Essay on Nonsense Language in Carrolls Jabberwocky -- Carroll Jabberw

The Importance of Nonsense Language and Sounds in Carrolls Jabberwocky Wn a bby fst ts 2 kmnikt the wrds snd gibberish. No one knows what the baby is trying to say. The poem, Jabberwocky, written by Lewis Carroll, uses hollow speech to either frustrate or amuse the reader. When trying to pronounce the nonsense speech communication in the poem, the sounds of the words come out as gibberish. The sounds are the important element of the poem. Often, people like to hear poets read in languages they potbellynot understand. A fair sex leaving a reading by the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz said she was glad hed read some of his work in Polish because the language sounded exciting, like provide hooves over cobblestones. Sometimes a poem can mean little or nothing, yet the stimulus of words alone wins our attention. Some poets can dismantle invent words themselves. Carroll combines two words (portmanteau) into one word to compose those weird sounds and words in the poem. In a unique wa y the meaningless words combine with recognizable words to create a poem almost comprehensible. The language and sounds allow a reader to reflect back on the concept of how to communicate Carrolls theme of survial of the fittest, and besides the battle between animals, Carroll creates a battle for the reader to understand the language and sounds. For an animal or reader to put out in Carolls poem it must kill before being killed, or understand the language before reaching the end. The setting of such survival is the forest, and Carolls forest is a fantasy land where words are foreign to the reader. He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back, (Carroll, 36) has reference to survival of the fittest. The head becomes the trophy of ... ...tree, (Carroll, 36) describes the veridical skill of using a tree for camouflage. The tree is the Dumdum and covers up the hunters stupidity. Is the Jabberwocky harmless? The forest people could have invented a wise tale or so the creature for amusement. What the hunter killed was part imagination and part real the way Carrolls poem is. The sounds and nonsense language are important elements of the poem. At the same time, we can use the grammar of the sentence to help us imagine the meanings of the nonsense words. The poem is playful and frustrating at the same time. We might say it plustrate. Works Cited Carroll, Lewis. Jabberwocky. The husking Of Poetry. 2nd Edition. Ed. Frances Mayes. Orlando Harcourt Brace & Company, 1987. Hunter, Paul J. Footnote. The Norton Introduction to Poetry. 6th Edition. Chicago Norton, 1996.