Compare and Contrast Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Kraken’ and Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’ and the way they represent their Monsters.

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Both Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Kraken’ and Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’ are poems concerning fictional monsters. ‘Jabberwocky’ by Carroll first appeared in ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There’ and concerns a young man’s attempt to slay a monster called the Jabberwocky. Tennyson’s ‘The Kraken’ is based on a Norse myth of a legendary monster that sleeps beneath the ocean. Both poems obviously share a similar theme. Yet differ in their format, syntax and use of poetic devices, these contrasts contribute to a very different representation of both monsters.

The first notable contrast in how both poets represents their monsters is through the use of language in each poem. The amusing and light-hearted tone Carroll creates in his poem ‘Jabberwocky’ through the use of nonsense words and poetic devices such as onomatopoeia (1.3) and portmanteau (1.24) lends the poem an absurdity that his younger audiences would have enjoyed and makes it hard to take his monster seriously.

In contrast, Tennyson chooses to create an ominous tone in ‘The Kraken’ through the impression of the immense size and age of his monster.

“"sponges of millennial growth ... sickly light... unnumber'd and enormous polypi".

Tennyson, A. ‘The Kraken’ p.139 reprinted in The Farber Book of Beasts (2010.)

Whilst Carroll completely invents his words, Tennyson instead juxtaposes scientific phrases such as sea sponges and polypi with the mythical nature of his subject along with references to the apocalypse to build tension in his work.

Additional contrasts can be seen when analysing the structure of each poem. Despite its fame as a nonsense poem, ‘Jabberwocky’ follows a traditional layout known as Ballad Stanza and uses a traditional rhyming scheme a...

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...ber and Faber, pp. 135-136.

ii. Tennyson, A.L, ‘The Kraken’ in Muldoon, P. (ed.) (1997) The Faber Book of Beasts, London, Faber and Faber, p.139.

iii. Danson Brown, R. (2008) ‘Reading Poetry: The Farber Book of Beasts’, in Danson Brown, R. (ed.) AA100 Book 2 Tradition and Dissent, Milton Keynes, The Open University pp. 41-69 iv. Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008) ‘Jabberwocky’, [Online], at http://www.shmoop.com/jabberwocky/ (accessed 6 January, 2014).

v. Osborne, K.. Kissel, A. (ed.) (2013)’Tennyson's Poems Study Guide : Summary and Analysis of "Crossing the Bar’. [Online] at http://www.gradesaver.com/tennysons-poems/study-guide/section4/" (accessed 8 January 2014).

vi. Wikipedia contributors, (2013) ‘Ballad stanza’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, [Online], at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ballad_stanza&oldid=552937560 (accessed 6 January, 2014).

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