A post by Sara Arjomand

Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” is a nonsense poem. Carroll begins:

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe” (Carroll 1900).

Half of the words in the first stanza of “Jabberwocky” are made–up. None of us can say what “slithy toves” refers to, or what it means for these “slithy toves” to “gyre” and “gimble.” Despite Carroll’s use of gibberish, though, it seems that we’re able to imagine what’s happening. That’s strange. How are we able to imagine what we can’t understand? That’s the puzzle I’ll be interested in, here—the puzzle of the apparent imaginability of nonsense. Let’s try to solve it.