Jabberwocky Analysis

The poem “Jabberwocky” is a nonsense poem written by author Lewis Carroll, AKA Charles Dodgson, in the year 1871 and included in his second novel “Through The Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.” It has been considered by many to be one of the greatest nonsense poems written in the English language. This is a poem told again and again through popular college literature, as famous as works like “Beowulf” or “Frankenstein”. Many of Carroll’s whimsical and previously nonsensical words have been incorporated into the English dictionary, such as the word “frumious” (an adjective meaning to be fuming and furious). The New American Handy College Dictionary uses “Jabberwocky” to describe something that is “gibberish” or “nonsensical speech”. Through imagery, Carroll creates a beautiful fantasy world.

A decade before his first work “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (or originally known as “Alice’s Adventures Underground”), Carroll wrote the first stanza of what would become “Jabberwocky”. This first section first appeared under his work titled “A Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry” that Carroll both wrote and illustrated himself for his family. Carroll was no stranger to the genre of nonsense poems as he was …show more content…
… and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!” Carroll in later interviews described the fantastical beasts of the Jabberwock and the Bandersnatch as a creature as a huge and monstrous thing with bat-like wings, dragon-like in appearance. The Bandersnatch is described in his interview as having “a long neck and snapping jaws, as ferocious as it is fast”. The father is warning his son of the monsters, and tells him he should stay close and beware of them as they are quite dangerous. Their village is tormented by these monsters, but it is far too dangerous to attempt to battle