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For other uses see Limerick (disambiguation).

A limerick is a five-line poem with a strict form, originally popularized in English by Edward Lear. Edward Lear ( 12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English Artist, Illustrator and Writer known Limericks are frequently witty or humorous, and sometimes obscene with humorous intent.

The following example of a limerick is of anonymous origin.

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
In space that is quite economical,
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick, as a folk form, is always obscene, and cites (x-xi) similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw, describing the clean limerick as a periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity. George Alexander Legman ( November 2, 1917 &ndash February 23, 1999) American Social critic and folklorist Enoch Arnold Bennett ( 27 May 1867 - 27 March 1931) was an English Novelist. George Bernard Shaw ( (26 July 1856 &ndash 2 November 1950 was an Irish Playwright. That is to say, from a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function.

Contents

Form

A limerick has five lines, with three metrical feet in the first, second, and fifth lines and two metrical feet in the third and fourth lines. In verse, many meters use a foot as the basic unit in their description of the underlying rhythm of a poem A variety of types of metrical foot can be used, but the most typical are the amphibrach (a stressed syllable between two unstressed syllables) and the anapaest (two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable). An amphibrach is a Metrical foot used in Latin and Greek Prosody. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds An anapaest or anapest, also called antidactylus, is a Metrical foot used in formal Poetry. The rhyme scheme is usually AABBA. This article is about the poetic technique For the form of ice see Rime ice.

The first line of a limerick traditionally introduces a person and a place, with the place appearing at the end of the first line and therefore establishing the rhyme scheme for the second and fifth lines. In early limericks, the last line was often essentially a repeat of the first line, although this is no longer customary.

Within the genre, ordinary speech stress is often distorted in the first line, and may be regarded as a feature of the form: "There WAS a young MAN from the COAST;" "There ONCE was a GIRL from DeTROIT. . . " Legman (xliv) takes this as a convention whereby prosody is violated simultaneously with propriety. In Poetry, the meter or metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. Exploitation of geographical names, especially exotic ones, is also common, and has been seen as invoking memories of geography lessons in order to subvert the decorum taught in the schoolroom; Legman finds that the exchange of limericks is almost exclusive to comparatively well-educated males (women figuring in limericks almost exclusively as "villains or victims," according to Legman). The most prized limericks incorporate a kind of twist, which may be revealed in the final line, or may lie in the way the rhymes are often intentionally tortured, or both. Many limericks additionally show some form of internal rhyme, alliteration or assonance, or some element of wordplay. In Poetry, internal rhyme or middle rhyme is Rhyme which occurs in a single line of verse. Alliteration is the repetition of the first Consonant sound in a phrase Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within Phrases or Sentences, and together with Alliteration Word play is a Literary technique in which the nature of the words that are used become the main subject of the work Some examples exploit the strict form of the limerick to lead the listener into expecting a particular conclusion, particularly one that would be obscene or shocking, and then derive humour from cunningly avoiding the expected words --

There once was a lady from Bude
Who went swimming one day in the lake.
A man in a punt
Stuck his pole in the water
And said "You can't swim here -- it's private. "

Verses in limerick form are sometimes combined with a refrain to form a limerick song, a traditional humorous drinking song often with obscene verses. A refrain (from Vulgar Latin refringere, "to repeat" and later from Old French refraindre) is the Line or lines that are The Limerick is a traditional humorous Drinking song with many obscene verses. A drinking song is a song sung while drinking that is consuming Alcohol.

Origin of the name

The origin of the actual name limerick for this type of poem is obscure. Its usage was first documented in England in 1898 (New English Dictionary) and in America in 1902. [1] It is generally taken to be a reference to the County of Limerick in Ireland (particularly the Maigue Poets), and may derive from an earlier form of nonsense verse parlour game which traditionally included a refrain that ended "Come all the way up to Limerick?" (referring to Limerick, Ireland). County Limerick ( Contae Luimnigh in Irish) is a County in the Province of Munster, located in the mid-west of Ireland with County Croom ( Cromadh in Irish) is a Village in County Limerick, Ireland. Nonsense verse is the poetic form of Literary nonsense, normally composed for humorous effect which is intentionally and overtly paradoxical silly witty whimsical or otherwise

History

The limerick form can be traced back several hundred years. The oldest recorded poem fitting the metrical pattern is from Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).

Sit vitiorum meorum evacuatio
Concupiscentae et libidinis exterminatio,
Caritatis et patientiae,
Humilitatis et obedientiae,
Omniumque virtutum augmentatio.

Translated:

Let my viciousness be emptied,
Desire and lust banished,
Charity and patience,
Humility and obedience,
And all the virtues increased.

Following this early example, the limerick has a long association with humour and satire. The poem "The doubt of future foes", composed by Elizabeth I of England, has a metrical structure which anticipates the limerick, although the rhyme scheme is incomplete, as the following couplet shows.

The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;

The verses of Tom o' Bedlam, a multi-stanza poem in limerick form dating from circa 1600, has developed the internal rhyme between lines three and four. "Tom O' Bedlam" is the name of a critically acclaimed anonymous Poem written circa 1600 (it can be definitely dated back to 1634 about a Bedlamite

The following example in French is cited by Boswell in his Life of Johnson as having appeared in 1716 and referring to the 'fierce contentions' concerning the nature of free will by the followers of Molinos and Jansenius. James Boswell 9th Laird of Auchinleck ( October 29, 1740 - May 19, 1795) was a lawyer diarist and Author born in Edinburgh The question of free will It exhibits the full AABBA rhyme scheme of the modern limerick.

