. Especially as it appears at the end
of the line, “outgrabe” has a lovely Germanic feel to it that implies a
kind of clutching at straws.
You can pretty much leave your dictionary behind, though some
scholars have insisted on trying to wear out etymological dictionaries
with the effort to trace each word’s origin. Lewis Carroll, himself,
started all this lingo-babble when he has Alice and Humpty Dumpty
discuss the words in Jabberwocky.
Well,”slithy” means “lithe and slimy,”
“Lithe” is the same as active. You see
it’s like a portmanteau -- there are two
meanings packed up in one word.
Then Professor Dumpty identifies “mimsy” as a simple combination of
“flimsy and miserable.” I suppose that makes “Jabberwocky,” a walkey
through jabber-talky? It’s easy to get lost in the luggage here. To
me, it makes much more sense to feel the impact of each word in context,
and let the syntax of the sentence carry the meaning along conceptually.
In other words, grab each portmanteau by the handle. Don’t try to
unpack it.
I think this is what Lewis Carroll intended. After all, these
are children’s verses. Kids don’t know half of the words we talk at
them. Lewis Carroll is just turning the tables on the adult readers who
now have to face the perpetual state of childhood language. It seems
only fair really.
Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll
`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, has 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.
