You might have noticed various quotes from ‘Alice’ dotted around this blog. I find the two Lewis Carroll books a constant source of inspiration: stories that entertain children, explore some of the deepest philosophical issues (”who am I?”) and play, masterfully, with language.
Some of the most famous bits are written in “nonsense”, words that don’t appear in our English dictionaries and don’t have any ‘meaning’ in a normal, conventional, fixed kind of way…and yet, in our imaginations can mean anything, and nothing, and everything – all at the same time.
Here’s one of the most famous poems, this time from ‘Through the Looking Glass’. You might remember it from childhood perhaps? And I wonder what the words meant to you then…and if they have a different meaning for you now…and what that might tell you about how your own story has developed…and changed…and grown…
`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, has 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.
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