Introduction & Overview of Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

Jabberwocky Introduction

"Jabberwocky" is probably Carroll's most well-known poem. It is the first of many nonsense poems set into the text of the beloved English novel Through the Looking-Glass, published in 1872, six years after the more commonly known Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Because the poem employs conventional structures of grammar and many familiar words, however, it is not "pure nonsense." In fact, while both books were composed for the ten-year-old Alice Liddell, it is generally accepted that Carroll's studies in logic firmly ground the thought beneath the imaginative works, so that adults find as much to appreciate in the novels and poetry as children. The importance of "Jabberwocky" as a central focus of meaning for the novel is indicated by Carroll's intention that the drawing of the Jabberwock should appear as the title-page illustration for Through the Looking-Glass.

In the novel, Alice goes through a mirror into a room and...
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