Hi Friends,
It’s that time of year again! As many of you know, I am of the opinion that the poem “Jabberwocky” ought to be read, aloud, at least once a year — you can think of this practice as akin to the Queen’s practice of believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast each morning. And, look! It’s even trendy this year — Johnny Depp is doing it. I was quite delighted to find that Tim Burton had done what I would do if I were to make a movie about Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872) — which is to make the entire movie about the poem “Jabberwocky.”
So, kids, it’s time to channel your inner Mad Hatter: I challenge you to read “Jabberwocky” aloud to someone else today. If you shy away from this challenge because you don’t know what half of the words mean, I refer you to Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” With every poem, a reader in a sense chooses what you mean each of the poet’s words to mean. Reading “Jabberwocky,” especially out loud, simply requires you to make your choices of meaning more conscious acts. You could think of reading aloud as in a sense a minor form of translation — you are translating the written “Jabberwocky” into oral English. (Keith Lim has also compiled a lovely collection of translations of “Jabberwocky” — into languages ranging from Spanish and Japanese to C++ and Klingon.)
And, finally, a bonus poetrivia challenge for you — and there’s a prize! The scene where the Mad Hatter recites “Jabberwocky” in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is cut such that he skips which line(s) of the first two quatrains? First correct answer I receive, judged by email time stamp, will be awarded poetry in a can!, courtesy of Frankenmart.
Best,
Ellen
Jabberwocky
‘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.