Reading Notes: Through the Looking Glass (Part B)
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There has been one of my favorite reads this semester. Lewis Carroll's imagination is a wondrous place filled with colorful worlds and odd characters. The two Alice books are so creative and I highly recommend them to everyone.
My favorite section of the second book was definitely The Jabberwocky. I have read this poem before and thought it was really clever. I first read it in high school, but never really paid much attention to it. Then, when I met my boyfriend, I ended up reading it again. My boyfriend uses "Slithy Toves" for his user name on a few things and I finally asked him what it was from. He immediately pulled out a copy of Through the Looking Glass, opened it to The Jabberwocky and said, "This is one of my favorite poems. It's filled with nonsense words that have no meaning, but the reader instantly has this image in their head of the creature."
He was totally right. These crazy words that Carroll made up have no true meaning, but they still provide imagery to the reader. This is an amazing example at how great Carroll's imagination and writing skills really are.
I think it would be really fun to write a poem describing a new creature and use made up words, like Carroll, to see if I have even half of the creativity as he did.
My favorite section of the second book was definitely The Jabberwocky. I have read this poem before and thought it was really clever. I first read it in high school, but never really paid much attention to it. Then, when I met my boyfriend, I ended up reading it again. My boyfriend uses "Slithy Toves" for his user name on a few things and I finally asked him what it was from. He immediately pulled out a copy of Through the Looking Glass, opened it to The Jabberwocky and said, "This is one of my favorite poems. It's filled with nonsense words that have no meaning, but the reader instantly has this image in their head of the creature."
He was totally right. These crazy words that Carroll made up have no true meaning, but they still provide imagery to the reader. This is an amazing example at how great Carroll's imagination and writing skills really are.
I think it would be really fun to write a poem describing a new creature and use made up words, like Carroll, to see if I have even half of the creativity as he did.
Image: Jabberwocky from Wikipedia
Hi, Caitlyn!
ReplyDeleteI also love Lewis Carroll's ridiculous poetry; The Walrus and the Carpenter is my favorite! I appreciate that he is able to set a scene and develop his characters so well, all the while using words that have no real meaning. I think that Shel Silverstein also does an excellent job of creating poems from gibberish; I definitely recommend him, if you’re interested in reading more!