On s'étonne ici que Caliste
Ait pris l'habit de Moliniste
Puisque cette jeune beauté
Ôte à chacun sa liberté
N'est-ce pas une Janséniste?

An approximate translation follows. Caliste, Boswell relates, was a young lady who appeared at a masquerade habillée en Jésuite (dressed as a Jesuit).

'Tis such a surprise that Caliste
Should dress up as a Molinist,
For her beauty still
Takes away our free will:
Is she not thus a Jansenist?

In Mary Cooper's 1744 book, Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, the following poem in limerick form appears and is the first example in print of an illustrated limerick. Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book is the oldest extant printed collection of English Nursery rhymes published by Mary Cooper around 1744 [2] It remains well-known today, in various forms.

Hickere, Dickere Dock,
A Mouse ran up the Clock,
The Clock Struck One,
The Mouse fell down,
And Hickere Dickere Dock.

The limerick form first came to wider prominence in English in the early 19th century. The first book of limericks, though they were not yet named thus, was The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women, illustrated by as many engravings: exhibiting their Principal Eccentricities and Amusements (1820, author unknown, published by John Harris and Son). This was soon followed by Anecdotes and Adventures of Fifteen Gentlemen and Anecdotes and Adventures of Fifteen Young Ladies (both published by John Marshall, illustrated by Robert Cruikshank, and probably authored by Richard Scrafton Sharpe[3]).

Edward Lear

A Book of Nonsense (ca. 1875 James Miller edition) by Edward Lear
A Book of Nonsense (ca. 1875 James Miller edition) by Edward Lear

The limerick form was popularized by Edward Lear in his first Book of Nonsense (1845) and a later work (1872) on the same theme. Edward Lear ( 12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English Artist, Illustrator and Writer known In all Lear wrote 212 limericks, mostly nonsense verse. Nonsense verse is the poetic form of Literary nonsense, normally composed for humorous effect which is intentionally and overtly paradoxical silly witty whimsical or otherwise It was customary at the time for limericks to accompany an absurd illustration of the same subject, and for the final line of the limerick to be a kind of conclusion, usually a variant of the first line ending in the same word.

The following is an example of one of Edward Lear's limericks.

There was a Young Person of Smyrna
Whose grandmother threatened to burn her;
But she seized on the cat, and said, 'Granny, burn that!
You incongruous old woman of Smyrna!'

(Lear's limericks were often typeset in three lines or four lines, according to the space available under the accompanying picture. )

Popular Culture

One instance of the use of the Limerick in popular culture is in the Limerick dungeon, on the free online MMORPG, The Kingdom of Loathing. Kingdom of Loathing ( KoL) is a Humorous browser-based, multiplayer Role playing game, designed and operated by Asymmetric

Variations

Spelling and pronunciation

The idiosyncratic link between spelling and pronunciation in the English language is explored in this Scottish example. Idiosyncrasy, from Greek ιδιοσυγκρασία idiosunkrasia, "a peculiar temperament" "habit of body" ( idios "one's own" Bear in mind that the name 'Menzies' is pronounced MING-iss (IPA: /ˈmɪŋɪs/). Sir Walter Menzies Campbell CBE QC (born 22 May 1941) commonly known as Ming Campbell, is a British Politician

A lively young damsel named Menzies
Inquired: "Do you know what this thenzies?"
Her aunt, with a gasp,
Replied: "It's a wasp,
And you're holding the end where the stenzies. "[4]

Anti-limericks

There is a sub-genre of poems that take the twist and apply it to the limerick itself. These are sometimes called anti-limericks.

The following example, of unknown origin, subverts the structure of the true limerick by changing the number of syllables in the lines.

There was a young man from Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why this was,
He answered "because
I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever possibly I can. "

The following example subverts the structure of the true limerick by changing the number of lines.

There once was a man from the sticks
Who liked to compose limericks.
But he failed at the sport,
For he wrote 'em too short.

The following example, attributed to W.S. Gilbert, follows the meter of a limerick but deliberately breaks the rhyme scheme, in a parody of a limerick by Lear. Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 &ndash 29 May 1911 was an English Dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen

There was an old man of St. Bees,
Who was stung in the arm by a wasp;
When they asked, "Does it hurt?"
He replied, "No, it doesn't,
But I thought all the while 't was a Hornet. "[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Loomis, C. Chastushka or chastooshka (часту́шка a type of traditional Russian Poetry, is a single Quatrain in trochaic Tetrameter A clerihew is a very specific kind of short biographical humorous verse. Dixon Lanier Merritt (1879 – 1972 was a Poet and Humorist. He was a newspaper editor for the Tennessean, Nashville 's morning paper and President " There once was a man from Nantucket " is the opening line for many limericks and is among the most familiar opening lines in Poetry. Grant (1963) Western Folklore, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Jul. , 1963), pp. 153-157
  2. ^ William Stuart Baring-Gould and Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose, pp. 24-31.
  3. ^ Limerick Books of the 1820s. Retrieved on 2007-06-24. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 972 - Battle of Cedynia, the first documented victory of Polish forces takes place
  4. ^ "Why is Menzies pronounced Mingis?".  
  5. ^ As quoted in 'Introduction' in A Nonsense Anthology collected by Carolyn Wells, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii.

External links

Lists of Limericks:

Website dedicated to The Pearl: The Pearl online

Books available from Project Gutenberg:

Limerick Bibliographies:

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