Mr Karl's Lit Cast - "Jabberwocky"
Channel: Benjamin Karl
Date: 2020-03-27

"Beware the Jabberwock" in today's episode of Mr. Karl's Lit-Cast

Mr. Karl's Lit-Cast is a literature-inspired podcast aimed primarily at students displaced from their normal educational setting by the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

Each episode asks the kids to look at an excerpt from a different piece of literature, consider it with relation to their experience of the current situation, and then journal about it.

Benjamin Karl is a student teacher from Oakland University and working in the Michigan Public School system. 

These podcasts are intended for educational use.

Transcript:

Hello, everyone. Mr. Karl, here. I want to start by wishing you all a happy Friday and congratulating you on making it through a second week of quarantine in the time of corona. If you’re just joining us from outside the school system, this may just be your first week, but know that it can be done as all of these hearty, stalwart students are showing us. 
 
I want to go a little more lighthearted today, so I’ve chosen the so-called nonsense poem by C.S. Lewis titled “The Jabberwocky,” originally published in Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Saw There, his 1871 sequel to Alice in Wonderland. I say “so-called” nonsense poem because while many of the words are made-up, they follow the all of the syntactical and morphological conventions of standard English; that is, they behave just like “real” words. Now, Lewis was hardly the first to make up words. William Shakespeare created as many 1700 new words or new uses for existing words depending on how you look at it. 
 
Speaking of looking at it, take a look at this Jabberwocky short film I’ve put together and the word card at the end. In your writer’s notebooks, I’d like you to write down these words and whether you think they’re nouns, adjectives, or verbs, and why you think that.
 
I’m interested in your thoughts on this; you might share a few of your conjectures with us here.
 
Until then, stay strong, stay healthy, and stay creative. We’ll see you online.
 
 
Jabberwocky
BY LEWIS CARROLL
’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 hast 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.

Editorial Note: 
"The Jabberwocky" appears in Lewis Carol's 1871 novel 
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.

At the time of recording, 
the word "found," above, was replaced with "saw."