Editing Jabberwocky (section)

{{Short description|1855 and 1871 nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2013}}
[[File:Jabberwocky.jpg|right|thumb|The Jabberwock, as illustrated by [[John Tenniel]], 1871]]
"'''Jabberwocky'''" is a [[Nonsense verse|nonsense poem]] written by [[Lewis Carroll]] about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]'', the sequel to ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' (1865). The book tells of Alice's adventures within the [[Parallel universes in fiction|back-to-front world]] of the [[Looking-Glass world]].

In an early scene in which she first encounters the chess piece characters [[White King (Through the Looking-Glass)|White King]] and [[White Queen (Through the Looking-Glass)|White Queen]], Alice finds a book written in a seemingly unintelligible language. Realising that she is travelling through an inverted world, she recognises that the verses on the pages are written in [[mirror writing]]. She holds a mirror to one of the poems and reads the reflected verse of "Jabberwocky". She finds the nonsense verse as puzzling as the odd land she has passed into, later revealed as a dreamscape.<ref name="AAW64"/>

"Jabberwocky" is considered one of the greatest nonsense poems written in English.<ref name=" Gardner">{{cite book |last=Gardner |first=Martin |title=The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition|year=1999 |publisher=W. W. Norton and Company |location=New York, NY|quote=Few would dispute that Jabberwocky is the greatest of all nonsense poems in English.}}</ref><ref name="NCTE">{{cite journal |last=Rundus |first=Raymond J.|date=October 1967 |title="O Frabjous Day!": Introducing Poetry |journal=The English Journal |volume=56 |issue=7 |pages=958–963 |doi=10.2307/812632 |publisher=National Council of Teachers of English |jstor=812632}}</ref> Its playful, whimsical language has given English [[nonsense word]]s and [[neologism]]s such as "[[wikt:galumphing|galumphing]]" and "[[wikt:chortle|chortle]]".