Where can I hear Jabberwocky the way it was intended to be read? I need to recite it for an audience next month, and even though I’ve done so several times in the past, I’ve always just guessed at the correct pronunciations, cadence, meter, and rhythm of the poem. This time I want to recite it exactly as a professional orator would have read it when it was written. Where can I find a YouTube or other video demonstrating how to do this?
Don’t ovethink it.
While you stand in uffish thought, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, will come whiffling through the tulgey wood.
Sometimes you just gotta go snicker-snack with your vorpal blade, through and through.
IMHO, the Jabberwocky should not be recited seriously. The Jabberwocky should be recited drunk.
Or this:
or this:
or this:
In chapter 6 Humpty Dumpy explains the poem to Alice, giving pretty strong indication of how most of the words should be pronounced. Example:
[QUOTE=Humpty Dumpty]
To “GYRE” is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To “GIMBLE” is to make holes like a gimlet.
[/QUOTE]
See also Carroll’s own pronunciation guide, which appeared in the preface to “The Hunting of the Snark.”
Desi Arnez did a hilarious reading of it (with his thick accent) on an old, *old *(season 1) episode of SNL. Of course, like every thing NBC owns, it’s not on YouTube, only Hulu (subscription)…
Recite the Jabberwock, my son!
The words that fleen, the rhymes that glack,
Enjoy the parafluvium
Of thoughts beyond all sense, alack!
It should be read as straight and serious as “Hiawatha” but with an evident mad gleam in the eye.
I have been, uh, fortunate enough to hear it recited backwards. (Word order, not letter order.) It was done in a very straightforward manner, with emphasis put as any good recital should have, but, yes, an evident mad gleam in the eye.
Isn’t the poem loved for the words Lewis Carroll used/made up - he did so for their sound and the rhythm the words have when said together.
A word like “galumphing” - I mean, it practically reads itself! 
Don’t overthink it - read it for the fun, word-wonderful poem it was meant to be!
Last time I took my vorpal sword in hand in front of an audience, the bail was three month’s pay. I’m not going to make that mistake again.
See above.
God, I remember that! I must have been about 15 years old. So it’s still floating around out there in the aether somewhere?
My internal Hypotheticam[sup]TM[/sup] just treated me to a vision of Christopher Walken reciting Jabberwocky. It was wonderful and terrible, like most things Walken, and I wish I could share it with you.
Perhaps I should request it.
I memorized Jabberwocky when I was 8, never understood why my dad always wanted me to recite it for his friends, maybe it was the mad gleam in my eye?
Anyway, it is now 32 years later and I can still pull it out of the memory banks. The mind is a mysterious thing.
Not only do I agree, but I have used this video when teaching the poem.
To start with, the poem’s in iambic tetrameter. Follow that for the cadence, and that’ll do half the work for you.
Slithy, IMHO is pronounced sly-thee
Gyre is guy-urr
gimble is gim (as in gimme) -bull
wabe is way-bee
mim rhymes with gim
mome is mow me…get it?
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.
That’s why you need to read chapter six of Looking-glass. Gyre is pronounced with a soft g, like in gyroscope.
Wabe rhymes with outgrabe. The E is silent. “Way-be” wouldn’t fit the meter, anyway. Each stanza is 8.8.8.6.
Humpty thinks (but is not certain) that mome is short for “from home”. Between that and the fact that an extra syllable would screw up the meter, it has to rhyme with “home”.
Slithy, gimble, and mimsy do fit Humpty’s explanation.
I recited Jabberwocky for an audition to an acting camp once that required a dramatic monologue and a comedic monologue. When I finished, I was asked if I understood the difference between a comedic monologue and a humorous poem. I assured them that I did and reeled off half a dozen comedic monologues I’d considered and rejected as being inferior in comedic chops to Jabberwocky. I got in.
This remarkable bit of poetry can be sung to the tune of Greensleeves, and I have done so to the amusement of others. The hard or soft ‘g’ in ‘gyre’ is always a problem with me. I pronounce it wrong, apparently. So it goes.