The Jabberwock, from 'Alice Through The Looking-Glass' People's Edition (Macmillan & Co), 1899, illustrated by Sir John Tenniel
© TopFoto.co.uk

A load of nonsense

In 1845, 20 years before Alice appeared, a volume entitled A Book Of Nonsense was published. It was the work of the artist and travel writer Edward Lear. His books are a crazy mixture of limericks and quirky illustrations, and poems with names like The Jumblies and The Pobble Who Had No Toes.

Edward Lear was born in London in 1812. He spent his early career working as a draughtsman. During employment for the Earl of Derby he wrote the first volume of Nonsense (for Derby’s grandchildren), for which he has now become famous. In his lifetime, though, he was more prolific as a travel writer, and watercolourist. He moved in distinguished social circles, counting people such as Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson among his close friends.

If Lear was the father of English nonsense, Lewis Carroll was his great inheritor. In the Alice books Carroll wrote some utterly preposterous, gloriously nonsensical stuff… Not just poems like this:

    They told me you had been to her,
    And mentioned me to him:
    She gave me a good character,
    But said I could not swim…

But also the wonderful Jabberwocky, a poem that tells a great and atmospheric story, not at all hampered by the fact that nearly 30 of its words are totally made up…

What’s remarkable about this poem – and some of the best nonsense poetry – is that in one way it makes perfect sense. (Even without reading Humpty Dumpty’s explanation of it.) Even with made-up words like “vorpal” and “uffish” and “frumious”, it is quite clear what the story is about – it’s not just random-sounding, made-up words strung into a row, but something far cleverer.

Shaped typography

The idea, then, is that the shape of the poem somehow reflects the content.

So because Fury is a mo

use’s tale, it’s set out like a mouse’s tail! It is, he says, a long and a sad tale. Alice looks down at his tail and comments, "It is a long tail, certainly ... but why do you call it sad?" In answer, the mouse's words are...

"Fury said to a mouse, that he met in the house, 'Let us both go to law: I will prosecute you. - Come, I'll take no denial: We must have the trial; For really this morning I've nothing to do.' Said the mouse to the cur, 'Such a trial, dear sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.' 'I'll be judge, I'll be jury,' said cunning old Fury: 'I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.' " Sad indeed!

So, you think shape poems look easy? You should try writing your own... (If you do, please send them to us. E-mail us here.)

Nursery rhymes

Most English children know Humpty Dumpty, the nursery rhyme about a strange character who falls off a wall. He’s an egg – which is fairly odd if you think about it. Some people think it has its origins in a children’s game, others have suggested it’s really a reference to Richard III or the English Civil War.

Lewis Carroll makes Humpty a character in Through The Looking-Glass. He recites a poem to Alice too, an odd poem with the last lines:

    ‘And when I found the door was shut,
    I tried to turn the handle, but – ‘

There was a long pause.
‘Is that all?’ Alice timidly asked.
‘That’s all,’ said Humpty Dumpty. ‘Good-bye.’

The Queen of Hearts (who made some tarts) is also the star of her own nursery rhyme; Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters from an old poem too, as are the Lion and the Unicorn. They all appear among Lewis Carroll’s weird cast of Alice characters.

Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star existed long before Alice too, but at the Mad Tea Party it’s given a surreal twist:

    Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,
    How I wonder what you’re at,
    Up above the world so high
    Like a tea-tray in the sky.

The Dormouse sings itself to sleep “twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle …”

One Victorian children’s rhyme that hasn’t lasted as well as, say, Humpty Dumpty, is the moral verse called Against Idleness And Mischief. It begins:

    How doth the little busy bee
    Improve each shining hour,
    And gather honey all the day
    From every opening flower!

    How skillfully she builds her cell!
    How neat she spreads the wax!
    And labours hard to store it well
    With the sweet food she makes.

Not that exciting, it must be said. But when Alice opens her mouth to recite it, something quite different comes out:

    How doth the little crocodile
    Improve his shining tail,
    And pour the waters of the Nile
    On every golden scale!

    How cheerfully he seems to grin,
    How neatly spreads his claws,
    And welcomes little fishes in,
    With gently smiling jaws!

A great improvement, don’t you think?

Why not try your own “improvement” of a famous nursery rhyme?

And many more…

Apart from these there are numerous other poems in the Alice books. There are the epigraphs at the beginning of each book, which are quite unlike anything else in the books – they’re calm and pretty and tame and not really very exciting.

    All in the golden afternoon
    Full leisurely we glide;
    For both our oars, with little skill,
    By little arms are plied…

(If you have any idea why the usually witty Carroll may have included these strange pieces of poetic fluff, we’d be curious to hear your thoughts. E-mail us here.)

The second book ends with another which seems to be quite bland, but if you look carefully you’ll notice that it is acrostic: in other words, if you look down the first letter of each line you’ll see they read “ALICE PLEASANCE LIDDELL”.

Then there’s The Walrus And The Carpenter – the surreal and somewhat gruesome tale of innocent oysters being lured to their doom – and many more…

If you enjoy the Alice poems, you may want to go on to read Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting Of The Snark, an extended nonsense poem about… well, … no one is quite sure. Crazy stuff but fascinating too.