Edward Lear's limericks make me feel slightly mad... but in the most wonderful way possible!

I vaguely recall Edward Lear from primary school, with The Owl & The Pussycat and whatnot, being quite amusing. Alas, any good bits are omitted from this book which is about as dire as it could possibly be. The limericks chosen here are just mad, unfunny and a few of which don't even rhyme properly. The illustrations make some amends but not enough, even for the silliest of kids. 0.25 for the content, 1 for the illustrations (which must've taken ages to draw). I only paid 20p for it which was about 18p too much. 1.25/5

Can't wait to start reading this to my son, to show him how silly words and poetry can be. I have to go back and mark my favorite limericks though because while many tickle the funny-bone others can be skipped.

Reading this as a child, I absolutely loved this. A decade or so later, I think the author must have been on drugs.
I'm blaming this book for the start of the corruption of my sanity.

There was a young child of Diegoune
Who ate some cheese of moon
His decision was scroobius
But he was now too dubious
Oh that gluttonous child of Diegoune

Resulta extraño que un hombre que escribió decenas de poesías absurdas, criado por su hermana veintidós años mayor que él, enamorado de los vino malos, del clima cálido, la India y Mesopotamia llegara a dar clases de pintura a la mismísima reina Victoria. Pero así fue; ese hombre fue Edward Lear.

Lo cierto es que hacia bastante tiempo que deseaba leer algo de Edward Lear. Descubrí al autor a finales del 2019, cuando entré en contacto con una de mis máximas influencias por aquel entonces, Edward Gorey. En alguna de las introducciones de los volúmenes de Valdemar de las obras de Edward Gorey apareció mentado Edward Lear. Y como persona que no me gusta dejar cabos sueltos, googleé el nombre de este ilustrador y estuve mirando sus trabajos pictóricos y literarios.

Siendo franca, a mí los cuadros de Edward Lear me parecen del montón y tienen bastantes semejanzas con las obras paisajísticas de Bob Ross. Más que obras de arte parecen obras de artesanía. Hay en todos ellos una monotonía que acaba hastiando. Ves un cuadro de Edward Lear y los has visto todos. En cambio, sus ilustraciones, poesías, cartas y relatos sí me parecen muy interesantes porque no son impersonales como sus cuadros. Hablan del ser humano que fue, con sus luces y sus sombras. Una pena que Edward Lear no se diera cuenta hasta bien entrada la adultez que para lo que él servía era para ilustrar payasadas y obras infantiles con un regusto oscuro, bastante adulto.

He disfrutado bastante el Fabuleario (A Book of Nonsense;1846), pero también lo he sentido bastante irregular. Los limericks, tipo de poesía de origen irlandés compuesta por cinco versos donde el primero rima con el segundo y el quinto, y el tercero con el cuarto y que el mismo Edward Lear “rescató” del olvido me han gustado, pero tampoco me han chiflado. Un detalle por parte de Anaya de poner estos poemillas también en su versión original para que podamos apreciar verdaderamente el sentido de éstos. Pero ni aun así me han parecido gran cosa. Aprecio la labor de ingenio de Lear, pero no voy a decir que son una obra de arte.

En cambio, los relatillos absurdos que incluye esta antología sí me fascinaron. Se trata de Historia de las siete familias del lago Pipple-Popple, Historia de cuatro niños que dieron la vuelta al mundo, La venganza de Pentedátilo, Viaje a la Luna y Fábula moral para tres pares de gafas si me parecieron obras notables, especialmente Historia de cuatro niños que dieron la vuelta al mundo, obra llena de imaginación y clara influencia en las primeras historias del mismísimo Edward Gorey. También recomendado Historia de las siete familias del lago Pipple-Popple por la crueldad del final. Y si también os interesa la novela gótica, La venganza de Pentedátilo es un relato para nada desestimable.

En cuanto a las cartas, lo cierto es que algunas son curiosas, pero también se me hicieron un poco aburridas. En ellas, Edward Lear habla de sus viajes esencialmente, pero no demasiado de sus sentimientos, por lo que para mí es un quiero y no puedo. Por una parte, me parecieron interesantes por la documentación que aportan de la época, pero tampoco es que tenga un gran interés es como se desarrollaba por aquel entonces una ceremonia-visita a un sultán. En fin.

En resumen, si lo que buscáis es una obra atípica donde el mismo autor os explique cómo preparar pastelillos cocuelos, poesías absurdas y retratos a tinta de su gato Foss, sin duda vuestro autor es Edward Lear.

