Lewis Carroll (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898 / Cheshire)

As a children's poem, it's a great way to initiate their ears to poetic techniques.

i don't like this poem! ! ! I don't know why not it just isn't my thing! Edgar Allan Poe is my favorite

I had French teacher in high school who wrote this poem on the board and had us together translate it into standard English line by line. His point was that even though French might appear just as incomprehensible, there are always clues i.e. where is the noun in this sentence? Does brillig have a root you might recognize in English? etc.
While not my favorite Carroll work, it can be inferred to be about vanquishing some monster and by writing it for children in a sort of jibberish suggesting our fears are unfounded; it is not much of a monster at all much like some big people can seem. Alice herself was called a monster in Wonderland and many children get called this at some point as well but, Alice was smart enough to know she is not and later in Through The Looking- Glass she is shaking then waking. Just a soft, sweet kitten. I guess it all depends upon your personal psychological milieu. Callooh! Callay!

Ahhhh back to childhood. Brilliant I still love it as much as the first time it was read to me. Just a funny poem then, now however far more reaching. I thank Mr Straw for his insights and he has given me food for thought.

most wonderful poem in the world. it definately has to be one of my favorites

I did not say 'brillig' meant brilliant, I said that it was like brilliant - Carroll takes his meaning from verbal similarities in order to create a synthetic word that has no precise meaning. The fun of this poem is that tantalisingly it almost makes sense. If someone from Chaucer's time spoke to us (given that we did not know middle English) we would have the same feeling of understanding and not understanding. If people would concentrate on the poem and not try to score points off others, this site would be both more civilised and more edifying.

Brillig doesn't mean brilliant, I don't know where some of you are getting your ideas.
If you've read the novel the poem comes from, you'd have read this line:
''Brillig' means four o'clock in the afternoon - the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.'
If anything, this poem is a wonderful example of using the sound and feel of words to set a tone or an atmosphere.
Carroll was exceptionally good at inventing words that seem to have an innate meaning, a good number of his words have actually made their ways into dictionaries and everyday language ('chortle' is a good example) .

One for the MAD HATTER

A dream world of 'abnormal consciousness'? 'Gay gibberish'? A wikipedia site that provides 'sense of this nonsense poem'? And you all ignore the kind of obvious common sense that should jump out and grab you by your tootles by gum! Read and learn, my slithy toves as you gyre and gimble together!

First and foremost 'Jabberwocky' is written in standard English in a recognizable verse form that rhymes abab. Have you never heard a politician speak in the sort of gibberish that Lewis Carroll uses? Saying things he doesn't mean in order to garner votes from the hoi-polloi? If you read Carroll's verses carefully, you can separate nouns from verbs, adjectives from adverbs, and all the other parts of speech in various forms - more to the point than most pols I've heard in recent months! Some words Carroll devised for this poem that appears in 'Through the Looking-Glass' illustrate the very nonsense he was attempting to expose in the book about an innocent girl who sees clearly once she's gone down that rabbit hole!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I chortle in my joy!

I agree this is some gay gibberish.