Translating Jabberwocky: Quotability with a Vengeance

Authors

• Alice Martin SKTL/WSOY

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61200/mikael.129728

Keywords:

literary translation norms, invented words, quotability, multimodality

Abstract

This paper is a discussion on Lewis Carroll's famous nonsense poem Jabberwocky and the special problems it presents to its translator. A translation not specifically aimed at child readers only, and adhering to the current norms of literary translation, needs to take account of Carroll's numerous clever word coinages and how they are explained, as well as the metrical form and
the effect of Sir John Tenniel's classic illustrations of the poem, bringing in the question of multimodality. It also needs to resemble the original enough to be recognizably quotable, as Jabberwocky is a text frequently quoted and alluded to. The writer's Finnish translation discussed here, Monkerias, appeared in her new complete Finnish translation of Through the Looking-Glass, titled Alice Peilintakamaassa (Carroll 2010).