I read this book of limerick poetry on Sunday, April 16, 2023
I’m not really sure how to write a review upon this book. It’s not my job or anyone’s job for that matter to judge or critique someone’s creativity and poetry at least in my opinion is the form of being creative.
I was more focussed review on how much I enjoyed the book and what I felt rather than on judging or critiquing his poetry
This was interesting. It’s nice to read nonsense sometimes rather than always focussing on more serious logical endeavors. I will say I wish it was more of a story. Rather than each story only being five lines I wish it could be verses for a song for example and there being many limerick that equal story. I’m not really too sure if that’s how proper limericks are but I think that would be an interesting twist to extend the meaning of the story even if it’s just foolishness
I will also say some of that or Charlie nonsensical. It’s not just the story being erratic and utopian even rather me not being able to understand them. It’s not hard English compared to Shakespeare in that sense but rather just random words strung together.
In regards to me recommending this I don’t know. If you’re interested to read someone’s poetry then read this but if you were looking for just any poetry book this might not be for you because of its nonsensical Ness. I suggest you read it it’s really short and that way you can create your own opinions upon his work and again everyone’s going to interpret poems in a different way and I feel terrible trying to judge it considering this is his creative outlet and wait for him to express how he’s feeling
So please keep in mind that I am visually impaired and solve any issues occurred I apologize sincerely

i luv u edward but these limericks are just nonsenically BAD ahhaha

“The Book of Nonsense” by Edward Lear was published in 1846, during the Victorian “Golden Age” of children’s literature, which was really the first time that books for young people were published for the purpose of enjoyment. Lear is attributed with having invented the Limerick rhyme form, and this book of a little over 100 short verses is a wonderful glimpse of not only his invention, but the historical period during which he wrote it.

I would recommend that the reader acquire a copy of this book with Lear’s original illustrations, because, in my opinion, they bear equal weight in the delivery of his witty punchlines. (I enjoyed this eBook version of it: http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/BoN/i...).

For a modern child, this book of poetry may not be entirely understood. There are references to disregarded historic names of people and places (which actually refutes the title “Book of Nonsense”). But if viewed as nonsense, the poetry will make clever children snicker at the sometimes questionable content.

I can't help but perceive many of the verses in this book as uninventive and contained. Perhaps this is due to having read poets whose work was influenced by Lear (Shel Silverstein in particular), who pushed the limits on nonsense even further. Thus, I kept my review of “Nonsense” under four stars. It is truly an artifact from the Victorian age, which is why, when googling such a telling title, children and parents are probably expecting something containing far more gobbledygook than is found in the pages of “The Book of Nonsense”.

More like a book of delights, I’d say. Though it has a ridiculous number of old men and woman, coming all into one single book, from all corners of the world, I’m more than sure that real people too will like it.

The best takeaway of the book of Nonsense is to contribute more nonsense, so I wrote my first limerick, a clumsy imitation:

There was a Young Lady of Aton,
who loved nothing but quantum;
She wrote on the whiteboard,
fiddled with the odd, but she got weary and
dozed under the black curtain.

This is a collection of over one-hundred limericks by Edward Lear published in 1846. Limericks are a popular five-line poetic form with an A – A – B – B – A rhyme scheme, and in which the B-lines are shorter than the A-lines. Two types of material leap to mind when one thinks of limericks: humor and bawdiness. I mention this because neither of these subjects feature prominently in Lear’s limericks. While a number of the poems could be described as amusing, I can’t say I found any of them laugh-out-loud funny. I suspect that the number that are found amusing would be larger for a reader from the early 19th century due to insider knowledge that escapes the present-day reader (i.e. the activities and the perception of people from various locales have changed considerably over the years.)

As the book’s title suggests, what is on display in these limericks is nonsense. While that reads like an insult, Lear is considered to be one of the founders of the genre of literary nonsense. It’s not nonsense in the sense of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” in which fictitious words are blended with real words to create a synthesis that is grammatically logical but relies on the reader’s imagination to create any meaning. Rather, the events and reactions on display in the poems range from absurd to impossible, but the meaning can be interpreted. As with the poems of a later nonsense poet of renown, Ogden Nash, some of the whimsy of these poems derives from contortionistic acts of mispronunciation needed to square the rhyme (though I may be overstating this as I don’t know how much Lear’s British accent from almost 200 years ago would differ from the way I read with my 2020 American accent.)

Needless, to say this is a really quick read. Most editions are between 30 and 60 pages long, with all the white-space one would expect of a book of five-line poems. If you are interested in Limericks or poetic forms in general, it’s worthwhile to see how Lear writes them. It’s a big help in developing an ear for the flow of the limerick. I found the book to be a pleasant read, though some of the limericks are cleverer than others. Some left me thinking that Lear could have done much more with the poems. Often the last line is a minor variation of the first line, and, thus, neither serves as a punchline nor as a source of new information. That sometimes felt like a missed opportunity. Still, it’s a nice collection of nonsense limericks.